back to article UK hacker jailed for nicking PayPal, banking data from MILLIONS

A UK cybercrook has been jailed for 26 months following his conviction for stealing millions of banking and PayPal identities, the Southwark Crown court confirmed to the Reg. Edward Pearson, 23, from York, used information-stealing malware to harvest eight million personal identities between January 2010 and August 2011, the …

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  1. Crisp

    So why wasn't this guy extradited to the US?

    The UK could have saved a fortune in legal fees.

    1. Dante

      Re: So why wasn't this guy extradited to the US?

      It seems you only get extradited to the US when the "crime" is only a crime in the US and not in the UK.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A fair cop

    Surprisingly low sentence, though.

    1. Antony Riley

      Re: A fair cop

      It's a well known fact that they only throw the book at you if you attempt to profit or cause wanton damage.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    girlfriend named Cassandra?

    "I *told* you it wouldn't work".

    1. LinkOfHyrule
      Pirate

      Re: girlfriend named Cassandra?

      Maybe the TV channel Dave, inspired by this plonker, could do a tech remake - Only Trolls and Hash-Tags...

      Del-boy has a clapped out old Mac (one of those silly see through ones, in yellow) and he lives in the basement of a council flat with his uncle Albert who's always banging on about the war (the war between Commodore, Apple and the IBM PC - 'cus he's a geek veteran). Del-boy always has some dodgey scheme on the go, phising, hacks, DoS attacks, 419's etc - Rodney always ends up as the smuck who has to configure the TOR and remember the TrueCrypt passwords. Other common scenarios include, popping down the local boozer (The Nags Node) to buy dodgey second hand laptops from a used tech dealer with a pervy tash and swapping pirate DVDs with a geezer called Trigger who works for the local council as a sys admin.

      This time next year we'll be tech millionaires! ...and talking shit to Robert Scoble.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: girlfriend named Cassandra?

      LOL - search on her name and find her twitter account description -

      "Caffeinated university drop-out with no sense of boundaries..."

      Apparently so!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Clap, clap, clap

    Is the implication that the girlfriend gave the hotels his real E-mail address when booking the rooms? He may want to raise his standards a bit going forward...

  5. Great Bu

    Kids these days.....

    Kids today, they don't know they're born ! When I were a lad if you nicked 2700 bank cards with your ZX81 and one of them modems that you had to put the telphone handset onto* and came home with less than £3k, yer dad would beat you black and blue.

    That's what is wrong with society today............mumble.......mumble...etc....

    *Like in that 'War Games' documentary with that nice Ferris Bueller......

  6. Stevie

    Bah!

    Write a python script to smash his fingers with a hammer and be done with it.

    1. Fatman
      FAIL

      Re: Bah!, ...smash his fingers with a hammer...

      That's the way to go!

      Teach the little shit a real lesson; I wholeheartedly support infliction of PHYSICAL pain on fraudsters prior to their being sent off to the kilnk. Take fraudster's hands, extend the grubby little fingers, and WHACK them with a nightstick (a/k/a 'billyclub'), ensuring that said fingers are broken. Until said fingers heal, it should be interesting to see how such twit wipes his ass!

    2. Soruk

      Re: Bah!

      > python script

      Better yet, a python script^W to constrict his neck.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Should have been at least five years

    Allowing cyber criminals to get off with such light sentences is going to come back to haunt the judicial system and society.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Paypal must be proud.

    If it's that easy that a 23 year old can do this, just for a laugh, what could organised criminals do?

    1. eulampios

      Re: Paypal must be proud.

      Who should be really proud is the glorious Microsoft Corp. Both Zeus or SpyEye do not infect and attack servers, but a client-side. I bet that the vectors of infection are the everlasting Ms Windows satellites, i.e.: clicking on a "bad link", visiting an "infested" website, opening a "treacherous" email, inserting a "morbid" usbkey, installing an 3d parties app from an unknown insecure source.

      So, I wonder, why no victim sues any major OEMs? The slogan "We recommend Microsft Windows!" is misleading indeed. It does sound like "The surgeon general recommends smoking cigars!"

  9. Lars Silver badge
    Pint

    So

    If you plan to shoot the Prime Minister then it's only about an intellectual challenge till you pull the trigger.

  10. Tim882

    He "procured" those birth dates and addresses from a government website that is STILL leaking personal information.

  11. Ian 55
    Paris Hilton

    All those PayPal accounts compromised

    I had better start obeying those 'we have detected problems with your account, please click on this link and tell us all your details' emails then.

    (Paris just gets a pal to pay...)

  12. Richard 84

    He's out after appeal though:

    http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9631738.Facebook_hacker_from_York_to_be_freed_after_winning_court_appeal/

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