Give him the maximum of 60 years. Heck, he'll probably be eligible for parole in 10 years as it is. If he gets a piddly 10 years, he'll probably be out in two or three. It's time that these creeps pay for their crimes whenever they can be caught. Every single one of us is a victim of computer crime, even if our passwords have never been taken; we are all victims because of the added costs in money, time, and energy that we and businesses spend to avoid viruses and other malware. Even people who don't use computers pay a higher price for goods and services because businesses spend money combating this crap. Sixty years is not enough; I'd encourage Congress to make such crimes punishable by life without parole, and then they can try to "hack" their way through a wall with a spoon.

Bill

This guy is NOT a "hacker". He is a scam artist that used phishing and malware. Nancy Gohring is a moron. She shouldn't be writing about technology unless she understands it first. People like her make me sick.

The definition of "hacker" in Wikipedia -- http://tinyurl.com/2qxg76 -- and its footnoted sources (notably #1) indicates that the orginal meaning of the term dates back to its use in an MIT student newspaper in 1963, long before there was an Internet or ANY personal computers of any sort whatsoever -- and not even electronic calculators, for that matter. According to the second sentence of the Wiki article, "It is most commonly used as a pejorative by the mass media to refer to a person who engages in inllegal computer trespass, which is its original meaning ...". (my emphasis). So ... a pretty strong argument can be made that Nancy has correctly used a legitimate, if not the most common, usage of the term.

Cheers.

Perhaps, I should have said no to the article.

This is because the article doesnot state how is it possible to test if any Botnets or any other spywares is on a computer, and what softwares and methods to use to get rid of them.

educateme??? Is that a cry out for help? Of course Microsoft security flaws are unfortunate, but give them a break. You can't expect 100% bulletproof software all the time. Try writing the same stuff yourself, prove that it's superior - then replace who you think might be incompetent. Otherwise, shut your #$@%@%&. And solspolaris! How rude! Nancy Gohring is just passing along the information as news. She's not writing a super-accurate PHD dissertation. Stop defending hackers, scam-artists and the like. It makes YOU sound like a cybercriminal. Are you?

Sorry. Didn't mean to hurt your feelings. It's just that I do have a little respect for what Microsoft does - although they can certainly do better. I am a software engineer who does spend a lot of time working with Microsoft code - but I don't write for them! I do not however, have ANY tolerance for cybercriminals. That is why I use the best antivirus and anti-spyware software, and I hide behind high-bit encrypted firewalls. So nya, nya, try to get me if you can. Have a nice day.