SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the shades-of-"Weev"-and-Aaron-Swartz dept.
Thanks in part to America’s ill-defined hacking laws, prosecutors have enormous discretion to determine a hacker defendant’s fate. But in one young Texan’s case in particular, the Department of Justice stretched prosecutorial overreach to a new extreme: about 440 years too far.
Last week, prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas reached a plea agreement with 28-year-old Fidel Salinas, in which the young hacker with alleged ties to members of Anonymous consented to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of computer fraud and abuse and pay $10,000 in restitution. The U.S. attorney’s office omitted one fact from its press release about that plea ( http://www.justice.gov/usao/txs/1News/Releases/2014%20November/141120%20-%20Salinas.html ), however: Just months ago, Salinas had been charged with not one, but 44 felony counts of computer fraud and cyberstalking—crimes that each carry a 10-year maximum sentence; adding up to an absurd total of nearly a half a millennium of prison time.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:31PM
Right...so instead this clueless user will just do that to svchost.exe and explorer.exe and such? If that was the point, MS would hide system processes. If that was the point, they'd have a setting for advanced users to show them. Since they have done neither of those things, that is clearly not the point. Or they're massively incompetent. Take your pick.