Times Online January 24, 2006
By Holden Frith and AP
A 20-year-old hacker has pleaded guilty to seizing control of hundreds of thousands of internet-connected computers without their owners’ consent or knowledge.
The hijacked PCs, known as botnets, where marshalled into a "zombie" network that was rented to gangs, who used them to attack websites and to send out vast quantities of spam. The network he controlled included computers at two US military bases.
In the first case of its kind, Jeanson James Ancheta, of Downey, California, pleaded guilty in a Los Angeles court to four charges, including infecting machines at the China Lake Naval Air Facility in California and the Defence Information System Agency, in Falls Church, Virginia.
Ancheta’s 14-month hacking spree started in June 2004 and earned him $61,000 (£34,000), according to prosecutors. Court documents suggested that he had a taste for expensive goods, spending $600 a week on new clothes and car parts.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2007348,00.html