The 15-year-old UG Nazi hacker known as Cosmo* or Cosmo the God was sentenced in juvenile court on Wednesday in Long Beach, California. According to Cosmo, he pleaded guilty to multiple felonies in exchange for a probation, encompassing all the charges brought against him, which included charges based on credit card fraud, identity theft, bomb threats, and online impersonation.
Over the course of 2012, Cosmo and his group UG Nazi took part in many of the highest-profile hacking incidents of the year. UG Nazi, which began as a politicized group that opposed SOPA, took down a bevy of websites this year, including those for NASDAQ, CIA.gov, and UFC.com. It redirected 4Chan's DNS to point to its own Twitter feed. Cosmo pioneered social-engineering techniques that allowed him to gain access to user accounts at Amazon, PayPal, and a slew of other companies. He was arrested in June, as a part of a multi-state FBI sting.
Representatives from both the Long Beach district attorney and public defenders offices refused to comment on the case, given Cosmo's status as a juvenile. However, according to Cosmo, the terms of the plea place him on probation until his 21st birthday. During that time, he cannot use the internet without prior consent from his parole officer. Nor will he be allowed to use the Internet in an unsupervised manner, or for any purposes other than education-related ones. He is required to hand over all of his account logins and passwords. He must disclose in writing any devices that he has access to that have the capability to connect to a network. He is prohibited from having contact with any members or associates of UG Nazi or Anonymous, along with a specified list of other individuals. He had to forfeit all the computers and other items seized in the raid on his home. Also, according to Cosmo, violating any of these terms will result in a three-year prison term.
The probationary period lasting until age 21 is standard, but other terms were more surprising.
"Ostensibly they could have locked him up for three years straight and then released him on juvenile parole," Jay Leiderman, a Los Angeles attorney who has represented alleged members of Anonymous and LulzSec, told Wired. "But to keep someone off the Internet for six years -- that one term seems unduly harsh. You're talking about a really bright, gifted kid in terms of all things Internet. And at some point after getting on the right path he could do some really good things. I feel that monitored Internet access for six years is a bit on the hefty side. It could sideline his whole life--his career path, his art, his skills. At some level it's like taking away Mozart's piano."
*Editor’s note: Wired is not disclosing Cosmo’s name due to his status as a minor.
