Engineering senior Ryan Goldstein is set to be sentenced today for his involvement in hacking into the School of Engineering and Applied Science's computer system in February 2006.
Goldstein pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting another person to gain unauthorized access to a protected computer in March.
Federal sentencing guidelines call for a sentence of zero to six months in prison.
Goldstein was arrested in fall 2007 as part of an international FBI investigation.
Authorities say he collaborated with a New Zealand hacker to use another Penn student's username and password to access a University server.
The FBI's investigation of Goldstein was triggered by a 2006 SEAS server crash, which was caused by an inundation of traffic on the server and denied access to 4,000 students, staff and faculty.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Levy, the prosecutor in the case, said he will not try to push for the maximum sentence at today's hearing, but rather he will leave it up for the judge to decide what the proper punishment will be.
Levy added that he thinks U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson "will do what he thinks is the right decision."
Levy added that he does not expect witnesses to be called in the case.
Ronald Levine, Goldstein's lawyer, declined to comment for this article.
Goldstein was the accomplice of New Zealand teenager Owen Walker, who had hacked into a number of computers in order to, among other things, attempt to control the computers in an effort to manipulate stock trades and crash industry computers.
Walker was fined $11,000 in a New Zealand court over the summer.
