The court in The Hague sentenced three people to community service on Friday for breaking into the computers of the GPD news agency. A fourth was acquitted.
Two former GPD employees, who had started working in the information department of the Ministry of Social Affairs, had received an access code from another GPD employee for the GPD computer network, which included unpublished articles. Between June 2006 and October 2007, they had broken into the GPD network at least 350 times, according to the news agency.
The case came to light a year ago, when the chief of the two hackers complained to the news agency about an article containing an interview with Minister Donner. This message had not yet been published and must therefore have reached the Ministry illegally. Officials initially denied the computer break-in, but an investigation by GPD’s computer division revealed that people had repeatedly snooped into the network from a Social Affairs computer.
The news agency reported computer breaches and the public prosecutor decided to prosecute the two hackers, their boss and the GPD employee who issued the access code. The court convict the hackers to suspended community service of 100 and 150 hours. The supplier of the login code was given 60 hours probation, while the chief was acquitted, because according to the court he did not know that the messages had been stolen.
The public prosecutor had demanded unconditional community service because, according to him, the hackers had damaged the integrity of the government. The fact that the security of the GPD left something to be desired was no excuse, but the judges did consider it a mitigating circumstance. They also found that the suspects had already been properly punished by all the publicity. Because they had no criminal record and had not sought personal gain, the court found suspended sentences more appropriate, reports Het Parool.