A RAT and a spammer both avoid the slammer

Re: Going soft?

The punishments were likely proportional because:

1) Nobody in government was affected, and

2) No large corporation had their copyrights infringed.

Re: Going soft?

"By the sounds of it the punishments were proportional and didnt seek to blow the FUD around cybercrime out of proportion."

Did you see the bit where his mate, who apparently has no connection to the United States, got five years in the slammer after (yet) another dodgy extradition, seeing people not in the United States extradited there for paper-thin reasons?

Re: Running a botnet and making $200,000 illegally gets you probation?

He cooperated with the police and got his colleagues jailed/gaoled; in return he gets a minimal sentence. This is standard practice in the US - if you can provide/fabricate/generate evidence against other criminals then you're looking good, but if you're innocent (and hence probably don't actually know any criminals) then you're stuffed.

The important thing is to keep the arrest/conviction numbers looking good for the next local election.