T-Mobile Hacker Grounded

The so-called T-Mobile Hacker, Nicholas Lee Jacobsen has been sentenced to one year of home detention and fined US$10,000 for breaking into T-Mobile USA systems. He was able to access the personal information of some 400 hundred customers, including a Secret Service agent in 2004. Although Jacobsen, 23 was able to read some sensitive data used by Special Agent Peter Cavicchia no investigations were compromised, the Secret Service said.

The former Santa Ana resident who now lives in Oregon said he lacked "comprehension and maturity" when he targeted the T-Mobile network. "I did some very stupid things," Jacobsen told U.S. District Judge George King at his sentencing Monday in Los Angeles.

"What you've done is very dangerous to others. Maybe you didn't fully appreciate that, perhaps because of your youth," King told Jacobsen Monday.

Jacobsen could have faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for the crime, accessing a protected computer."

Posted to the site on 30th August 2006