Ever wondered what kind of a penalty bringing down the official website of one of the largest commercial technology manufacturers in the world for 11 days carries with it? If you're the heretofore unnamed 17-year-old from Latrobe, Penn., who managed said feat after being disqualified from a SOCOM tournament for cheating, you're facing 12 months probation, 250 hours of community service and owe $5,000 in damages to Sony.
That was the sentence recently handed down in the grand jury investigation into the teen's "cyber attack" on the official PlayStation site in 2008. Sony's legal representatives initially sought over $33,000 in damages from the young man, though the presiding judge ruled such a fee was "excessive" and reduced it by quite a bit.
Personally, we think 33 Gs would help get the lesson across better. When we were kids, we'd drop five dimes on stuff everyday, you know?