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back to article VoIP hacker sentenced to 10 years

A Venezuelan citizen on Friday was sentenced to 10 years in US federal prison for hacking into the networks of telecommunications companies and then routing millions of minutes of voice over IP calls over their systems. Edwin Andres Pena, 27, admitted in February that he pocketed more than $1m in the scam, in which he posed as …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Power to the people

    These large corporations have been ripping off people in a number of ways for many years. They charge us for internet bandwidth, then they throttle it back, or contract with another carrier down the line to throttle it back, so in effect, the first hop carrier provides less bandwidth, but still charges for the higher bandwidth. These corporations are nothing more than gangster organizations, and are supported by the courts, which are an accessory to that fact.

    Another example is the MPAA and RIAA that use the courts to extort money out of people. They make huge profits off people who did not pay their $700 for all their CD's and so the courts go along with the idea those individules should pay hundreds of thousands or even millions. Where is the justice in that?

    I say turn about is fair play. If he or anybody else can find a way to rip off the big companies, more power to them. It's time for all out war on the matter.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      I understand your point..

      ..but I don't completely agree.

      Yes....these organisations have been 'ripping people off' by making a profit any way they can by selling their product at the highest profit.

      Unfortunately, these days, if they do it within the law, that's legal and it's just business. They're competing (apparently) so consumers are getting the best deal from the companies available.

      Hacking them however is just plain wrong. To pitch another example, if you believe that large financial organisations are responsible for the current financial crisis, would you seriously suggest armed robbery or stealing cash by hacking to redress the balance? I hope not....

      You have my backing on the MPAA and RIAA though. Those guys (sadly made up of studios and record companies we probably all buy from) are abusing what's left of the legal system....

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Stop

        Daylight robbery

        There is such a thing known as Daylight Robbery, i.e. being robbed 'legally' while in full possession of your faculties.

        Just because an organisation claims legality for its demands/processes doesn't mean they are such; there was a time when slavery & child labour was 'legal' as well, which no one in their right mind would seek to defend as legal today.

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    2. Vic
      Reply Icon

      Bollocks

      > These large corporations have been ripping off people in a number of ways for many years.

      This article is about some guy ripping off VoIP providers.

      Most such providers aren't big faceless corporations - they're small companies trying to make a living by undercutting the telecoms profiteers.

      Vic.

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  2. FanMan

    Wow

    Harsh, dude.

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  3. hughy
    Go

    Could be worse!

    Well that's, by my back of the envelope calculation, 10 years of jail for 19 years of stolen phone minutes! Could be worse!

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    HELLO!....HELLO!!.....

    CAN YOU HEAR ME? ....

    .....IM IN JAIL....YES JAIL!

    CAN YOU COME AND GET ME OUT.....WHAT....YOUR BUSY?????

    WHEN ??? 10 YEARS!!! oh FFS!

    EPIC ;p

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  5. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Happy

    One assumes

    That AT&T might want to pay them a bonus for identifying all those unused and open ports?

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  6. James Woods

    nice

    Good to see the mega monopoly telcos being protected by the same country that once had an anti-monopoly stance.

    These companies have networks that are vulnerable to attack in this regard and it's a legal issue? Why don't they simply close up the holes in their networks?

    Why are these companies allowed to charge us early termination fees if we aren't happy with the service and at the same time also have the 'law' serve them for their own inabilities?

    I guess when you are a mega corporation telco monopoly you can do whatever you want and the government is there to serve you.

    If at&t can't detect 1 millions 'scans' a month on it's networks over a 5 month period perhaps this is another wake up call that having monopolies run things for us will end up providing government-style third world service where things don't exactly have to work, things are fine, unless of course they start to lose money then it's time to do something about it.

    Im sure a million bucks is a drop in the bucket compared to the salary's and options of execs that work for this government sponsored monopoly and others like it that are the ones that should be held responsible for these kinds of things.

    Im sure they have nice careers awaiting them in the wings of government if they chose to go in that direction. Because in the government of the United States; you fail upwards.

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    1. david wilson
      Reply Icon

      @nice

      >>"These companies have networks that are vulnerable to attack in this regard and it's a legal issue? Why don't they simply close up the holes in their networks?"

      So if a company (or an individual, for that matter) doesn't have 100% thief-and-burglar proof operations, any thefts and burglaries are their fault, not the fault of the person who takes and sells stuff that doesn't belong to them, and the law should ignore the thefts (and therefore criminal prosecution as a deterrent should vanish)?

      >>"Im sure a million bucks is a drop in the bucket compared to the salary's and options of execs..."

      So it's OK to steal stuff if it's below a certain percentage of the bosses' wages?

      Does the same apply elsewhere - it's OK to steal an an individual's property if you don't take too big a fraction of it?

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