Hardware Hacker Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison for Selling Rooted Cable Modems

Cable-modem hacker Ryan Harris has been sentenced to three years in prison for helping users steal internet access in what the authorities say was a $1 million scheme to defraud cable companies of business.

Harris, 28, was sentenced in federal court in Boston on Wednesday.

“I think you committed a very serious crime,” US District Judge Mark L. Wolf told Harris at his sentencing hearing, according to the Boston Globe. Federal prosecutor Mona Sedky said at the hearing that Harris was motivated by greed and “acted with absolute, knowing malice,” in order “to punish the cable companies.”