LulzSec Hackers Sentenced To Short Prison Terms 104
mask.of.sanity writes with news of the jail sentences for three members of LulzSec. From the article: "Three members of the hacktivist group LulzSec have been sentenced to a total of six years in prison. Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis and Mustafa al-Bassam were charged with attacks on the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Sony, Nintendo, 20th Century Fox and governments and police forces in a 50-day spree in the summer of 2011. Davis was sentenced to 24 months in a young offender's institution and he will serve half of the sentence. Al-Bassam received a 20-month sentence, suspended for two years and 300 hours unpaid work. Ackroyd was given a 30-month sentence; he will serve half. Cleary also pleaded guilty to possession of child abuse images following a second arrest on October 4, 2012. He will be sentenced at separate hearing."
The Guardian has a short article on the remaining loose ends in the story of LulzSec.
Short prison terms? (Score:5, Interesting)
These aren't short prison terms by UK standards. It's uncommon to get sentenced to more than two years for computer crime. [computerevidence.co.uk] Ryan Cleary, who got the longest sentence, apparently ran a large botnet for hire, when he wasn't doing it for the lulz. Bot herders tend to get treated relatively severely (rightly so IMHO).
Re:Six years is not a short term (Score:4, Interesting)
It is, I've no idea why the British press do this. (Maybe they do it elsewhere as well, I dunno.)
Profit. This is the most profitable way to put the news.