Jeremy Hammond was put in prison for 10 years over high-profile cyber attacks. Photo: Cook County Sheriff's Department

Cocaine dealers, bank robbers and carjackers converge at Manchester Federal Prison in rural Kentucky in the US and then there is Jeremy Hammond, a tousle-haired and talented hacker whose nimble fingers have clicked and tapped their way into the world's computing systems. Among those whose data he helped expose: the husband of the federal judge who sentenced him.

"From the start, I always wanted to target government websites, but also police and corporations that profit off government contracts," he says. "I hacked lots of dot-govs."

Once the FBI's most-wanted cybercriminal, Hammond is serving one of the longest sentences a US hacker has received 10 years, the maximum allowed under his plea agreement last year.

Jeremy Hammond in an earlier photo.

"This is the nicest room in the place," he said when recently visited by this journalist in a drab cinderblock visiting room to talk about how and why he did what he did. Prison authorities barred cameras and recorders, citing security.

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A hacktivist for more than a decade, Hammond, 29, was arrested in 2012 after penetrating the US-based security think tank Stratfor, whose clients include the US Department of Homeland Security and the Defence Department.

He'd been working with a subgroup of the loose-knit hacking movement "Anonymous" to disrupt the networks of Sony Pictures, the Public Broadcasting Service, the Arizona Department of Public Safety and others when a member of the group enlisted him to help break into Stratfor's systems.

Hacker Hector Xavier Monsegur helped law enforcement infiltrate Anonymous and convict eight hackers in all. Photo: AP

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