Krebs: 'Men Who Sent SWAT Team, Heroin to My Home Sentenced' (krebsonsecurity.com)

An anonymous reader quotes KrebsOnSecurity: On Thursday, a Ukrainian man who hatched a plan in 2013 to send heroin to my home and then call the cops when the drugs arrived was sentenced to 41 months in prison for unrelated cybercrime charges. Separately, a 19-year-old American who admitted to being part of a hacker group that sent a heavily-armed police force to my home in 2013 was sentenced to three years probation.

Sergey Vovnenko, a.k.a. "Fly," "Flycracker" and "MUXACC1," pleaded guilty last year to aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors said Vovnenko operated a network of more than 13,000 hacked computers, using them to harvest credit card numbers and other sensitive information... A judge in New Jersey sentenced Vovnenko to 41 months in prison, three years of supervised released and ordered him to pay restitution of $83,368.

Separately, a judge in Washington, D.C. handed down a sentence of three year's probation to Eric Taylor, a hacker probably better known by his handle "Cosmo the God." Taylor was among several men involved in making a false report to my local police department at the time about a supposed hostage situation at our Virginia home. In response, a heavily-armed police force surrounded my home and put me in handcuffs at gunpoint before the police realized it was all a dangerous hoax known as "swatting"... Taylor and his co-conspirators were able to dox so many celebrities and public officials because they hacked a Russian identity theft service called ssndob[dot]ru. That service in turn relied upon compromised user accounts at data broker giant LexisNexis to pull personal and financial data on millions of Americans.

Comments

3 years probation

[nitehawk214]

For what is essentially attempted murder?

Re:3 years probation

[Comboman]

To be fair, it's not his fault that American police forces have become an over-armed, under-trained occupying army ready to rain down deadly violence with few checks and balances.

Re: 3 years probation

[lgw]

I agree that American police break down doors in far too many instances when they shouldn't, but you need to quit being so dramatic. They got a credible report of a hostage situation - they SHOULD roll up armed

The correct response to a reported hostage situation is absolutely not to have a bunch of over-armed thugs in mall-ninja gear kick down the door. The correct response is a negotiator, a sniper, some normal cops in vests, and patience. You know, how SWAT teams worked before the cops starting playing soldier.

Too lenient

[Anonymous Coward]

People who are charged with uploading songs, movies, and academic journals to the internet (with no financial gain to themselves) are threatened with decades of prison time and absurd financial penalties. These people deceive SWAT teams and recklessly endanger lives and get probation? Misplaced priorities, folks. The so-called swatters should receive more severe penalties, in my opinion.

Reckless endangerment

[raymorris]

The offender wasn't *trying* to kill Krebs. So not attempted murder.

  Krebs didn't die, so not manslaughter.

The offender did act in a way to create a dangerous situation with no regard for the fact that Krebs, other people in his home, or police officers could be seriously injured. That neatly matches the definition of "reckless endangerment".

Had someone actually died, it would match the definition of "depraved-heart murder", which is second-degree homicide in many states. Depraved-heart murder is killing someone through actions not actually *intended* to kill them, but by reckless disregard for their safety.