Identity Thief Sentenced for File-Sharing Exploit

A Seattle man was sentenced to more than four years in prison Monday for hacking a peer-to-peer network for identity theft, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Calling Gregory Kopiloff a "highwayman in the virtual world," U.S. District Judge James Robart overruled the defense's recommended two-year sentence and instead instituted a 51-month penalty.

Court records show he victimized more than 50 people and caused about $70,000 in losses by stealing identities and making purchases in the names of his victims.

Kopiloff pleaded guilty in November to mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and accessing a protected computer without authorization to further fraud. Prosecutors called it the first federal case involving file-sharing software used to steal identities, according to an Associated Press story in the Sydney Morning Herald.