The Most Unimpressive Hacker Ever

Those wily IT guys.

A computer tech who was a contract worker
for the energy giant Calpine is going to federal prison for a year and
a day because he hacked into an employee’s computer and used it for
nefarious purposes.

Actually, not all that nefarious — he used
the financial information contained on the computer to receive a little
more than $6,000 in loans “from various online financial loan
institutions,” according to the US Attorney’s office.

Six thousand bucks? In loans, not straight-up cash? This is one underachieving hacker.

Robert Smith, 28, was sentenced today by US District Judge David Hittner.

Smith
was sorta dumb even when it came to picking who to hack — he “mapped”
the computer of Calpine’s VP of Human Resources. In other words, one of
the company executives most familiar with the issues of ID theft and
the need to safeguard personal info.

Smith was also ordered to pay Calpine $27,944 in restitution for what he did to the company’s computer system.

— Richard Connelly