The court cases against high profile hackers [Gary McKinnon], [Gregory King], and [Robert Matthew Bentley] all had major developments last week, with [King] and [Bentley] sentenced to time in prison and [McKinnon] in a tenuous
state fighting extradition.

Both [King] (aka Silenz) and [Bentley] (aka LSDigital) will serve time for crimes related to botnets, but where [King] used one to stage DDOS attacks, [Bentley] used them to create spam. [King]’s botnet had 7,000 nodes, and though the court did not release the size of [Bentley]’s botnet, all of his bots were computers in the Rubbermaid company. [King] agreed to a two-year sentence, while [Bentley] was sentenced to 41 months.

[McKinnon] (aka Solo) who is of British origin, may serve up to 60 years in prison for mounting the “biggest military hack ever” on U.S. government computers. Between 2001 and 2002, he allegedly hacked into 97 computers in U.S. military and NASA networks. To be charged in American courts, though, he would have to be extradited first, and his extradition appeal to British courts is currently pending.