"Calce estimates that he had hacked into perhaps 40 percent of the major universities in the United States, _using attack code that he picked up online_"
and
"_He took denial of service attack code written by_ a hacker named Sinkhole and developed a way to remotely train all of his approximately 200 university networks on the same target simultaneously, he said."
I think some users are confusing Hacker News with Script Kiddies News.
talk him down all you want, but i remember what it was like when this guy was doing his work (however you want to judge it.) he made headlines. script kiddies don't make headlines, what they do has already been done and automated before them. there was something original to his work, even if he was just using an original combination of scripts. that makes him a hacker, imho.
This is a classic case of someone hustling. He got caught and now he's saying he's just someone who used someone else's tools and is just a nobody who played around... all to lessen the blame for the crime he committed so he gets a lighter sentence.
Don't believe everything you read.
"I learned how from the Intertubes officer."
Glad to know someone beat me to the punch.