Ananova:

A teenage hacker sentenced to six months at a juvenile detention centre for invading NASA and Pentagon computers says he now regrets what he did.

"Never again," 16-year-old Jonathan James told the Miami Herald. "It's not worth it because all of it was for fun and games and they're putting me in jail for it. I don't want that to happen again. I can find other stuff for fun."

Jonathan told the newspaper he had also hacked into other networks, including BellSouth and the Miami-Dade school system, although his claims could not be verified immediately.

Armed federal agents raided his home in January, seizing four desktop computers, a laptop and a hand-held computer.

He was sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty to invading NASA computers which support the international space station, as well as Pentagon systems that monitor the potential for nuclear, chemical and biological attacks against the United States and its allies.

Jonathan, who was known on the internet as c0mrade, downloaded 3,300 e-mails from the Defence Threat Reduction Agency.

He fooled government computers into thinking he was a system administrator who could delete files and change or appropriate passwords, although he said he never deleted any files, changed passwords or introduced viruses.

As part of his sentence, he will not be allowed to use the internet except for school work.