05-29-2014, 01:57 PM
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology..._free.html
"One of the most prominent cybercriminals of the past few years was permitted by a judge to walk free Tuesday—and thank goodness. Hector Xavier Monsegur, alias Sabu, was sentenced to seven months in prison (which he already served in 2012) and a year of probation instead of the 21 to 26 years of incarceration suggested by advisory federal sentencing guidelines for his crimes. He owes the significantly reduced sentence to the years following his 2011 arrest, when he served as an FBI informant. During that time he helped to prosecute several other cybercriminals, prevent hundreds of online attacks, and identify security vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.
None of that negates the damage he did as a criminal, of course. As a co-founder of hacking group LulzSec, Monsegur has confessed to participating in attacks on the computer systems of Fox Television, PBS, Nintendo, Sony, the U.S. Senate, and more. “Monsegur and his co-conspirators indiscriminately targeted government agencies, private companies, and news media outlets,” wrote U.S. attorney Preet Bharara in a sentencing submission asking for leniency for Monsegur. He continues, “In many instances, the harms inflicted on these entities were significant, ranging from defacements of their websites to the exfiltration of personal identification information of customers or employees of the entities; the costs associated with repairing these attacks ran into the tens of millions of dollars.”
"One of the most prominent cybercriminals of the past few years was permitted by a judge to walk free Tuesday—and thank goodness. Hector Xavier Monsegur, alias Sabu, was sentenced to seven months in prison (which he already served in 2012) and a year of probation instead of the 21 to 26 years of incarceration suggested by advisory federal sentencing guidelines for his crimes. He owes the significantly reduced sentence to the years following his 2011 arrest, when he served as an FBI informant. During that time he helped to prosecute several other cybercriminals, prevent hundreds of online attacks, and identify security vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.
None of that negates the damage he did as a criminal, of course. As a co-founder of hacking group LulzSec, Monsegur has confessed to participating in attacks on the computer systems of Fox Television, PBS, Nintendo, Sony, the U.S. Senate, and more. “Monsegur and his co-conspirators indiscriminately targeted government agencies, private companies, and news media outlets,” wrote U.S. attorney Preet Bharara in a sentencing submission asking for leniency for Monsegur. He continues, “In many instances, the harms inflicted on these entities were significant, ranging from defacements of their websites to the exfiltration of personal identification information of customers or employees of the entities; the costs associated with repairing these attacks ran into the tens of millions of dollars.”