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Mafiaboy Gets His Wrist Slapped
An anonymous reader writes: "Mafiaboy, the Canadian 'hacker' that did the DOS on Ebay, Amazon, Excite, CNN, etc. has gotten 8 months in a youth detention centre and 1 year probation. Prosecuters think this will be a message to 'hackers' that do this kind of thing. I say the message should be to the scriptkiddies who obviously don't know how to cover their tracks, to at least learn to do so before they download malicious software." The other message is that even if you get caught, your sentence will be ridiculously easy.
Seems to me 8 months in juvenile detention is not 'getting his wrist slapped'. At 17, 8 months is an eternity. This will n ot be nice for him.
Michael
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BDOS ERR ON A:>
8 months for a scrawny nerd in a juvenile detention center? He's going to get the shit kicked out of him regularly, I would surmise. That's a pretty hard sentence for running some other idiot's code.
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I don't know what you think is easy about it. I spent time in a youth detention center and now as an adult every body I know that spends time in jail for DUI or otherwise tells me they would rather be in an adult prison than a youth detention center. In jail you get a TV, a matress some luxuries. In a youth center you get a thin matress resting on a concrete slab and that's it. No bathroom in your cell, no TV nothing.
Also consider he will be surrounded by criminals who will likely kick the shit out of him regularly for being a "geek".
There is nothing easy about this. Adults have rights, youths do not as a matter of law. It's a kangaroo court system. They sentenced him to 8 months but that could eaily turn into 8 years as he is likely to make fuck ups in there and will have to defend himself against the others which will make his time harder and longer.
I feel sorry for him. Most people who go to a youth detention center often times become criminals as adults.
I don;t know the details, he may very well deserve this, but I honestly from a first hand perspective don't think anyone deserves what the youth detention centers dish out.
Keep in mind Canadian Law is goverened by the Young Offenders Act.
Maximum Sentence for ANYTHING (mass murder, etc) is three years.
By the standards of that act, he was punished very hard.
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What kind of sentence do you want? Will you not be satisfied until his life is ruined?
8 months is a long time. Think of all you have done in the last 8 months, since January, and imagine being in a youth detention center instead.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
You say that as if its a bad thing. I would think that a job in which a kid could learn and develop new skills is a far better form of 'rehabilitation' than 8 months of getting the crap kicked out of him.
To incarcirate a hacker is stupid
I disagree. It sends a message that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated.
I personally think all hackers should only be on probation (WITH computer access)
What? That's like putting a drunk driver on probation with access to a to some liquor and a car. Denying a convicted hacker computer access is an appropriate form of punishment. It's like denying a child television when they disobey.
If Mafiaboy was a real smart computer nerd, he would have known that his actions were wrong and not did what he did.
"Mafiaboy, [...] has gotten 8 months in a youth detention centre and 1 year probation. [...] The [other] message is that even if you get caught, your sentence will be ridiculously easy. "
That seems fair to me, and in line with society's expectations. Was the crime so heinous that he needed to be tried as an adult? No. Was the crime so heinous that he needed a sentance as long as those handed down to rapists and murders? No. Please don't forgot, other countries aren't as keen as Americans seem to be when it comes to locking people up, and for how long they get locked away, e.g. murder in Britain might get you 20 years, but in the US life or even execution.
I spent 4 months in the San Jose Juvi. I was not a total geek, but I sure as hell was not a gang-banger... which is exactly what everyone else was in there. I only got into one fight, but fights are the least of your worries. Try to imagine what it's like to be surrounded by murderers and rapists all day long. I will assume that he is relatively bright, and will have to deal with being in a confined space with people who are not only ignorant and poorly educated, but also very intolerant of educated-types.
4 months was way too long for me, 8 months would be an eternity. Granted... he will likely not have to deal with the sort of racism I faced (I was 1 of 4 white people, our of 600) in San Jose, but he is definetly not getting off easy.
Looking back to stories and posts about these types of offenders leads me to believe there is a serious double standard around here.
Think back and you'll remember everyone complaining that Kevin Mitnick received too harsh a sentence for his hacking/cracking actitivies. I even recall some posters mentioning that a rape/murder gets less time than Kevin's sentence. That was for an adult - maybe even the adult who is considered the *definitive* hacker's hacker, cracker's cracker and such; but that sentence was perceived as totally out of line.
Now we get this teen ager who is pretty much the poster child definition for the term "script kiddie" and a sentence of 8-9 months in juvie is too light a sentence..
Seems to me that the sentence should fit the crime. What he did is really the equivalent of spray painting the front of the local wal-mart - vandalism for sure but hardly a capital crime; he got a reasonable sentence.
What does the outside world think of slashdot when one day everyone is yelling that Dmitry Sklyarov should be set free even though he violated the DMCA and created and sold illegal software. Then the next day a 17 year old script kiddy who DOS attacked a few sites and got a punishment of 8 months in a detention center, and everyone is angry that his punishment isn't enough? How could the common person get any understanding what slashdot's ideology is?
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Exactly what losses can a company claim when they are victim of a DOS attack? Damaged hardware? No. Theft of goods? No. The only "loss" one of these companies had is potential income for that short period of time. And even that is completely subjective. Realistically, if you were going to buy a book from Amazon and you couldn't get to their web site, chances are you'd just try again in a few hours. The same goes for all the other web sites - especially the portals. Would you change your home page if the site was down for a couple hours?
Also, consider that this was a 16 year old boy. For Christ's sake, do you remember how stupid you were when you were 16? How much time do you think a kid should serve for a foolish mistake that didn't really harm anyone?
Slap on the wrist? Exactly how do you call this a 'slap on the wrist'?
Mafiaboy is a seventeen year old - a teenager, probably misplaced socially - who decided to see what he could do with his computer. What you deride as 'script kiddieism' is nothing more than curiosity travelling its logical path. The only reasons he didn't bury his nose in *nix programming like you probably did is because one, he's young, and two, it's boring.
This isn't to say he's any sort of innocent. Obviously he has some anger issues or something to work out, and these should be dealt with. Eight months in juvey is going to be a dragging hell for him as it is, and probably won't resolve any of his social aberrancy. It's not just harsh, it's ineffective.
What would you advise as an alternative to this 'slap on the wrist'? Throw him in prison and let him rot? I have to say, then, that you are one hard motherfucker. His crimes were economic, nonviolent, and those of youth: more annoyances than anything, and ones that show us that . It would immoral to steal his life to pay for what it can't.
Ideally, he should simply be seperated from technology and forced to work excessively in the community. Make him go out and meet people. Make him help people. This isn't an evil, violent person. Locking him in with his fellow misanthropes is going to help no one.
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As much as a surprise as this might be, there is no unifying Slashdot ideology. Being as how we're all capable of free thought, some people believe things that others don't.
I can't believe that I've had to state something so blindingly obvious.
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certainly it's at a YDC and not at a federal, pound-you-in-the-ass penitentiary, but still, eight months.
that's a full year of school you'd have to miss, and take again with kids 2 years younger than you. and a year after _that_ you still wouldn't be able to leave the state or be out after curfew.
imagine you're back in high school, and remember the pain of persecution and social awkwardness of being a geek. add to that the weekly visits to your parole officer, and think that's not at least a little trying for a kid who, essentially, downloaded some software and ran it.
personally, i think it's light in comparison to the damage and loss of commerce in dollar amounts floating around from the "Attack" - and i hope his parole terms include not being able to use the Internet unsupervised - but considering the age of the of the offender with no priors (i presume) this isn't "ridiculously easy" or a wristslap. a wristslap would be a fine (which his parents have to pay) and maybe parole.
being confined to a cell, your movements and actions constantly under scrutiny for eight months, essentially without any liberties, is an appropriate sentence for someone who intentionally committed a severe act of vandalism. the travesty would be giving the same sentence, or less, to people who maim or kill while drunk behind the wheel of a car, which happens every day in the courts.
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Maybe by American standards it is. But by Canadian laws in general, and Quebec's system in particular, it seems appropriate. The funny idea that people have around here is that kids that commit crimes are not yet beyond being brought back on the right track. The juvenile centers here are very supervised, but not by armed guards. The kids are followed by psychologists and educators, forced to go to school and get deprived of some of the few things they have when they get too bad results.
You may find it funny, but alot of the kids that get put through this find it very hard, and think twice about it. What's more, they can't just hide in their corner forever, they have to open up sooner or later. And not surprisingly to me, alot end up very good citizens afterwards.
So basically, different countries, different approaches. And I kinda like ours.
"I remember Y1K, every abacus had to get another bead"
While I will refrain from commenting on this individual in this case, it must be said that we in a free society need to always be on our guard as to what the laws are, why they are, and how they are being carried out.
Why can a man in Virginia be throw in jail for going down on his wife in the privacy of their bedroom?
Why does crack cocaine have harder sentences than powder?
Why do blacks make up 15% of the US drug using population but 36% of the drug arrests?
Why can consenting adults be jailed for what they do behind closed doors? [ prostitution, assisted suicide, drug use, sodomy ]
Why, when people break the law, do we enroll them institutions that teach them how to harder criminals and then let them back into society?
Why do we say we are rehabilitating criminals when we only punish them?
The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance.
Sheep like you are the reason things are the way they are.
America is so caught up in this "Punish them so they realize how dumb it was" phase. What they don't really realize is what putting someone away for 10 years (especially at the age mafiaboy is) can do to a person. Release a 25 year old who has been in jail for the past ten years, and they have no shot at a normal life. While some people say "Good, what he deserves," I honestly doubt if he has any brains he'll try something like this again.
Sure, the kid got a rise out of slowing the internet for a few days, but we all did stupid stuff when we were 15. Hell, some of my friends went out and threw rocks at cars off an overpass on the freeway. Sure, we realize how utterly dangerous this was now, but it seemed like something fun and rebellious in 8th grade. It's hardly a reason to take the rest of someone's life away. This kid is going to have a hard enough time getting a decent job or even into college with this on his record.
The point of prison is to pusnish, but I doubt any of you know how hard even eight months in a controlled environment like juvenile detention is. This is pretty harsh, I have a friend who were caught for posession of a rather large quantity of marijuana and only got 3 months probation because he was 16 and federal drug laws didn't apply (had he been 2 years older, the min. sentence is 25 years, which is absurd for having some ganja) The moral of this post? We as a country are so hell-bent on the punishment of criminals (I'm mainly talking about the non-violent ones) that we fail to see the punishment does more harm to society than the crime itself. I doubt many of you can fathom what jail is like. Even a year in jail is not something you forget easily.