The case against Keys has drawn wide attention, in part for his later employment as a social media editor for Reuters. The company fired him in April 2013 shortly after he was indicted.
Before Reuters, Keys worked for KTXL Fox 40, a Sacramento-based broadcaster owned by the Tribune Company. After he was terminated from the company, Keys began communicating with members of Anonymous, a now largely disbanded group notable for its high-profile hacks in 2010 and 2011.
Keys was accused of passing login credentials in early December 2010 to an Anonymous member that eventually enabled access to a content management system used by the LA Times, according to the indictment.
A news story on the Times’ website was subsequently altered, although system administrators quickly detected the changes.
Keys could face a lengthy sentence, which drew a comment from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, who recently started a Twitter account.
He wrote: “For defacing an @LATimes article for 40 minutes, journo @MatthewKeysLive faces 25 years. Years. #PrisonPolicy.”
In a later response on Twitter directed at a Vice journalist, Snowden wrote, “I’m not sure any quantity of years is going to sound appropriate for a crime whose impact was measured in minutes.”
IDG News Service
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