LulzSec member Jeremy Hammond pleads guilty to Stratfor hack

[shamu726]

Hacker still faces up to 10 years in prison after admitting to nine separate attacks.

Jeremy "anarchaos" Hammond, LulzSec member and self-styled activist, announced today that he's pleading guilty to one count of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

Hammond admits that he worked with Anonymous to hack into the website of private intelligence company Stratfor as well as other sites involved in the law enforcement and intelligence sphere. He says he acted because he believes "people have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors." Some five million e-mails between the company and its clients were given to WikiLeaks, which has in turn published slightly more than 900,000 of them.

This attack was part of the "AntiSec" (Anti-Security) operation started by LulzSec in June 2011. That initiative saw numerous law enforcement and intelligence organizations attacked.

Hammond pled not guilty to the charges about one year ago. He says he changed his plea because the prosecutor "stacked the charges with inflated damage figures." These high damage figures mean that under current sentencing guidelines Hammond faced more than 30 years in prison if found guilty.

Further, with other indictments outstanding against him, Hammond says that even if he won one trial, further trials were likely to occur.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Hammond will be given immunity from further prosecution in federal courts. He still faces up to 10 years in prison for the charge he admitted to, as Hammond supporters argue that he should be sentenced to no more than time served. The LulzSec man already spent 15 months in prison awaiting trial. Sentencing is scheduled to take place on September 6. Hammond has also agreed to pay $250,000 in restitution.

Hammond broke into Statfor's systems in late 2011. After doing so, he got in touch with LulzSec ringleader Hector "Sabu" Monsegur to discuss the hack, using Monsegur's servers to store the data.

The e-mails were given to WikiLeaks. Other information—including e-mail addresses, hashed passwords, and around 30,000 credit card numbers—was published online. Subsequent to the hack, some $700,000 in unauthorized charges was made to the stolen cards.

What Hammond didn't know at the time was that Monsegur had been arrested earlier that year and was secretly working as an FBI informant. The offer of storage space for the purloined data came at the FBI's request. The FBI used information from Hammond's chats with Sabu, including mentions of previous arrests, to determine his identity.

Earlier in the month, four LulzSec members in the UK were sentenced to between 24 and 32 months for their parts in the group's hacking activities. Two group members in Ireland were arrested but subsequently released, with prosecutors there declining to press charges.

Source: TorrentFreak

[LazyPotato]

Lovely -- One out of 60,000 hackers caught.

[OrioNeXus]

People have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors.

I agree and I support his views he should be freed from furthur trials