Court Convicts Obscene Text Messager

[matcom]

<snip>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A teen-ager who sent an obscene text message to 15,000 cell-phone users has become the first computer whiz kid in Russia to be convicted of sending "spam."

The unnamed university student from the Urals city of Chelyabinsk hacked into one of Russia's biggest mobile phone operators and used a special program to send the message, Interfax news agency said.

He was handed a one-year suspended sentence and ordered to pay a 3,000-rouble (around $100) fine.

A spokesman for the Section K branch of the Russian police which deals with hi-tech crimes said this was the first instance a spammer had been successfully prosecuted.

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