Mafiaboy gets sent down

The Canadian teen hacker known as Mafiaboy, who was found guilty of causing $1.7bn worth of damage, has been sentenced to eight months in a youth detention centre.

The 17 year-old young offender, who cannot be identified, was sentenced at a Quebec court on Wednesday, after pleading guilty to 55 charges relating to unauthorised access to computers.

He was responsible for last February's denial of service attacks on a number of ebusiness websites including Yahoo, eBay, CNN and Amazon.com, among others.

Ruling judge Gilles Ouelett also gave the culprit one year of probation after his detention and a fine of US$160.

Prosecuting attorney Louis Miville-Deschenes apparently withdrew other charges some months ago and said he was pleased with the ruling. But defence lawyer Yan Romanowski expressed surprise at the sentence, saying that he didn't think it was appropriate.

Mafiaboy was arrested by the Mounties in April last year after the hacker bragged about his antics. His father was also arrested last summer in an unrelated hacking case.