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Ex-Twitter employee sentenced over spying for Saudi Arabia
A former Twitter employee was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison this week after his August conviction of spying for Saudi Arabia.
Man who unlocked 1.9 million AT&T phones sentenced to 12 years in prison
The scheme cost the company $201.5 million, according to the Department of Justice.
'WannaCry hero' Marcus Hutchins sentenced to supervised release
Marcus Hutchins' efforts to stop the spread of WannaCry malware just helped him avoid prison time. Judge JP Stadtmueller has sentenced Hutchins to a year of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to creating and distributing Kronos banking malware. He was a teen when he committed the offenses, according to the judge, and he was "turning a corner" before he faced charges. Hutchins acknowledged that he'd made "bad decisions" and that he had "no desire" to slip back into a life of online crime.
Mirai botnet hackers will serve their time working for the FBI
In December, three individuals behind the Mirai botnet pleaded guilty to federal charges that carried sentences of up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. But at a hearing held Tuesday, the three men -- Paras Jha, Josiah White and Dalton Norman -- were sentenced instead to five years of probation and 2,500 hours of community service. The catch though is that the community service has to include work with FBI.
Two men admit involvement in the TalkTalk 2015 hack
Two men involved in 2015's TalkTalk hack have pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey court in London. Matthew Hanley, a 22-year-old from Tamworth, Staffordshire, admitted to three offences under the Computer Misuse Act, including the TalkTalk hack itself and obtaining and supplying files that would "enable the hacking of websites to others." He also confessed to supplying a spreadsheet, containing TalkTalk customer details, so that others could commit fraud. Conner Douglas Allsop, also from Tamworth, pleaded guilty on March 30th to assisting fraud and sharing a file that could help other hackers. Both men will be sentenced on May 31st.
UK drops plan to allow online guilty pleas for minor crimes
A government plan to introduce online convictions, allowing those who've committed petty crimes to plead guilty and pay fines without having to go to court, has been scrapped. The online option was provided in the Prison and Courts Bill, which has been de-prioritised as Parliament focuses on pushing through other legislation before the end of the current session, and ahead of the snap general election on June 8. In light of this, a public committee yesterday voted not to proceed any further with the bill.
Brits can soon plead guilty and pay fines for petty crimes online
As part of new plans, UK criminals accused of minor offenses will soon be able to plead guilty and receive their sentence online. In a government report published today, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice acknowledged that letting defendants accept their conviction online and letting them pay a pre-determined penalty (including fines and legal costs) upfront would free up magistrates and courts so that they can focus on more complex cases.
Wisconsin court deems sentencing algorithm constitutional
If you were hoping that Wisconsin would open up the sentencing algorithm it uses to help determine prison time, you're about to be disappointed. The state's Supreme Court has ruled that the use of the the COMPAS algorithm doesn't violate your constitutional right to due process. The decision rejected plaintiff Eric Loomis' complaints that the code is both proprietary (thus preventing him from challenging its accuracy) and was too central to his 6-year prison term. There were "other independent factors" leading to the sentence, the Supreme Court says, and you don't need to reveal the algorithm's source code when it's only one consideration among many.
Wisconsin's sentencing algorithm faces a court battle
Many people are nervous about the prospect of using algorithms to predict crime, and a legal battle in Wisconsin is illustrating why. The state's Supreme Court is close to ruling on an appeal from Eric Loomis, who claims that the justice system relied too heavily on its Compas algorithm to determine the likelihood of repeat offenses and sentence him to 6 years in prison. His attorneys claim that the code is "full of holes," including secret criteria and generic decisions that aren't as individually tailored as they have to be. For instance, they'll skew predictions based on your gender or age -- how does that reflect the actual offender?
Courts told to look down on licence dodgers with pay-TV subscriptions
If all goes to plan, the new BBC Charter will close the "iPlayer loophole" from January next year. That would mean anyone watching the broadcaster's content would require a TV licence, regardless of how they're accessing it -- more money for the BBC and, if you want to be cynical about it, more dodgers to catch. Coincidentally, the Sentencing Council has today proposed new sentencing guidelines for Magistrates' courts, one of which covers "TV licence payment evasion." In it, the courts are told to consider additional subscription television services a factor that increases offender culpability. Basically, don't pretend you can't pay the licence fee when you've got a Sky Q box under your TV, and don't try to claim you missed all the BBC channels listed on your TiVo EPG.
British young offenders who brag online could see tougher sentences
The Sentencing Council for England and Wales today proposed an expanded set of guidelines that courts would have to follow when sentencing young offenders aged 10 to 17. Importantly, for the first time, the instructions explicitly mention video, images and other details of the incident deliberately shared through social media and elsewhere online as an "aggravating factor," which could increase the seriousness of an offence and lead to tougher sentences.
Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison
Despite Ross Ulbricht's emotional plea for leniency in court today, Judge Katherine Forrest has sentenced him to life in prison. He was facing a minimum of 20 years up to the maximum life sentence after he was found guilty of money laundering, narcotics trafficking and computer hacking. Under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts," Ulbricht was the czar of Silk Road, an online drug marketplace that netted him an $18 million fortune. It was anonymized by the Tor network and used Bitcoins to hide transactions.
UltraCade founder gets two years in prison for game counterfeiting, bank fraud
UltraCade Technologies founder David R. Foley has been sentenced to two years in prison for fraud stemming from the illegal copying and selling of arcade game data. UltraCade offers a lineup of full-size arcade cabinets outfitted with emulated games under license from publishers like Capcom, Midway, and Taito. UltraCade owners can add new games to their cabinet's playable roster by purchasing upgrade CDs and USB keys featuring titles pulled from individual publisher catalogs. Founder Foley sold a portion of UltraCade's assets to arcade game manufacturer Global VR in 2006, and was later hired on as the company's CTO. A federal court accused Foley of selling counterfeit UltraCade game packs via eBay in 2009, leading to his dismissal from Global VR. In 2012, Foley pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to defraud Global VR, and admitted to defrauding a bank out of a nearly $3 million loan by falsely claiming that he was still employed by the company after his departure.
Hacker sentenced to 41 months for exploiting AT&T iPad security flaw
Hacker Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer was found guilty last year of spoofing iPad user IDs to gain access to an AT&T email database, and he's now been sentenced to 41 months in prison. The time was chalked up to one count of identity fraud and one count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization. In addition to the nearly three and a half years behind bars, Auernheimer also faces another three years of supervised release, and restitution payments of $73,000 to AT&T. Prosecutors in the case were asking for a four-year sentence, and reports say that they used both a Reddit Ask Me Anything post that Auernheimer did as well as quotes from the Encyclopedia Dramatica wiki. Auernheimer did give a statement before the sentencing, where he both read out a John Keats poem, and said that he was "going to jail for doing arithmetic." Auernheimer has promised that he will appeal the sentencing, so this may not be the last we've heard of "Weev" just yet.
Underage PlayStation site hacker sentenced
Ever wondered what kind of a penalty bringing down the official website of one of the largest commercial technology manufacturers in the world for 11 days carries with it? If you're the heretofore unnamed 17-year-old from Latrobe, Penn., who managed said feat after being disqualified from a SOCOM tournament for cheating, you're facing 12 months probation, 250 hours of community service and owe $5,000 in damages to Sony. That was the sentence recently handed down in the grand jury investigation into the teen's "cyber attack" on the official PlayStation site in 2008. Sony's legal representatives initially sought over $33,000 in damages from the young man, though the presiding judge ruled such a fee was "excessive" and reduced it by quite a bit. Personally, we think 33 Gs would help get the lesson across better. When we were kids, we'd drop five dimes on stuff everyday, you know? [Via GamePolitics]
