A 22-year-old man from Ohio has been sentenced to three years in prison for hacking police sites under the banner of the notorious hacking collective, Anonymous.
John Anthony Borell III, also known as @ItsKahuna, was convicted for his role in an operation called #OpPiggyBank, which saw police Web sites being hacked by a group called CabinCr3w.
#OpPiggyBank consisted of a slew of hacks that saw citizen complaints about drugs and other crimes being accessed and posted online, along with personal data of informants and police officers.
CabinCr3w justified the string of attacks in a statement: "As of late we have been watching cases of Police Brutality against the general public with a piqued interest. We have been taking notes while watching police departments across the United States become more militrarized and weaponized at our expense. The CabinCr3w has not been idle, the fire has been lit, and those in attendance are just getting warmed up. We are here to remind you that we the taxpayers pay your exorbitant salaries, and those salaries of your officers. Your job is to protect and serve, not brutalize the very people that pay your wages. Muzzle your dogs of war, or we will expose more of your sensative information [sic]."
According to the Huffington Post, damage caused by Borell put the Salt Lake City's police Web site out of commission for four months, while they beefed up security.
In its blog, Sophos said that in 2012 Borell signed a plea bargain, and admitted he had also hacked the server for Utahchiefs.org ? a Web site for police in Syracuse, New York, and several others.
Borell has agreed to pay $227 000 in damages for computer servers that had to be repaired or have their security jacked up.
He confessed to putting at risk "the security of the personal information of many people, most of whom worked in law enforcement" through unlawful access to agency computers, and posting the information online. Borell admitted he knew what he was doing was illegal.
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