Jonathan James

A lot of hackers start young and they will only get younger as this generation grows up surrounded by technology. Jonathan James was the poster boy for teenage hackers, gaining his first conviction at the age of 16 for stealing $170m worth of code from NASA. He did this by hacking into the computers of the Defence Threat Reduction Agency and installing a “backdoor” which gave him access to both messages and source code. He was 15 at the time of the offence and 16 when tried, so received only a juvenile sentence. He resolved to put this past behind him but in 2007 his name was mentioned in conjunction with a hack on the TJX department store. Maintaining his innocence but convinced he would go to prison, he committed suicide on May 18th 2008.