Judgement Day

Pad had no idea what they were talking about. He hadn't done anything like that to the Swedish phone system, and as far as he knew, neither had Gandalf.

Something else didn't sound right. Richardson told the court that in total, the two hackers had racked up at least £25 000 in phone bills for unsuspecting legitimate customers, and caused 'damage' to systems which was very conservatively estimated at almost £123000.

Where were these guys getting these numbers from? Pad marvelled at their cheek. He had been through the evidence with a fine-toothed comb, yet he had not seen one single bill showing what a site had actually paid to repair 'damage' caused by the hackers. The figures tossed around by the police and the prosecution weren't real bills; they weren't cast in iron.

Finally, on Friday 21 May, after all the evidence had been presented, the judge adjourned the court to consider sen- tencing. When he returned to the bench fifteen minutes later, Pad knew what was going to happen from the judge's face. To the hacker, the expression said: I am going to give you every- thing that Wandii should have got.

Judge Harris echoed *The Times*'s sentiments when he told the two defendants, 'If your passion had been cars rather than computers, we would have called your conduct delinquent, and I don't shrink from the analogy of describing what you were doing as intellectual joyriding.

'Hacking is not harmless. Computers now form a central role in our lives. Some, providing emergency services, depend on their computers to deliver those services.'12

Hackers needed to be given a clear signal that computer crime 'will not and cannot be tolerated', the judge said, adding that he had thought long and hard before handing down sentence. He accepted that neither hacker had intended to cause damage, but it was imperative to protect society's computer systems and he would be failing in his public duty if he didn't sentence the two hackers to a prison term of six months.