Threat Management

ELO rocker sentenced to 10 days in Anonymous attack

A rock guitarist who played for the likes of Electric Light Orchestra and Elton John was sentenced to ten days in jail after charges that he participated in online attacks as part of the hacktivist group Anonymous were downgraded to a misdemeanor.

Geoffrey Commander, 66, became involved in the Anonymous scheme after he landed in one of the hacker collective's chat rooms in December 2010 and clicked on a LOIC tool that eventually launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against MasterCard, the Washington Times said. 

Commander quit what he termed a “protest” after three hours. The rocker eventually moved from New Hampshire back to England. He was arrested in 2013 after returning to the U.S.

He initially faced a year in prison when he appeared for sentencing before a federal judge in Virginia, who professed to being a classic rock fan.

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