Yahoo! merc! hacker! Karim! Baratov! gets! five! years! in! the! clink!

The Canadian mercenary hacker who helped Russian agents break into thousands of Yahoo! webmail accounts will be spending up to the next five years behind bars in America. A US district court judge, sitting in northern California, handed the 60-month sentence to Karim Baratov, who last year eventually pleaded guilty to nine …

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty short sentence...

...for hacking 11,000 accounts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Pretty short sentence...

yeah we stopped the death penalty for assisting a hack into a completely insecure system a few years back.

[harrihasler]

Annoying! Titles!

Can! you! please! stop! with! these! f**! annoying! title! exclamation! marks! ?

It! was! maybe! fun! the! first! time! but! after! the thousandth! time! it's! really! really! not! anymore!

Are! the! writers! here! still! in! kindergarden! or! just! plain! idiots! ?

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Annoying! Titles!

Are! the! writers! here! still! in! kindergarden! or! just! plain! idiots! ?

The two are not mutually exclusive y'know..

[Spacedinvader]

Re: Annoying! Titles!

No. This is El Reg. Go read the Daily Fail.

[Aodhhan]

I'm sure his sentence was lightened quite a bit since he pleaded guilty. If he was found guilty in court, he likely would have received 15 years. This is federal court, so there is no early release or early parole. He'll serve the entire 5 years then be sent back to Canada... who then, will likely boot him out of their country.

[NanoMeter]

Pathetic countries with no independence

It's pathetic of these countries not to be able to prosecute the criminals themselves. Instead they deliver them to the US like any vassal state would do.

[DMoy]

Re: Pathetic countries with no independence

His crime was attacking American e-mail accounts, not Canadian. I don't know, but it's quite possible that doing that is not a crime in Canada. It makes more sense to prosecute this criminal in the country that was the victim of his crimes.