Charlton Floate (19) has pleaded guilty to three counts under the Computer Misuse Act and three charges for possessing prohibited images.
Charlton's lawyers argued that their client was only on the outside of the whole conspiracy and not deeply involved in the matter but the court has ruled out that possibility saying that Charlton is a very intelligent man who is an expert in computer marketing.
The judge quoted in the hearing, "A successful attack on the FBI.gov website is regarded by hackers as the Holy Grail of hacking. It was this which he attempted and, indeed, achieved.He was the person who instituted such attacks and assembled the tools and personnel for doing so."
The FBI site was down for about five hours where as the Home Office site crashed for 83 minutes.
