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LulzSec Hackers Sentenced To Short Prison Terms
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.
It's six years if you add up the maximum time for all three sentences combined. Two of them will only have to serve half of their time and the other one is getting no prison time at all. That seems pretty fair to me.
And don't believe people who tell you that you're anonymous.
at least they didn't download some music or a movie while they were doing this. They may have had to pay millions in restitution as well...
Next time, read more than the first sentence in your quest to get first post.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
Right. "Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis and Mustafa al-Bassam were charged" and as a result of this "Cleary also pleaded guilty to possession [...]"
So the missing detail here is "Who's Cleary"? Everyone else gets to have a full name while Cleary is just the fourth crewmember who beams down wearing a red shirt and gets eaten by a monster.
Which is exactly what the criminals were hoping you'd say. Rather than say "each received sentences of 15-24 months," it packs more punch to word it ambiguously, and leave people feeling sorry for these punk kids who "got sentenced to up to 6 years in prison! For minor crimes!"
"24 months in a young offender's institution and he will serve half of the sentence" = 12 months in juvie. Poor kid, he'll have to leave his mom's basement for a year.
"20 month sentence, suspended for 2 years and 300 hours unpaid work" = keep out of trouble, and do 300 hours of community service over the next 2 years, and he doesn't go to prison at all.
"30 month sentence, he will serve half" = 15 months in prison. The harshest of the penalties, and still a pretty fucking light sentence.
Rape can get you imprisoned up to and including a life sentence in the UK, Not sure where you get that there's a "maximum of 5 years" for rape. In fact, the most lenient of the "starting points" and "typical ranges" list 5 years at the LOW end of the punishment, before aggravating/mitigating factors are considered.
tl;dr: fuck your idiotic ignorance of the law.
Don't you mean billions of dollars? If you're going to pull figures out of your ass you might as well go big.
Considering a trillion dollars worth of security fraud goes completely unpunished, this is way out of scale.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
These aren't short prison terms by UK standards. It's uncommon to get sentenced to more than two years for computer crime. 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).
Prison is for long term stays. They have a library, exercise facilities, chapel (if you're into that sort of thing). County is for holding people. They provide only the absolute minimum necessary to keep the person alive, if you're lucky.
Check out this thread from people with experience on both sides. I'll quote:
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
He "posessed images of child abuse". Perhaps this redshirt was the monster.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That's a pretty stupid way to announce it...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
This is England. There's no such distinction.
The 2008 financial crisis caused the destruction of far, far more wealth than *ALL PROPERTY CRIME PUT TOGETHER*. If we chose to do "only one thing and suspend everything else", that is prosecute the criminals behind the 2008 financial crisis, and ignore all other property crimes, we'd still be ahead of where we are now.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't think the sentences are reasonable. However, given how insane recent sentences have been for any computer related crime, I fully expected all of them to get 50 years with billions of dollars of fines.
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.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
But there are distinctions made among prisoners that determine where you end up. . .
Prisoner security categories in the United Kingdom
Assuming you make it so far as prison . . .
In soft-bellied Britain, it's hard to stay in prison for long. Even getting into jail is difficult
Might be a tougher ride in the future.
Do prisoners get a cushy ride in British jails?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
But there are distinctions made among prisoners that determine where you end up. . .
Of course, but that's in terms of security. Not severity of punishment. Though I'm sure the harshness does vary in practice, I'd imagine most of that is who you have to share the prison with. Maximum security murderers or minimum security computer hackers and politicians...
Yes, crime is bad
Not necessarily.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!