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The moral of this story is: society looks down on hackers whose activities endanger their individual privacy. So don't hack into personal privacy.
The US District Court in Los Angeles sentenced 23-year old Nicholas Lee Jacobsen to one year home detention for hacking into T-Mobile USA's database back in 2004, and uncovering the names and Social Security Numbers of 400 of its customers, which included that of a Secret Service agent (the Secret Service announced that no investigations were compromised by the hacking incident). Jacobsen must also pay T-Mobile $10,000 in restitution fees - damages - to cover the losses caused by his actions.
"I did some very stupid things," he told District Court Judge George King during his sentencing. The judge told him, "What you've done is very dangerous to others. Maybe you didn't fully appreciate that, perhaps because of your youth."
Comparatively, Jacobsen got off with a light sentence. The maximum sentence for accessing (more like breaking into) a protected computer is five years in prison and $250,000. Compromised sensitive data is becoming more worrisome these days.
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