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Student Used 'USB Killer' Device To Destroy $58,000 Worth of College Computers (theverge.com)
A former student of The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, has pled guilty to charges that he destroyed tens of thousands of dollars worth of campus computers using a USB device designed to instantly overwhelm and fry their circuitry. The plea was announced today by the Department of Justice, FBI, and Albany Police Department. The Verge reports: Vishwanath Akuthota, the former student, now faces up to 10 years in prison (with up to three years of supervision after release) and a fine totaling up to $250,000. He was arrested and taken into custody in North Carolina on February 22nd, just over a week after he went on a spree of inserting the "USB Killer" device into 66 of Saint Rose's computers around various locations on campus. Such devices can be easily and freely purchased online and can overload the surge protection in many PCs.
Akuthota, 27, apparently made video recordings of himself inserting the malicious USB device into the computers and said "I'm going to kill this guy" as the PCs were overloaded and permanently ruined. So it's fair to say the FBI and APD had all the evidence they needed. In total, Akuthota caused $58,471 worth of damage. As part of his guilty plea, he has agreed to pay back that amount to the college, a small private school in New York's capital city. The Verge reached out to The College of Saint Rose for a statement on today's news, but a spokesperson said the college had been asked by law enforcement to refrain from commenting.
Akuthota, 27, apparently made video recordings of himself inserting the malicious USB device into the computers and said "I'm going to kill this guy" as the PCs were overloaded and permanently ruined. So it's fair to say the FBI and APD had all the evidence they needed. In total, Akuthota caused $58,471 worth of damage. As part of his guilty plea, he has agreed to pay back that amount to the college, a small private school in New York's capital city. The Verge reached out to The College of Saint Rose for a statement on today's news, but a spokesperson said the college had been asked by law enforcement to refrain from commenting.
And shows how fucked up the US "justice" system is. Average sentence for murder is something like seven years. He should be given a psych evaluation and made to pay restitution via wage garnishment in the future.
He is unlikely to get 10 years. That's the maximum sentence when they add up the maximum for each charge and it makes it more newsworthy. The maximum for murder is life without parole or death, and as you say the average may be closer to 7 years. In this case since he admitted fault and agreed to pay for the damages he will get some smaller sentence, possibly time already served or a few months. It is likely his visa will be revoked.
Oh horseshit. First of all, he has not been sentenced to anything yet. 10 years is the maximum he could get, whereas the maximum for murder is life imprisonment, or in some cases death. Secondly, the AVERAGE murder sentence is 40.6 years, where did you get that idiotic 7 years? The average property crime sentence is about 4 years. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pu...
Incorrect. It is a federal case so he has to do I believe 85% before he is eligible for parole. That means at a maximum sentence of 10 years he would do 8.5 years minimum. When it comes down to state there is different rules all around the country. Nevada has a scaling system where its x-x months/years and the front number can not exceed 40% of the back number. So for instance he could get a 4-10 year sentence. In 4 years from the date of arrest he would get a chance to see the parole board. depending on the crime they can choose to dump him(not release). That normally depends somewhat on your case, your behavior in prison, and wot not. Some states have a flat time system and you do the time they give you. 48 months is 48 months. Telling you this from experience unfortunately.
A fuse would not protect from this sort of over voltage damage. Fuses are slow and by the time sufficient current is flowing to blow the fuse - the circuitry is already shot. Electronic fuses (MOSFETS with controllers) are much faster and do not need to be replaced. Most devices use current limited load switches to limit surge current and prevent damage. But even these devices, while better then fuses, would not help. ESD protection diodes would help but they are not designed for large amounts of energy and will quickly burn up. With the amount of energy this guy was adding, the diodes will literally pop off the PCB. USB is quite well protected (now, not originally) but all consumer electronics will break when you have hundreds of volts applied. Well, ethernet would at least prevent the damage from cascading into the device - but few interfaces are protected like ethernet.
these USB killers do way more than a hundred volts. IIRC it was in the thousands and it usually hits them multiple times before you can yank the usb, cycling about once a second. Though there is no amperage behind it the volts come in so quickly that I doubt even ESD protection could block it. When this was demoed it killed even protected computers because it slams it 3-4 times before the person can react and yank it out of the slot.
Still can't read, huh? The OP did not say the amount of time spent in prison, he said the average SENTENCE for murder was 7 years, and he was comparing it to a max 10 year SENTENCE for this crime, as if this crime was getting more time than the average murderer. If you want to compare time actually served, then the MEDIAN 1 year for property crimes must be compared with the MEDIAN 14 years for murder. Whether you compare sentences (average 40.6 years for murder vs MAX 10 years for this), or average time served, either way the OP (and you) are completely wrong.
It's a huge risk to fight the charges even if you're innocent,
My understanding is hiring a lawyer to get a plea deal is around $10-30k. If it goes to trial it's a minimum of $100k. Just for the lawyer. Expert witnesses and other crap add to that.
Think about that for a bit. You get charged with something you didn't do. Not only are you trading off 1 year vs 10, if you roll the dice and go for broke you're, well, broke even if you win.
Something is broken with our system of "justice".