A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction and two-year sentence of the California journalist who was found guilty under a federal anti-hacking law last year.

On Monday, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it was not persuaded by arguments made by Matthew Keys’ defense attorneys. In a hearing earlier this month, his lawyers said that while their client may have handed over a username and password that resulted in a brief defacement of one Los Angeles Times article, this did not constitute actual "damage" as described in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

As Ars reported earlier, Keys was accused of giving out a username and password for his former employer KTXL Fox 40's content management system (CMS) to members of Anonymous and instructing people there to "fuck some shit up." Ultimately, that December 2010 incident resulted in someone else using those credentials to alter a headline and sub-headline on a Los Angeles Times article. (Both Fox 40 and the Times are owned by the Tribune Media Company.) The changes lasted for 40 minutes before editors reversed them.

In 2016, Keys was found guilty on three counts of conspiracy and criminal hacking after a jury trial. Even post-conviction, Keys continues to deny the actions that he was convicted of. In April 2016, he was sentenced to two years in prison, and he is scheduled for release at the end of April 2018.

The 9th Circuit judges found that this damage went beyond the mere alteration, as Keys created new accounts, and there was a fervent effort to contain the defacement.

"Prior to Keys’s conduct, the CMS existed in a certain state of security. Keys made the CMS far weaker by taking and creating new user accounts," the court wrote. "This manipulation of user accounts and login credentials (not Keys’s access) impaired the system."

Shortly after the ruling was issued, Keys himself sent an e-mail via the CORRLINKS system to reporters from the federal prison camp in Atwater, California, where he is being held. "I am extremely disappointed in their decision," he wrote. "Until I have a chance to review their opinion, I will have no further comment."

Mark Jaffe, one of Keys’ attorneys, told Ars by e-mail that he was "struck" by the decision. "I didn't expect something to be issued so quickly and so tersely," he wrote.

Jaffe added that Keys and his legal team had not determined whether they would seek a review by a full panel of appellate judges (an en banc appeal) or ask the Supreme Court to consider the case.