follow-up: Unprecedented 25-Year Sentence Sought for TJX Hacker

[security curmudgeon <jericho () attrition org>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/gonzalez-gov-memo/

By Kevin Poulsen
Threat Level
Wired.com
March 19, 2010

Computer hacker Albert Gonzalez deserves a quarter-century behind bars for 
leading a gang of cyberthieves who stole tens of millions of credit and 
debit card numbers from a transaction processor and several giant retail 
chains, federal prosecutors argued in a court filing Thursday night.

"[T]he sentences would be the longest ever imposed in an identity theft 
case and among the longest imposed for a financial crime, which is 
appropriate because Gonzalez was at the center of the largest and most 
costly series of identity thefts in the nation's history," wrote 
Boston-based Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann. "He knowingly 
victimized a group of people whose population exceeded that of many major 
cities and some states."

The government also disputed a defense claim that Gonzalez suffers from 
Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that was grounds for a slightly 
reduced sentence in a previous hacking prosecution.

Gonzalez, 28, is set for sentencing next week on three indictments 
covering virtually every headline-making bank-card theft in recent years, 
including intrusions at TJX, DSW Shoe Warehouse, Office Max, Hannaford 
Brothers, 7-Eleven, and Heartland Payment Systems, which alone exposed 
magstripe data on 130 million credit and debit cards. He performed the 
intrusions while an informant for the Secret Service.

[...]
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