A Los Angeles man on Friday admitted infecting 250,000 computers and stealing the identities of thousands of people by wiretapping their communications and accessing their bank accounts. John Schiefer, 26, agreed to plead guilty to four counts of fraud and wiretap charges that could lead to a $1.75 million fine and send him to prison for up to 60 years, the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney's office said.
Prosecutors said Schiefer and an unspecified number of conspirators installed malicious computer code that acted as a wiretap on compromised computers and intercepted messages to Paypal and similar Web sites. He retrieved usernames and passwords and used them to access an unknown number of bank accounts. Prosecutors said they were still investigating the dollar amount stolen and the number of victims.
View: Full Story @ ZDNet News
Prosecutors said Schiefer and an unspecified number of conspirators installed malicious computer code that acted as a wiretap on compromised computers and intercepted messages to Paypal and similar Web sites. He retrieved usernames and passwords and used them to access an unknown number of bank accounts. Prosecutors said they were still investigating the dollar amount stolen and the number of victims.
View: Full Story @ ZDNet News
Riight... I'm sure it wasn't any of the million other botnets going around that he was infected with...
but i dont think this guy should get anywhere near close to 60 years in prison.... sure he should pay a big fine and probably spend some time in jail but 60 years in unreasonable.. cause it aint like he raped/murdered someone.
but i dont think this guy should get anywhere near close to 60 years in prison.... sure he should pay a big fine and probably spend some time in jail but 60 years in unreasonable.. cause it aint like he raped/murdered someone.
no he just murdered/raped them in the financial sense which nowadays is worse not to mention he did it to half a million people.
(I'm being facetious here, partially)
But the people at Enron and the Mortgage Housing scams have made people homeless, broke, bankrupt, without retirement savings, and had devastating impact on US and global economics.
The 250,000 effected here are nowhere near as damaged as victims from either of the above scams.
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