Anonymous Hackers In Britain Sent To Jail For Paypal, Mastercard Attacks
Eyder Peralta
Thursday, January 24, 2013 at 12:31 PM
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The "Anonymous" logo is seen on a tablet screen.

Lionel Bonaventure / AFP/Getty Images


The 22- and 28-year-olds were convicted of using denial of service attacks to defend WikiLeaks. Christopher Weatherhead will serve 18 months in jail.

Two hackers associated with the group Anonymous will serve time in jail. A British judge handed down the sentence after the two were convicted of perpetrating attacks against the Paypal and Mastercard websites.

The BBC reports Christopher Weatherhead, 22, and Ashley Rhodes, 28, will serve 18 months and seven months respectively. The BBC adds:

"Co-defendant Peter Gibson was given a six-month sentence, suspended for two years, while another defendant, Jake Birchall, 18, will be sentenced later."

As we reported in December, the defendants unleashed denial of service attacks against the websites. In total, the companies said the attacks cost them $5.6 million.

As we wrote at the time, the four attacked the companies "because they had stopped processing payments for WikiLeaks."

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.


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