The compensation demand, believed to be the first time an organisation has used the UK criminal courts to recover the costs of repairing hacked computer systems, could set a precedent for future prosecutions against computer criminals. Joseph James McElroy, 18, a first-year student at Exeter University, pleaded guilty to hacking into computer systems at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago, at a hearing at Bow Street's magistrates court last month.
He admitted using the Fermilab computers, part of the US Department of Energy,to create a private bulletin board to store hundreds of gigabytes of copyrighted film and music files which he shared with friends. The laboratory was forced to shut down the infected computer system for three days, to carry out repairs after staff noticed that scheduled back-ups were taking far longer than expected.
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