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| Science & Technology | |
| Calif. Man Pleads Guilty to Felony Hacking | |
| 2006-01-24 | |
Under a plea agreement, which still must be approved by a judge, Ancheta faces up to 6 years in prison and must pay the federal government restitution. He also will forfeit his profits and a 1993 BMW. Sentencing is schedule for May 1. Prosecutors called the case the first to target profits derived from use of "botnets," large numbers of computers that hackers commandeer and marshal for various nefarious deeds, their owners unaware that parasitic programs have been installed are being run by remote control. Botnets are being used increasingly to overwhelm Web sites with streams of data, often by extortionists. They feed off of vulnerabilities in computers that run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, typically machines whose owners haven't bothered to install security patches. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #10 Virus writers and felony level hackers should face long-term or lifetime bans from employment in the IT industry and even from accessing the web. To date, hackers use their worms and destructive forays as "street creds" when seeking a job with technology employers. This is a practice that must be stopped. It encourages criminal activity and is exceptionally detrimental to society as a whole. Just as teenagers who are arrested on DUI charges suddenly find their license revoked for several years, junior hackers and virus writers must face exclusion from IT career paths and prohibition from holding ISP accounts. America, alone, is losing BILLIONS of dollars per year to this sort of internet piracy and intrusion. Every day, I clear some 100 spams from my inbox. The loss of productivity is profound. With IT companies hiring these underage scumbags, it creates actual incentive for others to pursue such destructive goals. Felony charges with mandatory hard time imprisonment, lifetime IT industry employment bans, expulsion from internet activity and even barring of computer ownership must all be put in place as potential penalties for disrupting the processing facilities of individuals and commercial enterprise. Oh, did I leave out the part about being dragged through thumbtacks and being dipped in rubbing alcohol? |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-01-24 16:00 |
| #9 You know you're old when someone suggests torturing someone with a system you think is pretty beefy. |
| Posted by: Clomorong Glereling2405 2006-01-24 10:27 |
| #8 LOL, DD! |
| Posted by: .com 2006-01-24 09:58 |
| #7 Some rats and a basket of figs. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-01-24 09:37 |
| #6 I suspect he'd choose "rats". |
| Posted by: Darrell 2006-01-24 09:35 |
| #5 I vote for Dave D's suggestion, with the added feature that the electrical power supply be very dirty with fluctuating power levels and the comms link go up and down at random intervals. heh |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-01-24 08:34 |
| #4 Put him in an electric chair on "trickle charge". |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2006-01-24 07:40 |
| #3 "Suggestions, anyone?" Life imprisonment. Solitary confinement with his only company a 25 MHz 386 PC (4 MB RAM, EGA display, 200 MB HD, Windows 3.1) connected to the outside world through a 1200 baud modem. Give him a choice: that, or have his testicles gnawed off by rats. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2006-01-24 07:23 |
| #2 "Auto-da-fe, what's an auto-da-fe?" "It's somethin' that you shouldn't do but do anyway! Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2006-01-24 06:48 |
| #1 "I'm thinking of something amusing, involving hot needles or molten lead..."(I want to cite "the Mikado", but I'm not sure) Perhaps an Auto da Fe? Suggestions, anyone? |
| Posted by: N guard 2006-01-24 00:43 |