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Man Gets 10 Years For VoIP Hacking
angry tapir writes "A US court has sentenced a Venezuelan man to 10 years in prison for stealing and then reselling more than 10 million minutes of Internet phone service. Edwin Pena, 27, was convicted in February of masterminding a scheme to hack into more than 15 telecommunications companies and then reroute calls to their networks at no charge. He must also pay more than US$1 million in restitution, and will be deported once his sentence is served."
Free calls for all US prisoners shortly.
Pena is the first person to be charged by U.S. authorities with VoIP hacking, but he almost avoided prosecution. He skipped bail after his arrest, and was only captured after his Mexican girlfriend turned him in in early 2009.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. NEVER, EVER let your girlfriend know what is going on if you are commiting crimes/running from the law/etc. It gets you in trouble every time.
Spend money 'punishing' him and then immediately deport him. Rehabilitation seems to have no meaning there.
Nothing really to see here. move along.
The one thing I don't understand is why have him actually serve his sentence? Doesn't this just cost people more money in the end. It may be worth while to have him stay until he has re-payed the $1 million, assuming he even has the ability to re-pay the money but why not just deport him right away.
It's serious crime. Just because murderers get the same sentence doesn't mean it's a bad sentence. The murderers should get more, not him less.
"Man gets 10 years for felony commercial theft of service".
There. FTFY.
No hacking involved here; nothing to see; move along.
... slapped? Yes. Should he be kicked in his balls and pay back every cent that he cost 'em carriers? No doubt. But 10 Years in Prison??? There are murderers that serve a shorter sentence!
"Man gets 10 years for felony commercial theft of service".
I believe the actual charges were one count of computer fraud and one count of wire fraud. Which has a pretty serious maximum punishment.
There. FTFY.
No hacking involved here; nothing to see; move along.
Well, I don't know if I'd agree there was no hacking involved. It sounds like he used someone in Washington state named Moore to run port scans on all the big routers for VoIP hardware. Moore (serving two years) would then brute force attack these routers for login information. Pena dumped Moore twenty large and then acted as a salesman. After selling the phone service, Pena would reprogram the vulnerable networks so they would accept his rogue telephone traffic. Pena didn't seem to do much hacking, Moore was apparently just a brute force hacker that preyed on stupid VoIP companies who used four number prefixes as passwords.
I think the general public considers port scanning and brute force attacks to be hacking. At least the news reports it as such.
My work here is dung.
The man is obviously very capable and smart and for that he is getting punished instead of the telecom companies who let this happen in the first place.
The one thing I don't understand is why have him actually serve his sentence? Doesn't this just cost people more money in the end.
It may be that Slashdot has made me cynical.
But always seems to come as a surprise to the geek when one of his own is sentenced to do hard time.
Ten years is meant to hurt.
To teach a lesson.
To warn others like you not to take this path.
In the American federal system, economic and property crimes with an interstate dimension are a federal responsibility - and they are never taken lightly.
The Enron executive learned that much.
that's only like ~30 seconds in jail for each minute of phone service he stole. At least they didn't sentence him to full price.
Well "Es Una Pena" (it is a SHAME) that he committed such a crime, but it is also shameful that none of the several articles mention his real last name which is PEÑA (with an Ñ).
let's see how /. copes with that... *click preview*
It seems ok..
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
i think i found this latin guys arraignment video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EiFQYadyQk ...no wonder he got 10 years!
I wonder if this is the datacenter raid guy.
How inhumane, deporting the poor man! This is just like those fascists in Arizona who want to send undocumented immigrants back to Mexico.
Sincerely, Derek
A curious little blog
Why not make him pay the money back, then deport him.
Serves the bastard right, MooreR for ever!
With parents (yers, I'm a Mom's basement /.er), I don't mind the chores so much as the specific timescale and method in which to do them.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I guess if anyone at DIA had any brain power at all they would give him a job with a big salary instead of jail time. It seems that inovation and discovery are not being rewarded so why not burn down the bastards to make a buck? Our best minds and efforts are being turned to criminal ventures cause all the money is there.
10 yrs = ~5 Million minutes. ;-)
He'll get one minute in jail for every two minutes stolen.
Almost enough time to call everyone involved and apologize.