A computer hacker from Florida was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison for helping engineer one of the largest thefts of credit and debit card numbers in American history.Judge Patti Saris of Federal District Court sentenced the hacker, Albert Gonzalez of Miami, who pleaded guilty last year to breaking into computer systems of major retailers, including TJX Companies and BJ’s Wholesale Club.Prosecutors sought 25 years for Mr. Gonzalez, saying he victimized millions of people and cost companies, banks and insurers nearly $200 million. His lawyer argued Mr. Gonzalez should get no more than 15 years.Mr. Gonzalez pleaded guilty last year in three separate hacking cases brought in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. The Thursday hearing dealt with the Massachusetts case. A second sentencing Friday, also in Boston, will deal with the others.Mr. Gonzalez’s Boston lawyer, Martin Weinberg, said his client, a self-taught computer expert, displayed behavior consistent with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism.A defense psychiatrist’s report described Mr. Gonzalez as a socially awkward Internet addict with an “idiot savantlike genius for computers and information technology.”Authorities said Mr. Gonzalez and two foreign co-defendants, with a laptop computer, would drive past retailers and tap into those with vulnerable wireless Internet signals.They would then install “sniffer programs” that picked off credit and debit card numbers as they moved through a retailer’s computers before trying to sell the numbers overseas, authorities said.Mr. Gonzalez, known online as “soupnazi,” became a Secret Service informant after he was first arrested for hacking in 2003.But even as he helped the government catch other hackers, prosecutors said, he kept breaking into retailers’ computer systems, amassing $2.8 million he used to buy a Miami condominium, a car, Rolex watches and a Tiffany ring for his girlfriend.Source: NY Times