Friday, May 12, 2006

BotMaster Sentenced, Xbox Hacker Pleads Guilty

It was a busy week for law enforcement in the technology area in Southern California this week, first with the news Monday that the Jeanson James Ancheta, of Downey, had been sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for developing a "botnet", and with the news Tuesday that the co-owner of a Hollywood video game store had plead guilty to modifying Microsoft Xbox game consoles and pirating games. On Monday, US District Judge R. Gary Klausner sentenced Ancheta for developing an army of compromised computers to coordinate computer attacks, send spam emails, and to install adware on machines. On Tuesday, Jason Jones, co-owner of ACME Game Store, plead guilty to participating in a conspiracy to violate federal copyright laws by pirating video games using a modified Xbox game console. Jones said, that along with partner Jonathan Bryant, who is also charged, that he and Bryant modified Xbox game consoles by installing more than 50 pirated games on each machine. Jones faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Another defendant in that case, Pei "Patrick" Cai of Pico Rivera is considered a fugitive.