Pentagon hackers sentenced to life in real world

Two teen-age hackers were sentenced to life without computers last week after launching attacks against Defense Department information systems.

The California youths were apprehended earlier this year after trying to access Pentagon computers more than 800 times. The boys cannot use computers without supervision for three years, Wired News reported.

Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre in February called the teen-agers' work "the most organized and systematic attack" ever against the Pentagon's networks, saying that some unclassified systems had been penetrated. No classified system's security was breached, Hamre said.

A lawyer for one of the boys said the teens just wanted to see if they could access the systems.