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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.
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.
"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.
Except for the fact that the US judiciary system fails, once again? Not only are they spending a few hundred thousand dollars on making him pay in prison, his sentence his heftier than what a good bunch of rapists and cold blooded murderers would get, but after the supposed rehabilitation process, they're kicking him out of the country.
Being blind doesn't mean there's nothing to see, it just means there's something wrong with the way you see things.
You mean some murders get more? That's horrendous. Nothing is more serious than stealing money from a company.
rewriting history since 2109
Rapists are unlikely to be able to provide IT support in the 'Big House'. If he can score some free VOIP time whilst he is there, it can save a packet for the prison services.
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.
He is being punished because he committed a crime, not because he's a clever geek.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
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'
Use electronic tagging. Help him get a job (any job, even crappy, he doesn't get to choose, obviously), subtract X% every month to make him pay the money.
Advantages:
1) Costs less money - he pays for his own bills, like food and electricity, and can pay X per month to support the tagging system
2) At least some of the money will actually be paid back
3) He won't live among violent criminals, which would probably make him one.
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i think i found this latin guys arraignment video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EiFQYadyQk ...no wonder he got 10 years!
"There are murderers that serve a shorter sentence!"
Name one person who was found guilty of murder in the US who got a shorter sentence.
Still, it was a clever hack. I mean come on...tip your cap just on the technical aptitude. And of course I'd never do it, but stealing from the telco is like, well, stealing from the telco.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Why not make him pay the money back, then deport him.
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.
Perhaps he's thinking of murderers who get off on what's technically reduced to a manslaughter charge?
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
So a slave labor force to drive down wages?
No, they get paid full price by the company they work for. Part of it just never reaches their hands.
It already exists in law, it's called garnishment.
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And killers are the only ones who plea-bargain to a reduced sentence?
If the parent wants to compare apples to apples, he's going to have to go by murder convictions, and not just hearsay that was never presented to a jury.
Except thjat you said they don't get to choose and it'll be a crappy job. No choice of job and don't get to keep the money is slavery (if not, then what essential feature of slavery is missing?).
By forcing them to take a crappy job, you prevent it from remaining unfilled such that the employer would have to offer closer to what it's actually worth, so you drive wages down. Some employers might take to routinely offering inadequate wages for the least desirable jobs and depending on prison labor to fill them.
I said they don't get to choose. I didn't say the selection method is "the first that falls on their lap". The justice system should prevent that from happening, by for example getting public jobs to those for whom a job with non exploitative pay can't be found.
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That may be the intent, but you can bet the crazy sheriff in Az (the one with the tent city and the stale balogna sandwiches) will quickly pen a sweatheart deal with someone to make sure the prisoners "get what they deserve". There's more than one like him.
Keep in mind, this is the same justice system that can't manage to prevent violence, rape, and murder in a maximum security prison where nobody has any expectation of privacy at all. They can't even keep drugs and alcohol out.
Of course, if they actually DO succeed in their mission, law abiding people who couldn't find a job with non-exploitive pay might wonder if perhaps crime is the answer.
Of course, if there was less of that out there, there might be less crime now.
Remember they the companies would pay a decent salary, but a large chunk would be taken away by the justice system before it reached their hands. They'd keep the minimum necessary to pay for housing and food.
If it's possible to implement it, I have no idea. I'm also not from the US, so I don't have a clear picture of the justice system there.
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While there are conscientious people doing a difficult job because they genuinely believe it is good for society and ultimately for the individuals involved, and others who are basically decent people just doing a job because everyone needs one, there are also far too many people who gravitated to corrections because it's the only way they could exercise their hateful and sadistic or narcissistic personalities without ending up in prison themselves. Unfortunately, some of the prisons are run by the latter type.