Webcam 'peeping Tom' hacker sentenced to 18 months

by Steven Mostyn - Nov 24 2010, 12:24

You're going to love this one... especially if you've ever peered at your computer's Webcam and wondered if someone is secretly spying on you while two knuckles deep into your left nostril or enjoying salacious alone time with pornographic materials.

Specifically, infamous computer hacker Matthew Anderson has been sentenced to 18 months behind bars for flooding the Net with malicious email and for also gaining control of the Webcams of his unsuspecting victims.

An inspection of Anderson's seized computer by Scotland Yard revealed Webcam images of a young girl in school uniform, photos of a mother and her newborn baby, and various sexually explicit snapshots.

Prior to his capture, 33-year-old Anderson (a father of five from Aberdeenshire) was operating within an international gang of hackers responsible for distributing tens of millions of virus-laden Spam messages in order to access sensitive personal information from targeted computer systems.

According to Judge Geoffrey Rivlin of Southwark Crown Court, Anderson's motivation “was the pleasure and satisfaction you derived from achieving such a massive intrusion into the personal lives of so many others and the sense of power that intrusion gave you.”

Sentenced under the Computer Misuse Act, Anderson has also been ordered to pay some 5,000 GBP in costs.

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