Anonymous Member Faces 10 Years in Prison

By Wolfgang Gruener
published

A jury in London convicted a 22-year old member of Anonymous over hacking charges.

The student reportedly participated in numerous hacking attacks that were affected companies including PayPal, MasterCard and Visa following their decision not to process Wikileaks decisions anymore.

Christopher Weatherhead, who considers himself a "hacktivist", and now faces up to 10 years in prison, along with three others who had pleaded guilty to the same charges in January and March.

The group struck their targets with denial-of-service attacks, causing a claimed damage of a total of $5.6 million, according to prosecutors. There was no information when Weatherhead would be sentenced.

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Wolfgang Gruener
33 Comments Comment from the forums
  • X-Nemesis
    10 years for $5.6Mil and yet white collar crime which steals in far greater quantities get bonuses.
    Reply
  • BriboCN
    That is still a raw deal. A DNS attack is something nearly anyone can do it just takes bandwidth. How they got caught is kind of a mystery, those attacks are generally, for a lack of a better word "anonymous"
    Reply
  • Pinhedd
    BriboCNThat is still a raw deal. A DNS attack is something nearly anyone can do it just takes bandwidth. How they got caught is kind of a mystery, those attacks are generally, for a lack of a better word "anonymous"
    They were stupid. Attacks like that have a signature, lots of similar requests for the same stuff. There's only so many ways to waste bandwidth.
    Reply
  • Can someone please fix the horrible grammatical errors in this article?
    Reply
  • scannall
    Good. I hope he gets all 10 and enjoys them.
    Reply
  • tokencode
    BriboCNThat is still a raw deal. A DNS attack is something nearly anyone can do it just takes bandwidth. How they got caught is kind of a mystery, those attacks are generally, for a lack of a better word "anonymous"
    Nearly anyone can rob a bank, that doesn't mean it should carry a light sentence.
    Reply
  • hunshiki
    Haha. Christopher Waterhead...

    Fits like a glove.
    Reply
  • BriboCN
    pinheddThey were stupid. Attacks like that have a signature, lots of similar requests for the same stuff. There's only so many ways to waste bandwidth.
    Its not you doing the request thought, its 1000 or 100000 innocent users that have no idea the command request their computer just sent. If they focused the attack through themselves in any shape or form they are far below the credit I give the organization
    Reply
  • BriboCN
    tokencodeNearly anyone can rob a bank, that doesn't mean it should carry a light sentence.
    Nearly everyone can jay walk that doesn't mean it should carry a light sentence. Bottom line is if this guy did the exact same thing to you or me and denied us internet connection for X amount of time nothing would be done. Does he deserve to get off scott free?? no, but let the punishment fit the crime
    Reply
  • hunshiki
    It really does fit the crime. Heck, DDoSing such services? Maybe they are "evil companies", but think about the people who use them. You, me. The father who wants to send his son money, so he can buy himself something to eat. The woman who wanted to pay the bill on that very same day. The family who wanted to buy a gift for their kid for some occasion. And the list could go on and on. Think what would happen if you suddenly couldn't pay with your card or you couldn't move your money because such "hackers" (lol).

    Thinking about the consequences make that 10 year look pretty light.
    Go out on the street and protest. Or start a website/group. Either way, the things they are doing is totally unacceptable.
    Reply