Yesterday afternoon a judge passed down sentence on Jason Smathers, a former AOL employee who stole 92 million screen names and sold them to a spammer. Smathers struck a plea bargain with the District Attorney and agreed to assist the government in tracking down the recipient of the list. In return, he received a 15-month sentence from U.S. District Judge Alvin Hllerstein instead of getting something a lot nastier.
Part of a written statement by Smathers to the court, which attempted to explain his mindset, was read during the trial:
"Cyberspace is a new and strange place. I was good at navigating in that frontier, and I became an outlaw."