Journalist sentenced to 24 months in prison after hacking-related conviction

Matthew Keys is accused of giving up the CMS login information that ultimately resulted in this short-lived defacement of the LA Times' website. (credit: US DOJ)

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—A federal judge sentenced journalist Matthew Keys to two years in prison Wednesday, after he was convicted last year of three counts of conspiracy and criminal hacking.

Prosecutors had asked the judge to impose a sentence of five years, while Keys’ attorneys asked for no prison time.

As Ars reported earlier, Keys was accused of handing over a username and password for his former employer’s (KTXL Fox 40) content management system to members of Anonymous and instructing people there to “fuck some shit up.” Ultimately, that December 2010 incident resulted in someone else using those credentials to alter a headline and sub-headline on a Los Angeles Times article. The changes lasted for 40 minutes before editors reversed them. (At the time, the two media companies were both owned by Tribune Company.)

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