Jeanson James Ancheta

On May 9, 2006, Jeanson James Ancheta (born 1985) became the first person to be charged for controlling large numbers of hijacked computers or botnets.

Ancheta was going to Downey High School in Downey, California until 2001 when he dropped out of school. He later entered an alternative program for students with academic or behavioral problems. He worked at an Internet cafe and according to his family wanted to join the military reserves. Around June 2004 he started to work with botnets after discovering rxbot, a common computer worm that could spread his net of infected computers.

Botnet is a jargon term for a collection of software robots, or "bots", that run autonomously and automatically. Hackers have for some time utilized Botnets for various purposes, but Ancheta set himself above the crowd by actively advertising his network of bots on Internet chat channels.

A Web site Ancheta ran included a range of prices he charged people who wanted to rent out the machines, along with guidelines on how many bots were required to bring down a particular type of Web site.

He hijacked somewhere in the area of half a million computer systems. This not only affected computers like the one in your home, but it allowed him and others to orchestrate large-scale attacks.

— US attorney's office in Los Angeles, Thom Mrozek

In November 2005 he was captured in an elaborate sting operation when FBI agents lured him to their local office on the pretext of collecting computer equipment. The arrest was part of the Operation Bot Roast.

On May 9, 2006 Ancheta pleaded guilty to four felony charges of violating United States Code Section 1030, Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Computers, specifically subsections (a)(5)(A)(i), 1030 (a)(5)(B)(i), and 1030(b). Ancheta must serve 60 months in prison, forfeit a 1993 BMW and more than $58,000 in profit. He must also pay restitution of $15,000 US to the U.S. federal government for infecting the military computers.