YNOT – A Russian hacker received an 18-month prison term last week for what he described as “a bad joke”: a larger-than-life display of hardcore porn that snarled Moscow’s rush-hour traffic in January 2010.
Igor Blinnikov, 40, confessed to uploading an explicit video to a 20-foot x 20-foot electronic billboard from his home computer in Novorossiysk, a city about 760 miles south of Moscow. He said he downloaded the video from the internet “at random” and picked the billboard at random, as well.
According to published reports at the time, the billboard was a particularly poor choice, as it sits atop a hill on Moscow’s busy Garden Ring Road, about two kilometers south of the Kremlin. Drivers slammed on their brakes to watch the hardcore action on what amounted to a gigantic television screen.
Blinnikov told Russian media he is a computer hobbyist who pulled the prank “just for something to do.” Prior to his sentencing for the crime, the shipyard fitter said he had not visited Moscow for more than 20 years.
“I expected a bit less,” he told Russian media after the sentencing, adding he plans to appeal the length of the term.
Blinnikov is serving an additional 54 months on an unrelated conviction for trying to sell 13 grams of marijuana.
