If you recall, back in May of 2008 we told you how the Comcast web portal was hacked by a group calling itself "Kryogenics," posting the usually gramatically incoherent shout out to their own supposed awesomeness and fellow nerd homies. The hack disrupted user access to the portal and the official Comcast forums for several hours, before Comcast tracked down the problem and the fix was propagated across DNS servers. According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, the three young men responsible for the hack have been indicted for "conspiring to disrupt service." The indictment claims the hack cost Comcast "a little less than $129,000," though each defendant could receive a maximum sentence of five years in jail, three years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine and a $100 special assessment, on top of potential forced restitution to Comcast -- who certainly could use the money.

When last we checked in with Comcast's Internet video "TV Everywhere" initiative, it was looking more like "TV in some places, some of the time," given there were hints the service wouldn't be available to customers who weren't using a Comcast cable modem for broadband access. The idea of course is to provide existing TV customers access to free Internet video so they won't cut the cord -- but as we've explored, if the industry screw things up it could have the exact opposite effect.

Comcast of course is currently engaged in a trial of the service with about 5,000 of their customers, and is set to launch the program next month. As noted above, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts recently suggested that the service would only work if you were on a Comcast broadband connection.

We've certainly levied more than our fair share of criticism at Comcast over the years, but late yesterday the cable giant took one hell of a beating for doing, well, absolutely nothing. It began when Slashdot posted a story saying that Comcast had imposed a new throttling system. Comcast actually hadn't -- the story Slashdot linked to was nearly a year old and explored a throttling system Comcast implemented almost a year ago.

No matter, apparently.

In discussing yesterday's earnings on a conference call with reporters, Comcast hinted that -- despite being profitable and in hot pursuit an NBC Universal acquisition -- employees should prepare for layoffs. There's no word on where exactly these layoffs will be happening or how many, but early indications are that many of the cuts will be in advertising. According to the Boston Globe, at least 64 positions have already been trimmed at Comcast's Spotlight advertising division, though those cut were informed of the decision back in September.

Update: One user sends in an additional Boston Globe report ranking Comcast as the top place to work. Great news -- assuming you still work there.

Comcast issued their third quarter earnings this morning, which indicate that while growth has slowed slightly at the cable giant, the money continues to roll in thanks to a combination of rate hikes and customers adding additional services. The company recorded a quarterly profit of $944 million, up from $771 million one year earlier. The company added 361,000 net broadband subscribers and 375,000 VoIP net customers, lower than predicted growth on both fronts but still respectable in the eyes of Wall Street investors.

Respectable might be an understatement, given Comcast's quarterly broadband subscriber additions were more than double the combined total of Qwest, AT&T and Verizon on the quarter.