Remember when defacing a website was the big news back in the day? Crackers would frequently put their logo or an amusing (or not so amusing) message on a site to gain "street cred" in the computer underground or just to amuse themselves. Well, a man in Moscow one-upped a standard website defacement by uploading a pornographic video onto a digital video billboard above one of the city"s major streets. Unlike a typical website attack, Moscow police were able to track down the man who carried out the attack and according to the BBC, he has received an 18 month jail sentence.
Forty year old shipyard fitter Igor Blinnikov pleaded guilty to the crime and accepted full responsibility for his actions. According to Blinnikov, "I decided to confess because they"d caught me," although he wasn"t expecting such a harsh sentence. The prank caused severe traffic disruption on Moskow"s Garden Ring Road as cars stopped to watch the pornographic video playing on a 20" by 30" screen. Blinnikov had no real motivation for the prank, other than saying it was something to do at the time. He provided no explanation for how the attack was carried out and considers computers merely a hobby he"s experimented with over the past five years.
Blinnikov plans to appeal in hopes of reducing the jail time.