Instead of the blather at this blog, read the original news report here: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12176463" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12176463</a><p>The judge didn't "recommend" that he serve it in a half-way house; he just said that 'even a half-way house would be sufficient punishment' . That doesn't mean he said "it must be in a half-way house".<p>Also: he's been sent to a low-security prison, and not a Super-Max.
from the other thread: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2099885" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2099885</a><p>The flip side to "I want my e-mail treated like normal mail" is that the same penalties will need to be levied. Private citizens can get in a lot of trouble for tampering with regular mail.
Just be be sure we're clear on the "crime", it was that he guessed Palin's yahoo mail security question "Where did you meet your spouse?" to which the answer was "Wasilla High".<p>source: <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/09/palin-e-mail-ha/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/09/palin-e-mail-ha/</a><p>He didn't even have to guess or crack a password. This is really a major security flaw on yahoo's part, which still exists. The fix in the meantime is to avoid accounts with such questions, or to answer them with random strings of characters.<p>Should this even be a crime? I propose that to keep something secret you should have reasonable security measures. Easily guessable security questions like mother's maiden name as used by banks should not be considered legitimate protection any more than using a bag twisty to hold a gate closed should be considered the same as a chain and padlock.
That's ridiculous. That means that EVERYONE who has used <a href="http://codebutler.com/firesheep" rel="nofollow">http://codebutler.com/firesheep</a> can go to prison.
"Palin went on to claim to the court that the email hack paralysed her campaign to become the USA's first female vice president."<p>Palin has done 100x worse than this kid, but she doesn't get caught because she paralyzes other candidates campaigns the legal way. By not getting caught when dredging dirt on other people's campaign. However Palin was still unsuccessful because now we have a muslim Kenyan extremist turban-wearing islamic terrorist fist-bumper as president.