Steven John Barnes, 37, was fired from his job as IT manager of Blue Falcon Networks in San Mateo, California. He admitted in a plea deal that he hacked into the system and programmed the email server to send out spam messages that were blocked by recipients’ detection systems. Prosecutors said the exploit caused the company to lose productivity and prevented employees from communicating by email internally and with customers. The federal prosecutor urged the court to send a message to other would-be hackers that such crimes are taken seriously.”]