Slashdot Mirror
Palin Email Snoop Found Guilty On 2 Charges
netbuzz writes "A federal jury in Knoxville today has convicted David Kernell, 22, of two charges — misdemeanor computer fraud and felony obstruction of justice — in connection with the 2008 episode where he accessed the personal Yahoo email account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and then initiated a worldwide rummaging of its contents. The obstruction charge carries a maximum prison term of 20 years."
They also hung on the count of Identity Theft; The DA can retry that later if he so chooses.
"He gained access to Twitter accounts by simply working out the answers to password reminder questions on targets' e-mail accounts, according to investigators. " Seriously, I hate those things. When it used to be allowed, I always just retyped my password into the answers for those security questions. It's always really easy stuff to socially engineer or, in the case of a public figure, look up on google... Did he figure out the name of Obama's first pet, where he went to school, his first job, his mother's maiden name, or what? All of those things have got to be fairly easy to work out.
You mean, people put honest answers in those fields??? [boggles]
Similar to the upcoming US election results
...I don't want my taxes spent on keeping this man imprisoned for up to twenty years. Cost of imprisonment is on average 22,650 per year, at 20 years that's $453,000. In my opinion it's not worth that much to keep a man behind bars for guessing a password.
He won't get anything near 20 years. In a case like this he'll get almost no time in a minimal security facility, then he'll be put on probation for a number of years and he might also have to do community service or similar. Total cost to the taxpayer will be minimal, the trial itself will probably cost more than the actual imprisonment.
That being said, you NEED to have the threat of 20 years so that there's a possible consequence to your actions. If you break into someone's e-mail there should be penalties and just the possibility of 20 years behind bars is enough to keep most people from trying this sort of thing. You also need it for repeat offenders so that you can punish them properly. This doesn't mean you always need to give the maximum, that's why it's a maximum and not a set amount.
Sapere aude!