HACKER GETS FIVE-MONTH TERM.Byline: Peter Hartlaub Daily News Staff Writer A federal court judge sentenced computer hacker A person who writes programs in assembly language or in system-level languages, such as C. The term often refers to any programmer, but its true meaning is someone with a strong technical background who is "hacking away" at the bits and bytes. Justin Petersen on Tuesday to five months in jail, asserting that the former FBI informant informant Historian Medtalk A person who provides a medical history was ``sticking his thumb at the system'' during his latest run from the law. Petersen was a fugitive from Sept. 30 until Dec. 11, when U.S. marshals arrested him in a Studio City apartment. The 38-year-old already has served 35 months in prison in 1996 and 1997 for hacking See hack and hacker. into a bank to get $150,000. While U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson didn't hand down the two-year sentence that he could have, he compared Petersen to a drug addict Any individual who habitually uses any narcotic drug so as to endanger the public morals, health, safety, or welfare, or who is so drawn to the use of such narcotic drugs as to have lost the power of self-control with reference to his or her drug use. who refuses to be helped. ``I don't think we're going to teach him a lesson . . . there's nothing at this point, absent a miracle, that would bring him back in my view.'' The self-proclaimed playboy hacker's Web site is filled with pictures of him accompanied by beautiful women at Sunset Strip The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile and a half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's east border with Hollywood at Marmont Lane to its west border with Beverly Hills at Phyllis street. nightclubs. Petersen admitted to Wilson that he fled after violating the terms of his supervised release from prison, which required that he get a steady job and pay about $40,000 to his victims. He disappeared in September, after a hearing at which Wilson ordered him to go to a halfway house halfway house /half·way house/ (haf´wa hous) a residence for patients (e.g., mental patients, drug addicts, alcoholics) who do not require hospitalization but who need an intermediate degree of care until they can return to the community. and possibly seek psychological counseling. Petersen's lawyer, Nathan Hochman, pointed out that his client was ``a few keystrokes away from committing a crime'' after his 1997 release, but chose not to. Hochman said Petersen was beaten the last time he was in prison because of his role as an FBI informant. ``He lives in fear of physical attack. If he goes back to this Texas facility he goes as a marked man,'' Hochman said. |
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