Adrian Lamo Pleads Guilty

from the article... by croddy · 2004-01-10 02:41 · Score: 5, Funny

Lamo gained notoriety long before hacking The New York Times for his rootless life on the streets of San Francisco and for admitting to hacking the networks of high-profile companies such as Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Worldcom Inc.

no pun intended.

This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund by Amsterdam+Vallon · 2004-01-10 02:48 · Score: 3, Informative

Go to Freelamo.com, a non-profit website DEDICATED to supporting Adrian Lamo.

ALL profits from donations and or merchandise purchases are donated to the Adrian Lamo Defense Fund.

We HAVE to help this guy out. Jail is not right -- what he did was mere curiosity mixed with the desire to HELP these companies fix their network.

He did nothing of REAL financial damage. Please help him today (imagine if you were in HIS shoes!).

Thank you for reading this, friends. We, as a large tech community, have to get behind this guy and show others that mere EXPLORING is not to be looked down upon. What if we didn't explore Mars/Moon?

--

Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.

Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund by 91degrees · 2004-01-10 02:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

Why?

It seems he crosed the line into illegal hacking. The website gives no reason not to believe the prosecution's account of the case, and to accept that the penalty agreed to is proportionate.
Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-10 02:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

In real life if you go exploring where you shouldn't, you'll likely be charged with tresspassing. There's a variety of other crimes you could be charged with, depending on how you entered. One of these is breaking and entering. Just the same, in the online world, if you circumvent security measures, you should expect to be charged with a crime for it, should you get caught. In the real world, if I get caught having broken into someone's house, whether or not I actually stole or destroyed anything doesn't matter. I still illegally entered. It lessens the crime, but there still was a crime committed.

That's the law, like it or not. Lamo broke the law and needs to pay his debt to society just like anyone else who breaks the law. Whether or not you agree with his sentence of the law itself doesn't matter.
Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund by mindstrm · 2004-01-10 02:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Lexis-Nexis costs money. NYT has to pay for that access. Administrator time costs money.

I wouldn't be in his shoes; I would be smart enough not to cross the line between checking out their security and racking up bills with other online services in their name. I also wouldn't be adding stuff to the corporate databases.

So if you catch some kids in your house, just snooping around, but not stealing anything (they ate a few of your cookies though, and watched one or two Pay-per-view movies), and they came in through a window while you were on vacation.. it's okay because they are "Just kids, just exploring?"

The neighbor who checks your front door, finds it unlocked, knows you are on vactaion, so he locks it for you and slides a note under the door, he's being nice. That's a totally different story than a stranger wandering around your shit.
Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund by Lumpy · 2004-01-10 03:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

No you are way wrong.

He is a vandal, and bragged about his vandalisim.

In fact he is not even a hacker/cracker but pretty much a poser with a little bit of "skillz".

While I will be the first to defend a hack/crack that was in the truest sense, or someone that was trying to do good, I will not help defend a vandal-punk nor condone such actions.

This was not some curious person trying to better themselves or found something that was wrong and brought it to the attention of it's owners... this was a person that intentionally set out to deface and damage other people's property.

Just like the kid that spray painted my car, I was there in court to help hang him for damaging my property... but he was merely curious if spraypaint would stick to cars.

If he hacked in, looked around, maybe mssed around a bit and used some of the resources there to learn more, then I agree.... he did not, he intentionally went in to damage.

Please help him today (imagine if you were in HIS shoes!).

I wouldn't be, I'm not so stupid as to brag about what I have done. The true sign of a lamer.... they brag.

so I wont help, this isn't like the last 2-3 (and no, Mitnick was not innocent, he was guilty as hell and merely a common thief but treated very unfairly)

so call me when he is not allowed a speedy trial, or other rights are getting violated. until then this is a simple punk that broke the law for the fun of destruction and got caught because he was really stupid.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund by shigelojoe · 2004-01-10 05:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

Do you keep potentially sensitive information in your shed? For instance, payroll information, information regarding contacts, unpublished articles, or other confidential information?

A better analogy to the situation at hand would be if your shed was locked, chained, and bolted shut, the bum was actually a person who forced open locks, chains, and bolts in their spare time and your shed contained your personal and tax information, any information about your business' transactions and contacts, and your entire archive of e-mail correspondence. Stuff you would not seen by others, and stuff you would *definitely* not want potentially distributed freely on the internet.

The network was protected for a reason, and Adrian Lamo must have known the nature of the information he was accessing. He deserves to be punished.
Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund by Simonetta · 2004-01-10 06:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

In the United States the punishment for a crime is always inversely proportional to the damage that the crime did to society.

For example, a Chief Financial Officer of a major Forbes-500 corporation who does a pump-and-dump on the stock, collects $100 million dollars and wipes out the pension funds of thousands of employees MAY get six months if caught.

A cracker who breaks into a 'secure' corporate network and has the opportunity to view home phone numbers of op-ed page contibutors will LIKELY get three years.

A black or working-class white teenager found with 25 cents worth of marijuana in his pocket will get a mandatory minimum of five years in prison.

In the USA the punishment for your 'crime' (and everybody is guilty of something) is determined by the amount of money that you spend on your lawyer. The lawyer acts as the intermediary between you and the 'justice' system. He/she ensures that the court takes your social class into consideration when the prosecutor is determining what 'crime' that you will be charged with, and that any applicable pay-offs are delivered to the right parties with all deniable discression.

In the USA many prisons are run by private corporations that receive a set fee for each convict delivered to them. Often these prison corporations (such as CCA and Wackenhut) are publicly traded on the stock exchanges and their stock price depends on how many people they have in their camps. These corporations set up Political Action Committees to lobby for prision sentences that are much longer than the same activities would bring in other countries where the activity is considered a felony offence.

The most common cause for long prison sentences in the USA is getting high differently than drinking whiskey like the ruling class does. Major drug dealers are routinely set free in exchange for supplying the prison industry with hundreds of individual users who supply more bodies for the prison and ensure high profits and stock prices for the prison corporation. Since these people are often poor, they don't have the money to buy 'legal services' like bribes that would keep them out of the camps. Once in prison these people are sold by the prison corporation to drug companies as test subjects for corporate drugs that will then be sold to middle-class people through television ads at enormous profit for imaginary diseases like shyness.

As a result the USA has more people in prison for longer periods than any other country.

Re:Why by gantrep · 2004-01-10 02:49 · Score: 4, Informative

Because he didn't have a permanent address and occasionally stayed in empty buildings.

Not Homeless by SirChris · 2004-01-10 02:53 · Score: 5, Funny

Well, at least he won't be homeless for 5 years.

More details of what he did. by gantrep · 2004-01-10 02:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

His "exploring" involved the access of "home telephone numbers and Social Security numbers for more than 3,000 contributors to the Times' Op-Ed page." And use of the LexisNexis service without paying for it. He also "set up five fictitious user identification names and passwords inside the Times' system to use to access LexisNexis and then used them to make more than 3,000 searches in February 2002."

While you can quibble about the definition of damage, I feel that what he did is the analogue of theft and trespassing on a massive (albeit electronic) scale. He is remorseful for his actions, and I agree that he certainly should be held accountable for his actions.

This from the CNN article.

I'm sorry man, but the moon wasn't anybody's private property and equipment.

Why didn't he do something useful? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-10 02:59 · Score: 5, Funny

Why didn't he do something useful, like get rid of that obnoxious registration system?

Crackdown by Nadsat · 2004-01-10 02:59 · Score: 5, Interesting

He is a charasmatic hacker. He explains to companies their weaknesses. When he hacked WorldCom in 2001, WorldCom praised him for his efforts.

Apparantly it seems Times doesn't share the same affinity. Now FBI has him as a public menace and threat. I wonder what the talk would be if he was Islamic?

I'm beginning to think that all the FBI does these days is find martyrs, symbolic arrests to illustrate points of model citizen behavior. This is opposed to actually arresting people who do do a lot of damage. Another example, Sherman Austin from Raise the Fist.com, was subject to police raid, extended arrest, and jail sentencing because he posted information in a protest guide (that he didn't author) which contained a small link about explosives.

Too many martyrs. We need a calendar, the martyr-a-day celendar, to list the date when all the different people were arrested. Otherwise we'll lose track and just start accepting this.

--

The Custom Mary

Re:Crackdown by AKnightCowboy · 2004-01-10 04:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

He is a charasmatic hacker. He explains to companies their weaknesses. When he hacked WorldCom in 2001, WorldCom praised him for his efforts.
There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. When you do them the wrong way you need to expect to be punished by society. If he would've done it the right way and either started a consulting company or joined one of the numerous computer security companies he wouldn't be in this situation. I don't care how kind hearted you think you are when you're breaking into someone's system, it's still illegal and you're still a criminal. The only legitimate people that can break into systems are the administrators themselves or people who have been given permission (no doubt along with a lengthy rules of engagement that you must adhere to).

If a guy breaks into your house, make him a hero? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-10 03:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

OK, mind if we make a hero out of burglar who breaks into your house?

After all, there is nothing wrong if he "EXPLORES" your medicine cabinet and sock drawer, right?

As long as he doesn't do anything of "REAL financial damage" ?

What Debt to Society? by William+G.+Davis · 2004-01-10 03:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

From the sound of things, he just wants to pay his debt to society and put this behind him.

From the sound of things, Adrian didn't want to take the chance of having to spend five years in Danbury or Allenwood.

He didn't create the vulnerabilities in the Times' network, he merely exposed them in the same way he's been doing for years. Adrian hurt no one and owes nothing to society.

Lamo may have a deal with the prosecutors by Honorbound · 2004-01-10 03:25 · Score: 5, Informative

According to TechTV's "The Screen Savers" (computer help and trends show, for those not familiar), who have interviewed Lamo several times, he has struck a deal with the Feds to server six months in Federal prison. He was asking for six months of home detention, but he still ended up a heck of a lot better than five years!

--
"I'm not, like, that smart. I, like, forget stuff all the time." -- Paris Hilton

Re:If I was the judge.. by Patrik_AKA_RedX · 2004-01-10 03:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Id sentance him to a year working at MS.. that'll teach him! ;P

You can't. The constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishments.

This is absolute BULLSHIT. by iiioxx · 2004-01-10 03:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

We HAVE to help this guy out. Jail is not right -- what he did was mere curiosity mixed with the desire to HELP these companies fix their network.

He did nothing of REAL financial damage. Please help him today (imagine if you were in HIS shoes!).

Thank you for reading this, friends. We, as a large tech community, have to get behind this guy and show others that mere EXPLORING is not to be looked down upon. What if we didn't explore Mars/Moon?

Pardon my frankness, but you are full of shit. If you came home and found this asshole sitting in your livingroom watching pay-per-view TV after having gone through all of your cabinets and drawers, would you say:

"Oh, no problem. What you did wasn't wrong. You were just being *curious* about what was in my house. You were just *exploring* when you went through my desk drawers and read all of my personal documents. You were just trying to *help* me by pointing out security vulnerabilities in my patio door and alarm system. Thanks so much!"

NO! You wouldn't. You'd call the cops after chasing the guy out of your house.

This isn't about exporing Mars. This is breaking and entering, pure and simple. It's time that people like this stop thinking the whole goddam world is here just to satisfy their personal "curiosity". To be perfectly blunt, you can take your Adrian Lamo Defense Fund and cram it up your ass. I want to see this guy do the maximum stretch as a lesson to other "curious" fellows.

Sad outcome but he knew the dangers by Metex · 2004-01-10 04:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

Well I have been waiting for this news for a while now. I know Adrian much more as a person then a hacker. It saddens me to see him plead guilty and possibly go to jail but I knew he wouldnt fight if they charged him with actions that he did do.

One thing though that is hard to convay exspecially in text is his increadible sence of moral ethics. When we look at a name attached to the word hacker we have a certain mindset an image of all the hacker refrences we have at our disposal and apply that to Adrian. In this case that image is way off base. While I could list why I think he is an activly good person instead of the passive good/passive neutral people that make up the bulk of our society it still would not do him justice.

If you ever have the chance to talk to him for a good 20 minutes take the oppertunity, sit down and buy him a drink. By the end of the conversation you will walk away feeling that in his case he really shouldnt get the maximum sentance.

--
Never could figure out why my girl liked my bitch tits, then I found out she was a lesbian.

Re:Sad outcome but he knew the dangers by Richard+Allen · 2004-01-10 04:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

Not trying to compare him in any sort of way to a murderer ... but did you ever notice the neighbors often say the same thing you are saying about a neighbor convicted of murder?

"He was such a good guy. Seemed perfectly normal to me. Always waved 'hi' in the morning."

Not trying to bust on your acquaintance, but since you brought it up ... if somebody does something wrong, just because they did 10 "nice" things before that doesn't excuse their action, and doesn't mean you should ignore the "bad" thing when defining their character. I'm sure there are worse hackers out there, but then again ... with the exception of one ... there always are.

Just what is a "homeless Hacker"? by Nova+Express · 2004-01-10 04:14 · Score: 4, Funny

Does he stand on the side of the road with a cardboard sign that reads:

W1LL 0WNZ UR NETW0RK 4 F00D?

--
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)

http://www.lawrenceperson.com/

Thank Gawd for the crackers by cdn-programmer · 2004-01-10 05:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

As was pointed out in posts about Kevin Metnik - the glory days of cracking systems past quite a few years ago.

Back then people sent passwords in plain text, there were no firewalls, nfs was as vulnerable as eggs laid on a freeway. Practically nobody paid any attention to security issues.

And this illustrates exactly why the crackers have done all of us a service.

There are enemies in this world... but they are not people like Adrian Lamo.

Without the crackers our systems would still be as vulnerable as they were 15 and 20 years ago. People would still take risks that any normal person would consider insane. In fact, a lot of people, perhaps the majority, still have a lot to learn.

So again I say - thank Gawd for the crakers and guys - keep up the good work. Keep pounding home the point that people must pay attention to proper security. Without consequences for lax security it is clear they won't do a damn thing.

23 of 296 comments (clear)