And while the actions of one single employee is not something that should reflect on an entire company. It does seem to me that it offers us a look at a bigger security problem coming from the nation’s top ISPs.

Just over a year ago we reported on an AOL employee who stole 92 million screen names and sold them to a spammer. Yesterday afternoon the judge passed down Jason Smathers’s sentence.

Smathers struck a plea bargain with the District Attorny and agreed to assist the government in tracking down the recipient of the list in exchange for a prison term of not more than 1 1/2 years. He received a 15-month sentence from U.S. District Judge Alvin Hllerstein. [Read the rest]