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Jonathan James, aka c0mrade, was fifteen years old when he committed his cybercrimes and sixteen at the time of his sentencing in September, 2000.

James considered what he was doing was fun, “a challenge to see what I could pull off”.  Neither the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (an agency of the Department of Defense) nor NASA saw the humor.  The purpose of the DTRA is to reduce the threat to the US and its allies from nuclear, biological, chemical, conventional, and special weapons.  That purpose was compromised when James gave himself access to sensitive emails as well as usernames and passwords of employees through the backdoor he installed. 

Claiming to have been working on his C-programming studies, James worked his way into computers at NASA, stole about $1.7 million worth of code and cost the agency $41,000 when it had to shut down its computer systems.  From the Department of Justice:  “The software supported the International Space Station's physical environment, including control of the temperature and humidity within the living space”.  From James:  "The code itself was crappy . . .certainly not worth $1.7 million like they claimed." 

Had Jonathan James been an adult when he committed his crimes, he’d likely have spent no less than a decade in prison.  Things being what they were, he pled guilty to two counts of juvenile delinquency and was sentenced to a six-month prison term, probation until he turned eighteen, and restriction from any recreational computer use.  His prison term was reduced to six months under house arrest with three years additional probation.  When he ultimately violated that probation, he served six months in an Alabama Federal Correctional Facility. 

James is now considering starting a computer security company.