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.

Comments

I dunno...

[boinger]

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.

Easy?

[geek]

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.

Re:Easy?

[CaptJay]

I don't know where you are from, but it definitely does not sound like Quebec (where Mafiaboy happens to live).

Juvenile centers here are geared towards rehabilitating the kids. The kids are followed by psychologists and educators, forced to take standard provincial education (skip class and you end up before a judge who will most likely make your sentence more severe).

My mother has been working in a juvenile center for over 25 years, with kids who murdered their parents, stole from almost everyone in their town, drug addicts, and worse. Some of the kids are irrecuperable, but most you CAN get to change and to function in society. Not once as she been physically attacked by kids there.

Canadian Law

[BluedemonX]

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.

Ridiculously easy?

[p3d0]

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.

Sentence seems fair in Canada

[Malc]

"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.

Easy? ... yea let's put taco in one for 8 months

[disc-chord]

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.

nice double standard..

[_Mustang]

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.

Re:nice double standard..

[alexjohns]

A lot of people were upset about the fact that Kevin Mitnick sat in jail for 4 years without a trial. Due process and all that. If he'd gotten a speedy trial and all that, I think fewere people would have been upset. It showed the rest of us how easy it is for 'The Man' to do whatever he wants to us. That's the lesson most of us learned from Mitnick.

It's also a different country. Contrary to popular belief, Canada is not the 51st state.

What a contradiction.

[MongooseCN]

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?

Re:What a contradiction.

[Dr. Awktagon]

Well besides the fact that many posters don't consider the 8 months detention too little, we also don't think of those two "crimes" the same way. To me, the only similarity is that computers are involved.

Sklyarov was the victim of a misguided and unjust law. He didn't actually do anything to any company, the way MafiaBoy did.

A DoS attack is an actual disruption of business, I have no problem with fair justice for that. Writing a general-purpose program to decode files is different. We don't throw people in jail for writing "ping" which may be used as a DoS tool, and we shouldn't throw them in jail for writing a program that decodes computer files in the privacy of your own home!

A wrist slap is all he should receive!

[ryanvm]

Get some frickin' perspective.

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?

Re:Wrist?

[dragons_flight]

I agree, it's not really a slap on the wrist. Seems to me like it strikes a pretty good balance between the need to recognize that this is a serious crime and deter him and others from doing it again, and the need to recognize that he's still young and should be allowed to show that he can mature and become a productive member of society.

In many prison systems there is an emphasis on simply locking people away and doing little or nothing beyond that to rehabilitate them. This kid, like a lot of other people commiting sophisticated crime, probably has a good intelligence and real potential to contribute to society.

I truly believe we need a system of criminal justice that effectively deals with the mental illness and lack of education that contributes to crime. We should foster productive life skills and punishments that are appropriate to rehabilitation. Non-violent white collar crime certainly isn't deserving of long sentences on first offense. When people have shown that they won't or can't change and continue to offend then it's reasonable for society to consider locking them up for long times merely to keep them out of society.

Compassion and forgiveness have a place in justice, whenever promoting society's respect for life and liberty can be balanced against our need for security. Overly strict law will promote hate, mistrust, and fear among the innocent as well as the guilty.

Those 8 months will be a life altering experience for this kid, as most certainly the arrest and trial already have been. This is a pretty reasonable solution.

You're on crack.

[citricacid]

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.

Because We're Not Sheep

[waldoj]

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.

-Waldo

eight months is easy?

[option8]

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.