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Five Men Arrested in LexisNexis Data Theft
An anonymous reader writes "Five men aged 19-24 were arrested last week in connection with the reported theft last year of some 310,000 personal records from database giant LexisNexis. The Washington Post reports that some of the individuals were also involved in the theft and online posting of revealing photos from socialite Paris Hilton's cell phone. All are being charged with 'aggravated identity theft,' which carries a mandatory 2-year jail sentence for those found guilty."
Sad to say, which brought about the investigation. 31000 peoples personal data or Paris Hilton's contact list. Unfortunately, it was probably the latter.
Only a two year jail sentence? That seems extremely light, considering that once you have your identity stolen, it can easily take over two years to put everything back in order
Well, first, a victim of ID theft doesn't spend two years of straight time fixing the problem. There's a difference between two years of dealing with bureacracy for a few hours a week and two years of your life spent in a prison cell. I'm not making light of ID theft, I was a victim of it myself and it was certainly a bitch to deal with... But hell, I'd take eight years of doing what you have to do to get everything back in order over eight months of prison time. Prison really, really sucks.
So two years doesn't sound that harsh to me. These guys are not violent criminals. They aren't gang members and will not be at the top of the prison food chain. Those two years will not exactly fly by, and being 19-24 they will lose some of what should have been the best years of their lives. When they get out they will be felons and will lose many rights (including foreign travel), and will have to check in with parole officers, and will find it much harder to find work and a decent place to live. They may even be prevented from using a computer for a period of time. I think losing two years of your life would deter most from d