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Hacker Sentenced To Longest US Sentence Yet
Iphtashu Fitz writes "The Associated Press is reporting that a Michigan man has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for his involvement in hacking into the corporate systems of Lowe's Home Improvement and attempting to steal customer credit card information. The sentence far exceeds the 5 1/2 years that hacker Kevin Mitnick spent behind bars. Two others are awaiting sentencing, including one of the first people to ever be convicted of wardriving. Prosecutors said the three men tapped into the wireless network of a Lowe's store in Southfield, Mich., used that connection to enter the chain's central computer system in North Wilkesboro, N.C., and installed a program to capture credit card information. No data was actually collected however."
This is great news and will hopefully discourage other hackers.
There's no place like localhost
That's the longest sententence indeed.
They were criminals. These were crackers, not hackers. You don't install credit card number capturing software on someone's retail network unless you're up to no good.
Thanks to our parole system which considers rape, murder, and anything else that isn't drug sales to be harmless to society, he'll be out in just four or six.
Don't Do it
For reference, a typical sentence for breaking and entering with intent to steal is about two to four years...
But, hey. It looks better when they catch a guy "breaking" into a computer across the internet then when they catch someone actually breaking into a house. Best to throw the biggest book in the area at them to play the circus up some.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
They should lock up the fool that set their network up!
The an admin who sets up an unsecure wireless network should be convicted for stupidity.
Wardrivers like that give the wardriving community a bad name. Some wardrivers just want to find free and legal hotspots, and others (although they could have good intentions) just want a free net connection. Wardriving as a cheap way to access corporate networks is just bad taste...
WASTE - The Secure P2P
I hope you rot in jail
including one of the first people to ever be convicted of wardriving.
Can you be really convicted of wardriving, or just something you do illegally while you're wardriving?
According to the wikipedia article in the blurb:
Although acessing the files on an open network is illegal, it is not illegal to simply use the internet connection of an open wireless network, this is a common misunderstood concept. Most wardrivers do not in fact use services without authorization.
Seems kind of like saying, "He was convicted for using the Internet" when someone gets convicted of cracking.
Another thing...so you can use the connection, but you can't use any files? What's the justification for that? If you leave the network open and allow it to be used and you leave files open on it, how can it be illegal to use them?
Since when is wardriving illegal?
Jay | http://oldos.org
This had very little to do with wardriving other then the fact that is how they found the network.
Instead this has to do with them trying to defraud a company.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
We, the Illegal Pirates of the Internet Who Must Steal Everything No Matter What, rue the travesty that has lead to the sentencing of our compatriots. We remain dedicated to the theft and infringement of all intellectual property at all costs, including but not limited to financial records and credit card numbers. Rest assured, we will continue our relentless campaign to thieve.
Signed,
The Illegal Pirates of the Internet Who Must Steal Everything No Matter What
p.s. clock!
While I think sentences (including this one) in the United States are excessive, and I think prison in fact fails to solve anything because it is used as a punishment rather than a rehabilitation and in fact makes people worse rather than better, I sort of rankle at this person being compared to Kevin Mitnick.
Kevin had no interest in any sort of financial gain from his activities. He was only interested in exploring and seeing what he could find. He was an annoying guy, but not one with ill intention.
I don't know the details about these individuals, but it seems to be implied that it was a moneymaking operation. That makes it far worse than anything Kevin did.
That said, prison isn't the answer. Only violent people should go to prison (and those prisons should be run such that they don't create the atmosphere for violence inside that they do today -- i.e. don't use the prisoners as an unwritten "punishment" against eachother -- punishment is counterproductive.)
I bet he isn't looking forward to having his security hole exploited while in prison!
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
Let me make a few preemptive arguments before the inevitable "Free Kevin"-esque posts start coming by the hundreds.
/.ers. For proof, look no further than the topic which this is posted under.
/.ers want to sympathize with this guy is the fact that a lot of them are (good) hackers. No matter how dirty his actions were, they don't want to see a fellow hacker put in prison.
This guy is a criminal. He robbed people, or attempted to rob them. This is like robbing a bank, only worse. Nobody should show any sympathy for this guy. In fact, for the identity theft and fraud he commited, nine years is much too short of a sentence.
I know that a lot of the people who read this may tend to sympathize with him. This is the nature of
That's right, "Your Rights Online." Some editors or submitters apparently think that we have the online right to attempt to steal the property of other people, which if you think about for a minute is absurd.
The reason a lot of
But please, think before you post inane things about how our legal system is evil and corrupt. This is good. Thank God for the law.
Le français vous intéresse?
So Lowe's is guilty of not securing their network. That's like leaving your front door wide open and wondering why a burglar wandered in. Yes, the hacker deserves punished for intent to steal, but that long of a sentence?
If they forcibly broke into the network, I can understand the charges. But if the network, like many wireless access points, had no password, shouldn't they be charged with trespassing? I'm sure installing the logging software they used also violates many privacy laws, even if they didn't utilize the data it collected.
I don't think so.
Prison isn't the answer, and I doubt the authorities would insist on putting everyone convicted of wannabe-haxxing in prison. It's costly and admittedly harsh, but this is just another example of them trying to use scare tactics to scare others into realizing that yes, if you do this shit you _can_ get your ass put in a (federal?) pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
As the global economy relies more and more on computers to conduct comerce, I for one am glad that computer crimes are being treated quite seriously. Just because it is a computer, and just because there was no physical harm to someone, doesn't mean that the crime is not a damaging crime. And with the concerns running about for identity theft, the sentence seems appropriate. It should go out for a warning: if you want to hack others computers, then you should set up your own LAN and only hack computers that you have permission to hack. And to the arguments that they just trying to collect passwords: what good is a password if you don't plan on doing anything with it. Snooping around someone elses computer is the electronic equivalent to voyeurism. It constitutes an invasion of privacy. Those with the know-how to hack have an ethical responsability to refrain from hacking, and those that hack should be held to the same standard of other white-collar crimes. Severe economic consquences can follow unauthorized hacking. Now if there is permission for the hacking to take place, that is one story. But to hack some computer system for kicks and giggles is wrong.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Don't you read Slashdot? Don't you know what happens when you use this phrase incorrectly?
A bit of common sense here - 9 *years* for hacking. That is higher than the average federal sentence for murder http://www.law.upenn.edu/fac/phrobins/OxfordDeterr enceAppendix.pdf
although lower than the average state one.
I'm sorry, but does anyone else find this silly? You can get a longer sentence for hacking than you can for a rape!
And they didn't even get any credit card information..
I mean if they broke in and took down the entire corp. network or put the company into administration then yeah sure, harsh it up...
But where is the justification for a 9year sentence?
Also, if you trespassed (into the office) and tried to steal a book of credit card information and let's add criminal damage (broken window) you would not get near five years let alone 9!
...other white collar crimes will not be prosecuted as they won't recieve much media attention to propagate to young eager script kiddies the scary consequences of making network adminstrators look bad.
Some aim to please, I aim to tease.
While I'll agree that the 9 years for hacking might be excessive given the extent of the crime, it is sad that something like this creates an outrage when compared to the kinds of sentences handed out for possession of marijuana.
If you live in a country where revenge prevails then prison is the answer.
Crimes against people (rape) are not considered here as significant or worrisome as crimes against property (hacking) or crimes against society. Welcome to America.
Punishment isn't necessarily counter-productive. After the crime is committed, this may be the case. But there's also a small thing called deterrent.
let's protect them!
-pyrrho
Well they did get 9 years and kevin got 5 (and kevin got out in like 3 didn't he?) so intenet was considered in the case obviously.
Yes punishments are harsh in the US and there's a good reason for this For one, people like vengence. Oh boy do they like vengence. For another, throwing tougher and tougher laws on the books doesn't piss anybody off. Won't you think of the CHILDREN? 3 strikes your out laws, etc, etc all appeal to about 70% of the population - namely the middle class and the rich (those who vote).
Wait, what about criminals? Chances are people in jail, or those who are affected by these laws, are politically disenfranchised, have never voted and will never vote. In other words, the poor. Mmmm democracy in action! Of course, there is a large section of the US that seems to be getting fed up with certain laws (like drug laws) because they were drug users, and are now middle class, etc and believe the drug penalties to be ridiculous.I do believe New York just overturned some of the toughest drug laws in the country that were originally passed in the 1970s. That and people seem to be getting more and more upset that something ridiculous like 3% of our population has been in Jail during their lives.
What exactly did he crack? I would rather go with "none of the above." He found an open wireless network and connected to it. No displayal of computing skills whatsoever. But I'm not implying being a scriptKiddie/cracker requires skill either.
Oh come on mods.
While I think sentences (including this one) in the United States are excessive, and I think prison in fact fails to solve anything because it is used as a punishment rather than a rehabilitation and in fact makes people worse rather than better...
Wow. What a controversial view!
I sort of rankle at this person being compared to Kevin Mitnick.
I don't know the details about these individuals, but it seems to be implied that it was a moneymaking operation. That makes it far worse than anything Kevin did.
Ok, you say the poster is wrong to compare this person to Mitnick, but you know NOTHING about the person except what the poster said?
That said, prison isn't the answer. Only violent people should go to prison (and those prisons should be run such that they don't create the atmosphere for violence inside that they do today -- i.e. don't use the prisoners as an unwritten "punishment" against eachother -- punishment is counterproductive.)
Please, enlighten us on how you would implement, pay for, and manage such a system. It sounds great!
Only because they were discovered/arrested before the data could be collected. Good riddance. Commence to toss salad.
How many years did the guys at Enron etc.... get?
Seems like you get of if you you cough up government payola.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The max penalty for invouluntary manslaughter is 9 years in prison - todays front page of my local newspaper actually describes such a case. And this guy who was caught trying stealing credit card information gets an equivilant sentence? Isn't that a little severe? I'm all for punishing criminals and using long sentences as a way to pursued other would be criminals against commiting crimes however this is a little silly.
This guys was not a hacker. He was a cracker. A criminal hacker. I'm sick of this public misconception. Whenever I talk about software to non tech people and I mention hackers, and the good work they do, people automatically assume I'm talking about some uber geek, crypto cyber punk, virus writing, terrorist whos out to gain control of as many nukes as he can before he downloads copious amounts of porn into their bank accounts.
Seriously, where the hell did this misconception arise from? It's tempting to blame hollywood, but it's more likely to have been some self proclaimed "landmark" NY Times article written by some clueless reporter who knew next to nothing about computer or the net in general outside of what some equally misinformed 133t script kiddies spluttered out to him when he asked them on IRC( The devils internet dungeon!!).
This misnomer of hackers used in the media at large has got to be tackled somehow. Otherwise other FUD might creep in, and pretty soon FOSS apps might be classed as warez by another bumbling journalist looking to rise ranks by jumping for the businees pages to the spanking new IT suppliment section by writing the next domesday tech article, complete with teenage (cr/h)acker masterminds.
May the Maths Be with you!
"Get a grip on reality. Breaking into a computer system is a non-violent crime. It involves monetary damages. Slap the bastard with heavy fines, hit him up with community service and make him pay it back."
Plus the "victims" get to keep their credit cards.
Indeed, you are more correct than you know. I have been to prison, and I too was involved in a case which was played up for maximum publicity ( which served to benefit the US Attorney, who was planning on running for a judgeship).
The methods which they used to "win" the case were over-the-top in a most amazing sense, and involved creation of false evidence and outright lying by ( paid ) government witnesses.
I intend to write a book about it once I am safely out of Amerika.
I've done my time, and it's behind me, but I have zero faith in the criminal justice system in the US, and I intend to leave the US
for a country which has a system which doesn't allow the perversion of justice to such a large degree.
You may think my opinions are rooted in bitterness, but actually I have no qualms about having been punished. Where I have (large) objections is the dishonest and ruthless methods which were used to ensure that the prosecution "won" in the biggesst way possible. That is a travesty of justice, friends, and the people responsible will hopefully burn in hell.
The adversarial system, combined with the federal sentencing guidelines, makes this country a pretty scary place to live, when you are aware of what can happen. Of course, usually awareness comes simultaneously with trouble, and then it's too late.
Anyone who thinks it can't possibly be more fair and reasonable in other countries simply doesn't know much about the rest of the world, and also has a view of the US court system which is not grounded in reality.
I'd like to post my email address, so I can share my experiences with others who might be curious, but frankly I am afraid to.
Happy Holidays to all, and be damned careful out there, because things in the US are weird and getting weirder.
Stealing CC numbers is a bad thing and needs to be punished but let's face it, in the US we have a criminal injustice system that favors rich, white people who steal large amounts of money and have access to lots of lawyers. Everyone else gets caught up in the great meat grinder of "justice".
Check out: frontline: the plea
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Do you think the crackers will also be prohibited from using the Internet for a certain period of time after their release, sort of like what happened to Mitnick?
and frankly I think the title should be 'Thief sentenced'. This was about getting rich(er) by theft and had nothing at all to do with 'hacking'. If anything your use of it further disparages the term.
They were not being "nice" but they weren't hurting anyone (at least not yet). The real problem I have is Lowes was putting credit card data on a wireless network! It wasn't secure enough, as someone knew about it, and successfully exploited it.
So what's worse:
Not nice (Hackers),
or _grossly_ irresponsible (Lowes)?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
This is an example of a hack:
Rewiring an elevator when no one is looking to make it say witty things.
This is an example of not a hack:
Using computers to steal credit card numbers.
Do we see the difference? One is "playfully clever" and one is not.
"True, but the point is valid: had they physically broken into a store and walked off with a bunch of credit-card receipts, would they have received a similar sentence?"
... as the prosecutor said, it was the amount of damage they could have imposed that resulted in the "substantial sentence", not what they actually did"
1-How many receipts can you physically walk away with?
2-As everyone is so fond of pointing out. Digital changes the rules.
Buggy whip sentences for everyone.
"Or is this just being blown out of proportion because it involves "the Internet"? On top of that, they actually managed to steal nothing
Not any different a concept than "attempted murder".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Heh.
Some may argue that the punishment does not fit the crime, that it is much more severe then other forms of monetary crime. But what makes cracker crime so dangerous to the IT industry is that it attacks the trustworthiness of the infrastructure. If consumers turn away from online transactions, if businesses decide to reduce their reliance on computers, then IT employment will drop or not increase to its full potential.
Look at the analog of this in meat-space -- people would rather shop, go to work, enjoy entertainment, etc. in a safe environment. Businesses that try to operate in crime-ridden neighborhoods don't do as well, don't have as many customers, don't hire as many employees, and don't pay as well.
IT employment depends on the continued adoption and use of IT by businesses and consumers. If the internet and computing becomes a ghetto of spyware, crackers, and phishers, the economics of IT will suffer. To the extent that people avoid using computers for fear of crime is the extent that ITer will see their jobs disappear.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I would like to commit a crime against you. You can "rehab" me all you want after I'm caught, I won't mind.
Involuntary manslaughter indicates that the manslaughter was not intended or accidental.
"They should lock up the fool that set their network up!"
They should lock up the woman that dressed in that skimpy dress, and those high heels. She was just asking for it.
Makes you wonder if the prisons are filling up with rapists, murderers and grey-collar hackers... where are all the professional criminal hackers?
"Since when is wardriving illegal?"
Since when is casing the joint, before commiting a crime illegal?"
Murder is not the same thing is involuntary manslaughter. Murder is premeditated. It's actually a very large distinction.
I do agree that the extent of the sentence is asinine though. His crime is the equivillent of robbing a bank without a gun. Which begs the question, where were the security gaurds?
"Hacker Sententenced To Longest US Sentence Yet"
Sentenced
Could we get the word 'sentence' in there just one more time?
WBG Links
www.wbglinks.net
Good rebuttal.
You're truly an intellectual force to be reckoned with, what with those supreme debate tactics.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
" I bet he isn't looking forward to having his security hole exploited while in prison!"
You have no idea what you are talking about. Yes, there IS homosexuality in prison, but nearly none of it is not consensual.
You see, I have been there. I am not homosexual, and never once was there even a hint of me being the victim of sexual aggression. And I am not a badass, so that excuse won't fly.
People like you who make comments based on nothing more than some movie they saw make me sick. And if you WERE in prison, and mouthed off like that, you'd get the ass-kicking of
a lifetime.
Try sticking to commenting on something you actually have knowledge about ( ok, well, this IS Slashdot, so I guess that's asking too much ).
Anyway, I did time in some very bad places, and you people who talk about "Bubba, etc. " don't have ANY idea what it's really like.
The truth is, most people just want to survive to see the outside
again, and they mind their own business. Those who "get stupid" find out quickly that life can get very rough indeed, because there is ALWAYS someone bigger, meaner, crazier, and more willing to do what it takes to win. It ain't like the movies you have seen, I promise you.
If not RTFA, RTFBlurb at least. This guy attempted to steal credit card numbers from a system he accessed on an open wireless network.
He didn't just connect to it.
But there's also a small thing called deterrent.
Evidently it's a very small thing, considering how well it works. See: death penalty.
What?
Well, unsubstantiated AC comments are all the proof I need.
Not mentioned yet, but he _is_ a repeat offender. He brought down a local bbs--insert obligatory plug for arbornet.org!--back in 2000 and was the first charged with hacking under michigan law. http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/netsec/2000-09/ msg00009.html
I dunno, but you'd think he'd have wised up by now.
I think most here remember when Best Buy did the same shit and apparently suffered no consequences.
Where is Sarbanes-Oxley on this?
Why isn't Lowe's being held accountable for extreme carelessness with their customers' financial data?
"Well, unsubstantiated AC comments are all the proof I need."
There's always someone like you just waiting to wise off.
Does it make you feel like somebody ?
You wouldn't last a week inside, sonny boy.
And you're confused. He was essentially held without trial or a bail hearing for 4 1/2 years.
Yeah, right.
Prisons were originally designed to stop people from committing crimes, commonly they would only lock people up at night so they couln't break into peoples houses or shops. Only in the last couple of centuries with the advent of the idea of reforming people come in, prison sentences got much much longer and the idea of reforming people in the early days was though harsh treatment and work.
The harsh treatment and work didn't have the desired results, but we carried on locking people up not because of there own rehabilitation but because it makes the victums feel better.
The whole system needs a damn hard re-think, and we need to stop puting people in prisons when mabie prisons arn't the best option.
I'll also make a point that the death penalty is only there to satisfy the sadistic perverted desires of revenge that the victums have. Death is no punishment, and if you belive in reincarnation, it might as well be a free ticket out of jail in the form of a new life.
Yeah, huge fines are going to discourage people trying to steal credit card data. Suppose you hit them with a non-trivial fine of 500,000. What do you think the odds are that any hacker that has ever broken into a server is going to be able to pay even a tenth of that?
How about this, quit wasting time, money and prison space busting people for drugs by legalizing the stuff, and use all the space created in prisons for hackers, and other white collar criminals who commit 'nice crimes' where nobody gets 'hurt'.
Anyone who writes a worm that makes the national news because it cripples half the internet deserves some jail time.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
You have to be really dumb to get caught war driving, your already in the get away car!
EOM.
Spoken like someone who has never had their identity stolen. What fine is large enough to make up for ruining someone's credit for several years and costing them their dream of buying a home? Will they have to perform community service on my rental unit? This was a crime both against the system and individuals. One count of attempted fraud for each CC number on the system seems about right.
Jail is precisely where we throw people who inconvenience us. It does a great job of preventing them from further inconveniencing us. This time it should work for oh, about 9 years I'd say. At least.
Sentenced Hacker Sentenced at Sentencing to Longest Sentencing ever Sentenced.
"I would like to commit a crime against you. You can "rehab" me all you want after I'm caught, I won't mind."
...
Truer words were never spoken.
The "deterrent" arguement, while it has emotional appeal, has been proven to be without factual basis. The simple truth is,
few if any criminals think they will get caught, so they commit the crime with no thoughts of what sort of punishment they might be facing.
Now, the L.A. Shootout, that was an exception
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"This is great news and will hopefully discourage other hackers."
Correct me if I'm wrong. But isn't Lowe's the one's using Linux?
Did they actually steal any credit card numbers? No.
Did they charge up a bunch of fines on said card numbers? No.
We have laws to deal with theft and fraud. Since they commited neither, there is no reason for them to go to jail. These sentences are far to large for people who pose no physical threat to society.
If their plan had actually worked and they had stolen thousands of dollars, then you'd have a point.
Rape, Murder, Kidnapping and Molestation are the only crimes where the attempt to do so should be punished severely as if they actually commit the crime.
Jails should really be for people who threaten the lives of the general public.
You steal a Ford or you steal a Ferrari,
is it the same crime?
Should the value of the car change the sentence?
I dont have problems with punishing people who commit crimes but I do have problems with sentences being different depending on the value (as we saw in Mitnick;s case, those are always greatly exxagerated) of the stolen object.Just like I have problems with hate crimes. If you kill someone because of his skin, your crime is the same as if he was your race. A murder is a murder.
I also have problems when white collar criminals get more jail time than rapists and murderers.
On the way out of court they should assult the judge and rape his underage daughter - they would only get a couple more years on that what a bargin!! I think the western world is over-compensating for not having corporal/capital punishment, instead people are starting to get rediculous sentences, i guess its better than having caining but still..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Fell Much Safer. (TM)
Don't Crease the Weasel!
Crackers, people. Not Hackers.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Sorry, i was referring to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a network and the lack of skill to do so, not the attempt to steal credit card info. On another note, this is the same as finding an unlocked car and making off with it. I wouldn't exactly call that a master-minded crime. The same as how i wouldn't label this guy a cracker/hacker. As a minimum, at least RTFParent.
So you're saying, we should make the system look safe while leaving it hole-ridden by keeping the hordes of clueless suits with fancy IT titles at the wheels.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The thing that drives most of these crimes, like spam, is greed, pure and simple. The people are greedy, and want more money than they can obtain legally/morally, so turn to crime. Well, if you know of a way to change someone's personality such that they aren't greedy, hateful, etc reliably please, PLEASE publish an article in a psychology journal since it'd be the greatest discovery in human psychology in receant history.
The problem is you CAN'T really change that in people. As many drug support groups point out, you can't change those that don't want to be changed. You can't make someone not be greedy, you can't make someone not be racist, etc.
What you CAN do is make it so that there is a deterrant to acting on that greed. That's what prison and other punishments are. The greedy people know that is a potential result if they act on that greed. Hopefully, it deters some of them.
It's a nice rose-coloured view to think that a little counciling can change who a person is, but that's just not the case. A person can only change themselves.
Hmmmm. I think not.
There is no federal parole.
"IT employment depends on the continued adoption and use of IT by businesses and consumers. If the internet and computing becomes a ghetto of spyware, crackers, and phishers, the economics of IT will suffer. To the extent that people avoid using computers for fear of crime is the extent that ITer will see their jobs disappear."
Correct, and that "new business model" the RIAA/MPAA/Game Publishers is suppose to adopt, will never take off.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is how stiff this penalty is compared to that of serious corporate criminals that are already wealthy. I've seen some of this stuff up close(I worked on the audit of Riscorp, the CEO of which did prison time). There seems to be a lot of hysteria around hackers-and very little around the REALLY big criminals-who are the managers of major corporations and governmental organizations.
Ok, your wrong about prison.. there's a really good article somewhere but is goes something like this...
90% of crime is committed by 10% of criminals, so all you have to do is lock that 10% up and throw away the key.
This is what the UK government has done to reduce crime, just look at prison population, average sentence and crime.
The 'liberal' article explained it a lot better than I do, and went on to mention that instead of sorting out the crime in the first place the easy option of locking people up was chosen.
Prison reduces crime, not the number of criminals.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
This poor guy will probably get raped in prison. Sorry, I don't think he deserves that from stealing from a bunch of corporate types that probably stole their way to the top.
I mean they were attempting to steal the credit card numbers of all the customers there, that's thousands of people. Each one would be a victim of a crime, thus they were attempting a crime against each one.
/w intent to steal from thousands of individuals totalling millions of dollars is fair.
Given the amount of people that credit card crime like this affects, and given the magnitude in dollars we are talking, I think a stiff sentence is appropriate.
If B&E w/ intent is 2-4 then I'd say 9 for B&E
...sorry more on prison
I think prison should be like a holiday home, lets get those thugs all happy and feeling good about them selfs, train them up and educate so they can get a proper job. Give them the hope that they never had before.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I'm calling myself a white hat code wizard.
The 'popular perception' of the whole hacker (code geeks)/cracker (crypto geeks) myth is a kind of hopelessly unwinnable argument about angels on pins.
Considering the alternatives, I've just invented a new name for myself and left the waste of time up to those poor souls who care.
I've just given the hell up.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The real penalty makes Singapore look downright mild.
You wouldn't last a week inside, sonny boy.
From the looks of it nothing has survived a week inside your ass. How'd you get the chickens up there?
No, I'm New Here
+5 Original and hilarious!
The real criminals wear suits. This guy is small potatoes.
You see, I have been there.
So, what really happens when you drop the soap?
Does someone try to ring your bell?
Well if they actually get the years federal sentencing guidelines call for, your post will look pretty foolish. The man is now facing two seperate and independent trials which will start in 2005. But in the meantime, YEAH KILL WHITEY. RICH PEOPLE ARE EVIL LETS LOCK THEM ALL UP! PUT THEM TO THE GUILLOTINE!
No Prison isn't the answer.
The answer is yes, the question is sex.
(someone had to say it)
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
If the same guy walked into the corporate office and tried to remove a hard drive full of CC's, you really think he'd get 9 years in prison? I fucking doubt it.
These guys got slapped with a bigger sentence because a computer was used. The general public does not know about computers. Things that people don't know about scare them.
What I want to know is why Lowe's is storing my credit card information and/or why it needs to be sent back to their corporate office.
Involuntary manslaughter is worse than "accidental" (i.e. negligent behavior) and not as bad as "intentional" behavior. What it means is that the person who killed was acting in a manner so stupid that he should have known he could cause harm. Like getting hammered and then driving home.
At least people who murder have the balls to declare their intentions, if not to everyone, then at least to themselves. Murderers are more honest than manslaughter-ers in this respect. Those of the involuntary manslaughter ilk get to be stupid, cause death, and get out early enough to do it again. Really, if the point of our prison system is to be segregation of bad actors from society, not rehab (anyone who believes prison is about rehab is fooling himself), why do we want to let the stupid irresponsible ones out any earlier than the sociopathic ones? Both are harmful.
As for these "wardrivers", this is a harsh sentence indeed for what amounts to a property crime. Their real crimes were not being politically connected. The Enron etc. examples have been made previously so I won't repeat them.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Point is nobody is dead.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
I'll also make a point that the death penalty is only there to satisfy the sadistic perverted desires of revenge that the victums have. Death is no punishment
Would we be correct then in assuming that you are equally opposed to "life without parole" sentences? After all, life without parole is just an extra-long death sentence. If a person is never going to be permitted out again, no matter what, what difference does it make if they die at 35 of a Potassium Chloride overdose, or at 65 from heart disease?
Also, are you suggesting that people like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Timothy McVeigh could have eventually been rehabilitated?
And finally, what's so wrong about "revenge" anyway? If someone commits the absolute most heinous crime imaginable, raping and murdering your daughter, is it really so unreasonable of the parent to feel vengeful? If the perpetrator wasn't prepared for an eye-for-an-eye punishment, then perhaps they shouldn't have done the crime.
Good, honest people die tragically all the time. Why should we go out of our way to ensure that multiple-murdering, unrepentant scumbags get to live out a long, moderately fulfilling life behind bars?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
As long as they didn't actually use any of the credit card numbers they have not done anything wrong. I don't care if they have my credit card number as long as they don't use it.
My business partner learned hacking and coding from this guy when the guy was legit.
What he did I think any of us on Slashdot could do. It doesn't require a great deal of skill or 31337N355.
This is in the "Your Rights Online" section because he should be treated the same as someone who thirty years ago stole file cabinets of data about people at a large chain's headquarters. If the data is the same then there is no need for changing the sentence.
That said, the young man did wrong and will get what he deserves. He was a little bit bright and could surely have come up with a better scheme than this. I know I could, but I and his former "student" are devoting our time to a legit business.
Please excuse the shameless plug. We may be legit, but we're certainly not wealthy. Starting a company is hard work. 60+ hour workweeks, paying yourself less than minimum wage for a year or more... No wonder Mr. Salcedo chose the "easy way out".
This is true, and most business Wi-Fi installations are made difficult to get into. For most users of Wi-Fi, home, work, a friend's house, or a public spot -- those are going to be the places to go, when they're made easy to find, and conducive to social computing.
Of course, I have quite a bit to say about wardriving in general!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
this brings up an interesting point in that prison, or punishment in general is a way to deter criminals as well as assure everybody else that should a crime be commited against them, whoever is responsible will be dealt with.
if punishment stopped fitting the crime people would then take it upon themselves to administer a justice they deem fair.
and the "fitting" is for every individual very subjective, so the government continuosly tries to keep the balance.
now while i agree that the details of how we punish our criminals may need some updating, the need for some sort of revenge (or call it justice) is simply human and not subject to much change.
there will always be the transendentalists preaching be merciful the prisoners, coddle them, rehabilitate them. be compassionate. but there are more and much louder (at least for now) proponents of our current revenge type system.
Well, probation doesn't work either. He was arrested in month 35 of a 36-month probation term.
As with spamming, certain kinds of malicious hacking probably should warrant the death penality....
What, you're not gone yet? Oh, I see, just staying to bitch some more? Hopefully your new country won't be too harsh on dissidents.
OK folks, I am seeing a lot of posts talking about rapists getting less prison time. Can you all back that up? Rape in Michigan can land you 15 to 25 per act depending on the severity. So, in review:
1. Computer crimes are different than crimes of a physical nature. Stop comparing the two.
2. Crimes where you fail to accomplish it (generally referred to as "conspiracy to commit...") are gauged by what damage you could have caused if you were successful. So, lets say they could have gotten somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of CC#, that's a huge amount of potential damages.
-BlkSprk
There is no federal parole.
Sorry. I keep forgetting a world exists outside of Texas.
And finally, what's so wrong about "revenge" anyway?
The problem with revenge is that it is an emotional response. In many cases, that emotional need to find "whodunit" and punish the living sh** out of him, has lead to the conviction of innocent people. In this example, a guy spent 15 years of his life in prison - post conviction DNA testing proved him to be the wrong guy. Funny thing about revenge in this example, at the time of conviction, the victim and family actually got the satisfaction of having had their revenge - but even with the satisfaction, they got no justice - wrong guy.
Revenge just generates additional victims. Criminals should be convicted on facts and data, and not on an emotional basis. Of course the world is full of "shoulds".
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Salcedo was arrested in the last month of a 36-month probation sentence after he broke into Arbornet and many other sites in 2000. The original Slashdot story is here.
Let's throw all those big badass hackers into prison and clog it up even more so that the killers and the rapists can turn parole faster.
No, we can just let the potheads out to make room. You have the mental capacity of a politician, budget cuts, well police and fire first not my pork projects. Drop the hysterics and try thinking for a moment next time.
9 years in a "pound-me-in-the-a$$-prison"
Won't somebody please think of the Karma!
It depends, there are cases like punching a rowdy drunk, who slips and breaks his neck, or throwing a rock at somebody's windshield causing a fatal accident. Serious Injury/Death is a forseeable consquence of the action, though death was not intended.
Some people make bad mistakes, and would not repeat them again. Though there are definately the ones who are habitually break the law and should be removed from society.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Catch me if you can. ;)
Although I do agree that he should have gotten in trouble. I think what he got is on the severe side. I think this is much akin to the witch hunts of older times. People are afraid of what they don't understand. Because people are still pretty well computer illiterate, (thanks mostly to windows... but that's another beef for another post)... so it's human nature to fear what they don't understand. Because a computer was used for a "crime" the justice system, so afraid of our voodoo magic, comes down very hard out of fear. Plain and simple.
There have been murderers sentenced to one-fourth that length of time.
Yes, a two year and three month murder sentence is way too short. Rediculously short, an aberration, and completely irrelevant to determining a proper sentence for computer crime.
Fortunately, I am educated, white, and affluent. Therefore, _I_ am someone, whereas you, the ex-con, are not. Have fun never voting, never getting a good job, and generally frittering your money and life away on drugs and alcohol.
or a non-violent crime that didn't benefit the criminal?
Intent is an element of a crime, not success. What does it matter that he criminal did not benefit?
Did they actually steal any credit card numbers? No. Did they charge up a bunch of fines on said card numbers? No. We have laws to deal with theft and fraud. Since they commited neither, there is no reason for them to go to jail.
You don't get off because you were unsuccessful. Intent is an element of a crime in the US, not success. its better to nail them before they get competent.
Quit crawling around up in there before I fart you out! And this time I'll make is greasy!
Don't be gettin no tickets in my town. Me an Bubba got a thing for white, edumicated, virgin ass.
what is Lowes doing wrong that they were compromised twice like this?
Evil hacking (from defacing websites and destroying information to stealing credit card info) should be treated as normal crimes (destruction of private property, fraud, stealing, etc).
I remember the times when "hacking" meant to get around limitations of the system. Ah, glorious times. But now script kiddies,lamers who write virii and blatant mobsters are discrediting the name.
I say, send 'em to jail. They deserve it. And we need it too.
Sideshow Bob: "Attempted murder?" Honestly! Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?
That guy got 9 years for just trying to steal credit card numbers? Not that he shouldn't have been convicted and sentenced according to the law, but he apparently didn't even successfully steal anything. Geez.
You know, the guy apparently was pretty damn stupid. Want to steal credit card numbers? Go get a job as a waiter. People let 17 year olds physically take possession of their credit cards out of sight for 10 minutes at a time. Why would you bother trying to break into encrypted data streams and data stores?
In this example [innocenceproject.org], a guy spent 15 years of his life in prison - post conviction DNA testing proved him to be the wrong guy.
There are 3 cases famous cases like this in Canada. The three M's. Morin, Milgaard, and Marshall. Morin spent 3 years in prison, Marshall spent 11 years, and Milgaard spent 23 years. All were saved by DNA evidence and all were convicted of crimes that could have gotten them death in certain states.
Fuck you, you smartmouthed little sack of fascist shit.
But where's the justification? I mean, these guys were criminals and bad people and I don't particularly want them in society with me. But come on--rapists don't go away that long for one count, and this was just attempted. There's just no logic to it.
Read jack phelps dot net
No, but you are an ugly fat
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Should we simply allow crimes to be committed, no punishment? I can show you places where that is the case, you won't like the result, I can gaurentee. If you think you can change who someone is, without their wishing it, just via counciling and the like, ask a psychologist. They'll tell you, as I have, that counciling is a way to help people who want to be helped, not to force changes on someone.
If the deterrance reason isn't good for you (it is a deterrant by the way) then how about the simple fact that while you are in jail, you can't be comitting crimes.
But really, what it boils down to, is that we need some way to punish crime. Civilized society needs a justice system and that requires punsihment. This isn't an American thing, this is across the world.
If you have a better solution, let's hear it.
we are.
Kill all the cops.
"No, but you are an ugly fat /.ing Geek, nothing on earth would want to fuck you."
/.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I've had sex with quite a few women. I lost count after 200 or so.
It ain't bragging when you can do it, sonny.
As for prison : it so happens that many people were scared of me, and this despite my size ( 5'11" 170 lbs. ).
You see, what matters is how you "carry yourself".
I now return you to the usual juvenile speculations which make up the great majority of
If he walked into the central clearinghouse and walked off with a hard drive with a million credit card numbers on it, and we know that it was the credit card numbers he was after, then yes, he should get 9 years.
I'm not sure how massive credit card theft is dealt with in the courts, but it's likely they can show that the intent was to use those numbers for fraudulent transactions.
Attempting to steal hundreds of thousands or millions of credit card numbers and also use them (or contribute to their use) in a fraudulent manner is a massive financial crime, and 9 years is not that long.
On second thought....
This "hacker" never actually stole CC data, but still got nine years.
If Ken Lay is even given jail time, I doubt that he'll be doing 9 years. He'll probably get 1 year max at the place with the golf course and squash court.
I think much of the complaint is not how much time the hacker is getting, but how little time other people who take part in similar crimes but without the "hacking" element.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Recently in Australia the head of an insurance company HiH defrauded millions of Australians, which lead to the closure of HIH. One of the people involved got a suspended sentence the other got two years, the CEO is yet to be charged but will probably get the same. (USA, replace HIH with Enron)
If i commit one case of first degree fraud, i can get up to 20 years in jail.
If I'm a CEO defrauding millions of people for my own personal gain i get a suspended sentence..
Thats our great judicial system for you.
I am guessing that's just how democracy is. It's simply a monetary-based feudal system.
Hail, King Bush
The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
I'm getting so sick and tired of crap like
this. Putting someone in jail for 9 years for
attempting to hack systems is rediculous! I
don't say this as some "left-wing" bleeding
heart. I'm far right, and served with a sher-
iff's department for several years as a fully
sworn (reserve) officer. I'm just getting damed
sick and tired of Amerika in one fashion or
another. I've been coming to the conclusion that
America has just degenerated into a quagmire of
shit. Prison sentences is just one aspect. I'm
convinced a) that a lot of innocent people are
sitting in jails, b) a lot guilty people are in
jail that should be out of jail an in a reha-
bilitation house, and c) a lot of people who
are in jail are serving sentences that are way
out of proportion to the crime they committed.
We have people who are serving 5+ year sentences
whose only crime is cocaine possesion and use.
Hey, I don't care how many times the guy got
arrested... It's his body he's abusing. I'm
againt drug use but don't put the guy in a state
prison for crying out loud. Get him some help
and help him get his life straightened out.
And, there's another bunch of American bullshit,
yeah, our prisons. Where do the American people
get off getting "outraged" over the Iraqi
prisoner abuse "scandal" when right in their own
backyards you have prisons in which people are
abused every single day. Rape, assault, slavery,
sex-slavery, etc. go on as a way of life and the
prison officials know about it and don't give a
damn. America, you hypocrites! No wonder guys
come out of prison worse off than when they
went in. You're 20, steal a car (big deal in
the scheme of things!) get sentenced for some
rediculous amount of time and then while you're
in prison get abused. Yeah, I'd be mad as hell
at the world too. Reform my ass. It's just
another example of a screwed up America. And,
please, don't give that horseshit line about
how its "...the best system we got...", "don't
like it, leave it". Whatever man. This is one
screwed up place and it's just getting worse.
I could go on for days about all the crap that's
wrong with this country. Am I leaving, nope, not
at this time. This is my home and I'm staying
for now. Hopefully I'll see some real changes
in my lifetime but then again, I'm probably
just dreaming.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I've had sex with quite a few women. I lost count after 200 or so.
Shit, my first grader can count at least that high. Guess you wasted those three or four years, eh?
As for prison : it so happens that many people were scared of me, and this despite my size ( 5'11" 170 lbs. ).
Yeah, I've got a chiuahua like that. He probably wouldn't be so scary if I shaved his ass and taught him to walk backwards.
Just because it is easy doesn't mean it's allowed.
bash$
Hey, didn't you go out of your way to shout something about BULLSHIT!
Guess we really can't believe a dumbass con no matter what he's saying.
Oh, and if you think your dumb wuss con ass can take on me and my legal piece you can - to quote a phrase - "Go ahead, punk. Make my day!"
"I am educated, white, and affluent. Therefore, _I_ am someone"
Hello there, little WASP pretender to manhood.
Surprise : I'm white, and I have degrees from several schools which your parents probably couldn't afford. And I paid my own way.
I don't do drugs, nor do I abuse alcohol. As for voting, it is indeed possible to vote in many states, In fact, the states which are worth living in DO allow convicted felons to vote.
I have a good job, working for a company which I own.
Isn't it just a bitch when you are so completely and utterly
wrong ?
Something tells me you are just another "wage slave" who jacks up his own self-esteem at the expense of others less fortunate than himself. You can't imagine the contempt I feel for those of your ilk.
> There's just no logic to it.
That's because you are dealing with a broken
down system. They probably violated some
federal laws along the way and federal sentencing
guidelines have always been unjust with sentences
that far exceed the severity of the crime.
Sorry, I don't get it. If retirement consultants, CEO's and accountants swindle people, people don't lose trust in the economic system? Sometimes I feel that if I lived in America, I'd best tuck my money away into my mattress.
OTOH if computer systems that handle economic information aren't secured properly, thieves that exploit that should be punished insanely harshly?
A question springs to mind: What about the thieves that get away?
In addition to a deterrent hard punishment (nothing like this, though) for the thief, there ought be some serious repercussions for the company, too. The company is not the victim here - the people whose personal economic control was compromised are.
To instill faith in the system, we need accountability for the companies and systems people, too.
"if you think your dumb wuss con ass can take on me and my legal piece you can - to quote a phrase - "Go ahead, punk. Make my day!""
I didn't post the thing about "Don't be gettin no tickets in my town. Me an Bubba got a thing for white, edumicated, virgin ass." You see, it IS possible that more than one person can be
an AC ( don't think about this too hard, you might hurt your head ).
But this article really has brought out the redneck fools, hasn't it,
Mister Insecure Gun-Toter.
Mitnick was held with out trial for 5 years and eventually was let go for "time served". That's why there was such an uprising behind him. Dispite his crimes, he was serverly miss treated.
Who gets their news from a mickey mouse outfit like ABC anyway? If you're going to post some clueless banter about attempted credit card fraud, at least link to an article (or thread) with some relevant information about the case instead of an uninformed soundbite. You could start with one of the following:
http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7297_ 16-5511088.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/22/michigan_w ifi_hackers_try/
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7438
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/8835
http://www.netstumbler.org/showthread.php?t=11115
Some of the more interesting quotes for those too lazy to click on the links:
"In 2000, as a juvenile, Salcedo was one of the first to be charged under Michigan's state computer crime law, for allegedly hacking a local ISP."
"It was six months later - Botbyl allegedly admitted to agents - that Botbyl and his friend Salcedo hatched a plan to use the network to steal credit card numbers from the hardware chain"
"At some point in their wardriving experience, Timmins and Botbyl came upon a Lowe's hardware store with an open wireless network. Timmins later admitted to Kevin Poulsen of Security Focus that what he did next was technically illegal: he used the Lowe's network to check his e-mail. When he realized it was Lowe's private network, however, he says, he disconnected."
"That in itself might have been the end of the story. However, Lowe's became aware of the breach and contacted the FBI, who, after its investigation, charged Timmins with one count of unauthorized computer access. And that by itself would have been a significant story: Timmins's plea has been reported as the first instance of a wardriving conviction. I think the claim is an exaggeration, however. The charge would have been the same had he used a wired connection."
"But here's where the story gets interesting. Several months later, Botbyl returned to the Southfield, Michigan, Lowe's with a new friend, Brian Salcedo, now 21. Salcedo, it turned out, was in the final weeks of a three-year probation for an earlier computer crime."
"According to the indictment, the hackers used the wireless network to route through Lowe's corporate data center in North Carolina and connect to the local networks at stores around the country. At two of the stores - in Long Beach, California and Gainseville, Florida - they modified a proprietary piece of software called "tcpcredit" that Lowe's uses to process credit card transactions, building in a virtual wiretap that would store customer's credit card numbers where the hackers could retrieve them later."
"Brian Salcedo, 21, faces an a unusually harsh 12 to 15 year prison term under federal sentencing guidelines, based largely on a stipulation that the potential losses in the scheme exceeded $2.5 million."
"As for how it was computed here's one probable way: Maximum number of cards in the system at the time they could have captured, multiplied times the maximum credit limit on each. (So say Lowe's does an average of 2500 credit cards transactions nationally in a night, and each has a $1000 Credit Limit. That is $2,500,000 right there.)"
"They were not able to access nationwide credit card files or get into corporate systems," says Lowe's spokesperson Gina Balaya. "They did access six credit card transactions from one store."
"My initial reaction when I heard the charges was one of skepticism," says Karl Mozurkewich, founder of the Michigan software company Utropicmedia, and a member of the group. "Eighty percent of the people in the 2600 group in Michigan are more the c
Am glad that there is now a safer way to fall.
How many years would that render??
Huh?
Answer: zero, providing you have the GOP and GOD on your side.
I beleive the term you are looking for is "cracker"
I am not going to give the standard hacker/cracker story that everyone else has given.
We know the difference.
The point is, these guys are retards. A monkey could have broken into that network.
It would have been more difficult to smash a window to get the physically numbers.
This is pure FUD, calling them hackers.
This required no computer skills and should be treated as such.
Somebody, PLEASE find a solution to this semantic quandary.
Don't shop at Lowes. They keep their credit card information on a computer accessible from an insecure wireless access point.
It's 'ADMIN'.
Evil is the money of root.
Marshall was released in 1983, after a (new) witness came forward. This is about 10 years before DNA profiling was even thought about, 15 years before it became useful/accurate/cheap. In the inquiry into the actions of the police and crown prosecutors, it became clear that his case was not an accident, with the parties all acting in good faith. I don't think that they had any specific evidence to the contrary, but circumstantial evidence, combined with him being a Native American (to be fair, also well known to the police) was all the investigation they needed.
Of course, the original case brought against him was slightly trumped up as well, and was mainly brought as a way to test the State of Michigan's new computer crime statute.
Brian's definitely in the wrong here, and I'm not going to defend him, but you should probably at least know a little bit about the case before you condemn him entirely.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Now he will have 9 years to learn how to be a truely violent criminal before being released back into society with no real means to support himself!
With all due respect, I think you are the one missing the point. There's way more to getting hurt than bleeding. We see someone who has been shot or assaulted and we feel sympathy for that person, as we should. Our sense of justice demands that whoever hurt them be put away.
But you know what we don't see? We don't see the kid who can't go to college because some fuck wiped out his parents' portfolio. We don't see the mom who has to choose between buying a smoke detector or food because her budget just can't stretch that extra little bit to cover what the cracker skimmed off the top. There are all these little costs that are basically invisible, but they add up and when they affect enough people THEY MATTER. So while physical injuries are certainly easier to empathize with, saying that someone shouldn't go to jail for a long time because they "didn't hurt anybody" is sophistry.
I'm posting anon, because as a former employee, I should probably be keeping my mouth shut.
Sounds like they cracked into the network via the LRTs (Laser Radio Terminals). So, okay, you'll see a big rollout of security across the company soon to take care of that (all stores are pretty much exactly the same, so whatever they did, it will work in every store until it's fixed.). What's interesting is it's probably quite similar in other retail chains. Just a few IBM servers running AIX in the back, and until recently, all the registers were just terminals (they're now all linux thin clients). You could go to target, pier-one, or whatever other big retail chain you like, and try the same thing.
Offtopic: If any clued-in and still current employee sees this post, can you tell me why they removed the lookup lookup account from the system? I was annoyed when they got rid of it; I liked to use it for price audits while running end of day.
I thought we did solve this by calling folks "criminals" ?
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ohs/Press/12-18-03.htm
The total cost to Acxiom of Baas's intrusion and theft of data is more than $5.8 million. Baas faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 or twice the amount of gain or loss, and three years of supervised release.
Considering Dan actually did steal the data and only can get a maximum of 5 years, this seems excessive for intent.
Sorry for replying to my own post.
Turns out that the guy my business partner knew and this dude were totally different people. Oops. What they got busted for was basically the same thing, and they're from the same area. What an odd coincidence. Send me an e-mail if you have an questions.
They used to hang people for stealing. Harsh treatment for crime is nothing new.
I too have been to tried for a crime in the US, however, I was not convicted because the jury saw through the idiocy. What the poster says above it completely and totally true.
I was not guilty of any crime, I just happened to get myself in the wrong set of circumstances at the wrong time. It's pretty insane what they will do to "prove" you're guilty and lying even without any evidence. It's come down to a mind game with the jury. Evidence doesn't matter anymore, it's whoever has a better psychologist for a lawyer and how much they pay for their credible "experts."
Living somewhere else where the government isn't hell-bent on tossing the entire population into prison sounds good to me. If the US gov had it their way, we'd all be in "prison" so they could keep tabs on us and make sure we all contribute our daily quota of widgets.
Just because he didn't get away with it doesn't mean he committed a lesser crime. If we assume he did succeed, he will just keep all of the money. So, I believe that the law should treat both as the same
That said, I do not endorse the 9 year sentence that was slapped against him. Rather I would agree with heavy fines, community service and putting him away from electronics for some 'n' years. Perhaps a sentence of 2 years too.
I wonder if the government can have both mild 'rehabilitation centers' and the conventional jails. The previous ones would have all these sort of criminals so that they don't have to suffer the indignity of anal rape from violent criminals for a crime far milder (and at which some people didnt even succeed)
... and I shall strike upon thee with great vegeance, furious anger and a slightly positive karma.
you need to be legit AFTER you have made wads of cash.
sheeesh, can;t you kids do anything right?
Beside how good could this guy be? he didn't get any credit card numbers.
A good criminal gets away with it, then gets caught monologing..
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's CRACKERS, not hackers.
OK kids.m l/
l /
m l/
i c.html/
. html/ . html/ e .html/
h tml/
Let's all get together and sit in a circle and read aloud together.
I would like Arzach to click on the following link and read aloud the first bullet point to the class: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/appendixc.ht
I would someone else to read the definition of the term "Hacker" click on the following link and read aloud:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/H/hacker.htm
(I can't hear you.)
Now let's discover the term called "Cracker". Can I get a volunteer to read this one aloud?
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/C/cracker.ht
Now let's investigate as to why we Slashdotters believe that this sentence may be too harsh...lets see, this may provide some insight:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/H/hacker-eth
For your homework assignment please read the following:
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php/
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/introduction
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/distinctions
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/writing-styl
Must read before posting on Slashdot
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/email-style.
Background info
http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html/
yeah, then some dipshit calling himself a white hat code wizard will get caught stealling CC niumber from an orphanage , and then the mesia will tear your name apart.
or worse, someone will do a movie where one of the 13 year old computer expert is a 'white hat code wizard'
How about software developer?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is the digital age, and people are finding out more and more, how empowering it can be to know a few things. This is not the world of 20 years ago, and the fact as some have pointed out, that what he did was fairly easy to accomplish for many people here, should be a warning bell. So by giving a harsh sentence they may hope to stem the tide of people figuring they can finally get that big heist scheme to work.
I had a ridiculous conversation at a drinking party once, years ago. This guy I knew was blearily insisting that I needed to 'hack' a bank, because he was sure I could do it. I didn't know about that, I'm just a regular geek, scanning x.25 networks for outdials isn't the same as breaking into a bank. He was insisting it would definitely work. We could have it all planned out see, and, "Oh you could totally do it man, we should so do that!" I kept insisting that it was incredibly dangerous, and that I didn't know how ("Oh you can figure it out man, I know you can!"), and he just wasn't having any of my protests. Stealing, or for that matter almost anything that risks jail time, doesn't appeal to me anyway. Now imagine someone with his attitude and also the knowledge to follow buddy from the article. This sort of idea can become more widespread as technology reaches everyone, and is a scary thought for those with things to lose from it. People such as, well, any random person alive, could be you, could be me, could wreck a lot of lives.
they were on a Seqway.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Here's the dealio from another ex-con.
First my cred:
I spent 4mnths in Juevy hall at 15, 1yr at 16 (released just before my 18th b-day). I spent overnights too often to count between 18-22ish. I spent a weekend in city lockup when I was 21. And finally, I spent 2.25 yrs of a possibly 6yrs in a federal prison from 23-26.
That was all back in the late 80s to mid-90s. I have never been back since and live a honest life, except for the occassional joint or jay walking. My offenses were mostly stupid kids stuff made only stupider by the fact that I did stupid stuff every weekend and got caught a lot. The stretch in my 20s is from something unrelated that I will not get into but did not involve sex or kids (2 worst type of offenses in prison).
Your jails must have been easier than mine. Juevy was a living hell for anyone not mature enough physically. There were numerous sexual assaults in both institutions (I was in different ones at 15 and 16). They mostly consisted of a small guy being punched and slapped around all the time until they gave in. Mostly it meant theyd have to give head somewhere (there are plenty of private places in juvy halls for 5min at a time). Once you give head you are marked and carry the reputation throughout your stay and maybe back outside if you knew anyone there. But I understand why some gave in because unlike oz it didn't make you a bitch but usually meant the bully would go pick on someone else and leave you to being called Mary. No, I never gave head. Lucky for me I was a chubby white boy, not a skinny one. Skinny white guys have bad times in Juvy, especially since blacks and latinos hit maturity faster. I never saw anal rape in Juvy but it was talked about and maybe happened in cells but I never witnessed it.
City jails are like you describe and absolutely a joke... you have to go out of your way to get in trouble, its the only jails where you can just ignore someone demanding something from you (not stand up - ignore) and they'll go away cause no one wants to get locked in longer.
Federal prison was NO FUCKING JOKE. I saw rapes there. The guys in the middle of ranges would hang up sheets and rent out their cells and keep watch and you'd see big badasses pushing skinny young guys into them. I saw people forced to give head including once in the lunchroom by a guy who held the boys head down on his dick even when a guard ran over and started shouting and hitting his shoulder. Every skinny/young/handsome guy had to prove their mettle at some point unless they knew people already, and that meant standing and shouting "fuck you" and getting ready to punch. You couldnt fake it cause if they saw you shaking they'd jab you in the gut and it would be all over unless you fought back. I was scared shitless and decided to punch first if anyone touched me but I got left alone.
Advice to anyone going to jail, especially skinny guys:
-learn to smoke, even if you can't its expected and currency where allowed
-work out, so even if your not buff the flesh on your girly arms is muscle and not fat
-if you have a big mouth, shut up; if youre meek then speak up. a happy medium is to be the strong silent type
-jokes work great as long as they're really funny and either dirty or aimed at authority figures... don't joke about other inmates
-if someone takes something from you, punch them, even if they're 10x your size and will kick your ass, a week in the clinic beats being known as a wimp on the range
-if your white no matter what the temptation do not join a WP (nazi) gang, and avoid face and hand tattoos unless your never getting out (in which case get them and you'll rarely have a problem w a tear-drop tattoo)
-if your really fucked and really need friends then volunteer as an imate counsellor (drug, sexual, religious, whatever). I saw a guy who was going to get jumped walk away because someone he counselled stepped up for him
I think child porn is probably the biggest problem of the computer geek crowd, and t
consumer loose faith in the system, then they won't use elctronic transactions anymore.
I think it would be great.
Consumers do hold all the cards, if they would just lok at whats in their hand instead of listening to other people tell what they have, It would be a better society.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
O.J Simpson.
Look, it favors those with money.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"A single hacker messing around with the right financial data can ruin the lives of thousands or millions of people"
Can you point me to a single instance where single cracker's exploits has ruined the lives of even thousands of people? The only thing a cracker can do to cause more than a major inconvenience to people is identity theft, and that's exceedingly hard to scale up without getting caught. Also, while true that crackers can cost companies considerable sums of money, it would take a truely impressive feat to even approach the damage done by Enron et al, and that didn't destabalize the country now did it?
In short, while your fearmongering does have some basis in reality, it doesn't really scale up to the damage you predict.
....but the important thing is you've come so far and still retain your humility ;)
:) Seriously though, you are taking the contempt of others and simply redirecting it back through your own justifications. A purely human response, of course, but not one to boast about (in public.... since this is just a pissing contest on /. it's okay ;)
Just kidding, don't shank me!
Should we seek to lower the sentence for this crime or raise the sentence for murder?
One of the problems with murder sentences is that it depends on who you kill. I'd imagine that most murder happens in the inner city between waring gangs.
If a gang member kills another gang member society sees it as a plus for them so they throw a lighter sentence on the guy who pulled the trigger. If they even bother catching the guy and putting him through the court system. However if anyone kills a child or someone deemed pretty by society (see: Laci Peterson), you can bet that the killer is going to get the book thrown at them. Unless the killer is highly sympathetic themselves.
There are just very few "celebrity" murders in the scheme of things and so the average sentence isn't much.
The other problem is the insanity defense. It makes it very difficult to convict someone of murder and get the full sentence if anything at all.
You can't plead temporary insanity for a time period when you were fully capable of hacking into a computer system.
I think 9 years is sufficient and we should start taking murder more seriously and stop feeding loopholes (such as lame excuses about being "temporarily" insane) into the system. Then the average sentence for murder will go up. We try real hard not to throw the book at murderers. 9 year sentences for criminal hackers will also go down fast once it becomes common place and legal excuses are dreamed up by lawyers to get their clients off.
Work Safe Porn
Hey, guys, watch this!
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
If you took the time to RTFA you would have seen that the only reason they didn't get away with any credit card information was because they got caught BEFORE they could actually download the information. Thier "bugged" version of the program had already gotten a hold of six credit card numbers.
Also, if you RTFA, you would have noticed that the one of guys had a prior conviction of computer fraud and was still on probabtion.
Bottom Line: These guys were looking to steal. You reap what you sow...
We are blind to the Worlds within us
waiting to be born...
Lets get the real crooks who cost corporate America more money and are an irritation to society!
seriously malware programs are trojan horses and its cracking pure and simple. Many install themelves via buffer overflows in javascript just like a real worm. Many install keyboard loggers and backdoors just like a real worm. ALso many slow down computers just like real worms. So if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then what is it?
They are the true crooks here.
http://saveie6.com/
I had read the SecurityFocus article (I never read the AP ones... cause they are always are sparse on details). I had thought it was the same linked article.
We are blind to the Worlds within us
waiting to be born...
well obviously the sentence doesnt fit the crime, might they be trying to set an example? i mean, they know slashdot would eat it right up...
Damn, I thought my recent drug charges were bad.
irc.enterthegame.com #linux
Strange that people would try to argue that a computer offense is not worth putting in regular prison. But these people deliberately broke the law . And don't give me the whole "When you J-walk you deliberately break the law" cuz if the system was so black and white most of us would be in jail.
Any how they were trying to steal for personal gain and used there computer knowledge as the tool to obtain this "stuff" without the victims wanting to give it up.
But if the system admins were good enough they might not have been caught, but I don't think they wanted a competent Sys Admin at the time.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Accordin to Dogbert seven angels can dance on the head of a pin. Though personally, I believe 42 can.
The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth. --Edith Sitwell
Seems to me that trespassing is the only they committed. Our government is out of control. The FCC attacks people for exposing a breast on the TV, but they allow anything to occur on cable. It doesn't make sense. The government is not consistent, and the law has nothing to do with right or wrong. I say we take out our Nazi bastards and replace them with people that believe in civil rights. Just because the majority does not believe in civil rights does not mean we must follow in their terrorist ways.
> And I am not a badass, so that excuse won't fly. ...
>
> As for prison : it so happens that many people were scared of me
Oh I see...
This episode of the phreaking internet radio show Default Radio covers this when it first started several months ago. The co-host on this episode knew these people so it makes for a good insider's point of view.
Default Radio episode 23 part 1
Fast forward to 22:30
Hacker Media
The parent may indeed feel vengeful. But it is for the state to act humanely and compassionately. Here in Britain, prison is for protection of the public, rehabiliation and only a small element of punishment (deprival of freedom). Our prisons are not the hell-holes tha you USAians devise for each other but shamefully neither are they the civilised environments of Scandinavia.
Why should this matter? The USA as well as incarcerating more of its population for longer also has one of the highest rates of recidivism, far higher than ours which is in turn higher than much of Scandinavia.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
Maybe the realistic solution is just to use a different word instead of hacking, since most people have bad connotations of hacking.
I mean, it is just a word, why not take a new one, like for example tinker Its a pretty good word. Its both a noun and a verb. It could apply to software and hardware. It connotes cleverness and craftsmanship and experimentation.
"So, whatcha doin?"
"Oh, I'm just tinkering on my firewall to see if I can break it."
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Well, you had your chance recently and you blew it. Sadly, it appears that the majority *would* rather give up their civil rights for a little illusory protection.
And worse, if you try not following in their 'terrorist ways', it's you who is on the wrong side of the law.
Welcome to the Land of the Free - and you're very much welcome to it.
Kevin had no interest in any sort of financial gain from his activities.
you are so full of shit you stink.
I suggest you actually learn about the petty criminal that is Kevin Mitnick. from his OWN mouth, he was intentionally defrauding the cellphone companies AND making money off it. how do you think he afforded his piece of shit car and the other things he had. most of trhat gear is not really cheap and kevin certianly DOES NOT have enough of any hardware hacking skills to make any of it himself.
kevis is a glorified script kiddie petty thief.
stop glorifying him. He got a bum rap from the feds, but he certianly is NOT the curious nice kid idiots like you try to use.
hell even the 2600 crew acknoleged that he did things that were bad in all but blackhats eyes.
get a clue dude and a new hero.
3 strikes your out laws, etc, etc all appeal to about 70% of the population - namely the middle class and the rich (those who vote).
wow you have wierd math.
the middle class and upper class amount to 40% of the population in the USA.
the other 60% are poor.
i suggest you learn how non-rosey america really is little buy with no clue.
go look at us census data and the difference between middle class and poor is increasing daily.
Nobody who was subjected to the death penalty ever did it again. It is a very effective deterrant.
*sigh* *Starts reading Russian for Dummies*
University of Washington
Student
In public schools we are forced to keep things fairly open. We couldn't even install SP2 until recently, because most of our 3rd party software vendors said no. If we installed anyway, we could void our service agreement. There are also many security options available in group policy that we can't use, because we run some of the weirdest reading, typing, history, math applications ever. Also, we can't lock floppy or usb ports, because students need to be able to get their homework back and forth.
We have a wireless network setup, and it is fairly open. So is our DHCP server. Because as a school we are also a training center for parents and other school memeber. Our classrooms are rented at night to adult ed, and the gym or auditorium can be used by a number of renters. When people bring their laptops in we need to make sure they can plug in or turn on and get out the internet. Schools live in a constant balance between being secure and being easily accessed by all. After all - we are 'Public'.
They were not being "nice" but they weren't hurting anyone (at least not yet).
... So we have to wait until they (ab)use credit cards before they should be stopped?
'Yet'
The real problem I have is Lowes was putting credit card data on a wireless network!
I agree this is pretty dumb, but it's still no reason for it to get cracked. Think about this: you have an expensive house and several heavy locks on your door. One day you forget to lock them. Does this justify every burglar that walks up to your house, opens the door, enters your house and sets up camera's? Okay, they didn't steal anything (yet), but it's really your fault. Yeah right. They knew exactly what they were doing, and the fact that the security wasn't good enough is *no* reason whatsoever to justify this crime.
That depends entirely on what crimes you're talking about. Some sentences are overly long, and some are overly short. For example, the US routinely sets violent criminals free (including rapists and murderers) to make room for non-violent drug dealers. If that isn't ass-backwards, I don't know what is.
He robbed people, or attempted to rob them. This is like robbing a bank, only worse.
No, it's not. Theft and robbery are different animals. These guys never held a gun to someone's head, never threatened anyone. They are more akin to cat burglers than "robbers".
Nine years is longer than a manslaughter conviction. Longer than most murder convictions. Longer than rape convictions. What kind of fucking idiot are you to value some large corporation's potential bottom line (since they actually stole nothing) more than the life of another human being?
This conviction is bullshit, made solely to prove a point by sadistic bastards like yourself.
But where's the justification? I mean, these guys were criminals and bad people and I don't particularly want them in society with me. But come on--rapists don't go away that long for one count, and this was just attempted. There's just no logic to it.
Yeah, but you've come to the opposite conclusion as me. Lock up the rapists for much longer.
-- Dan
Retribution is the criminal's sentence by the victim.
it's the fault of the victim for being unprepared, undefended, uninformed
It's the fault of the criminal for being unprepared for punishment!
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
int isRehabFascism(void) // unless rehab is sought out by the person who is // getting "rehabilitated", it's pure fascism.
{
bool fascist;
char rehab[401];
strcpy(rehab, "your view of the world is wrong, this is the right one.");
fascist = true;
return fascist;
}
1001100 1100101 1100001 1110110 1100101 1001101 1111001 1000010 1101001 1110100 1110011 1000001 1101100 1101111 110111
Hey man, I agree. All I said was "there's no logic." I think every so often there should be an attempt by state and federal congresses to rebuild the punishment system in their jurisdictions in terms of actual severity so that it means something. It's too politically constructed.
Read jack phelps dot net
Hmmm. There's something wrong when the "badness" of a crime is measured in dollar terms. As others have pointed out, raping someone probably would have got a less time.
Didn't you know? The SI unit for measuring damage is dollars.
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
I'd be curous to learn what the dictated punishment is for attempted larceny. Regardless of the scale of what you try to steal, unless you actually steal something you're not a thief...even though you were trying to be a thief.
Just like smoking oregano while thinking its pot is stupid, its also not using drugs and you won't go to jail for attempted possesion of drugs.
If you want to argue that they illegally accessed a computer system they had no right accessing, ok, fair enough, but that should be separate from the act of trying to snatch credit card numbers.
Maybe there is a clause for trespassing with malicious intent, or something, but I find it REDICULOUS that this guy is going to federal pound me in the ass prison for 9 years.
This is a white collar, non-violent crime. They should fine the piss out of him (to the tune of everything he has) and sentence him to infinity probation with lots of public service.
White Collar criminals are more likely to be "Reformed" than violent ones because they know how to fit into society and have often proven good at doing so.
It's impossible for any of us to know whether your statement is true or not. While it might be, the vast majority of criminals deny their guilt, even when caught red handed. I've seen the footage from a sting operation in L.A. where the cops left a car in a bad neighborhood and hid a video camera in it and waited for someone to steal it. The theives had no idea that the cops were watching the whole thing and could force the car remotely to turn off the engine and lock all the doors after a perp drove off with it. Several guys said "I didn't do anything!" when the cops surrounded the stolen car.
More important to you, your record as a convicted criminal, right or wrong, may prevent you from immigrating to other countries. Your options to leave the US are likely to be severely limited and probably won't include any of the places you'd consider desirable to live in unless you can do a damn good job of convincing another country that you were set up.
They were wardriving in the parking lot. The crackers discovered a wireless cash register system used by the store when they needed additional cash registers during peak times. They would roll out a portable cash register, plug it into the floor AC outlet and start processing customers. A wireless network sent the data back to the stores main computer just like a cabled cash register. The problem was the wireless network was not encrypted. The crackers did in fact access the wireless network and sniffed the data. Then they used the sniffed packets to login to the stores main computer system which was connected to a home office network WAN. They hacked into several computers and networks and installed rootkits and programs to capture credit card information. The IT staff noticed them and called the FBI. The FBI sat in a van in the parking lot and noticed the crackers pull in the parking lot and just sit there. Observing them showed they had several laptops with them. I assume the store's IT staff was feeding the FBI information. Also the FBI used it's anti-cybercrime unit to collect evidence.
These guys were not harmless hackers. It may have started that way but once they started getting aggresive and had intentions of theft, they lost any morale credibility!
I say screw'em they got what they deserved!
spankings as a kid seemed to get the message across
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
If any thing these things hurt the corporate world because instead of putting blame on their IT department they hide behind lawsuits.
It's a PR move it shifts focus from there bad practises and on to intruders. They don't want there stock holders to get wise that a large part of the blame should be held in house.
This kind of actions serve to cover up these kind of insecure practises that are rampant in the world. Instead of fixing the system they brush it under the table.
I was burned by an Ebay auction but it was Ebay's nonchalant attitude that has left a sour taste in my mouth. It is company's policies that hurt attitudes towards online transactions. If a company is viewed to be proactive in searching out claims of fraud that builds trust.
Meanwhile the seller that screwed me still has auctions running and Ebay has done nothing.
Anger Rising!!!
The 3rd guy, Adam Botbyl, used to live on the street behind mine. He's a couple years younger than me; my little brother knew him better than I did. (This article names him)
This was probably 10 years ago (him and my brother would have been in 5th or 6th grade), but one interesting bit of trivia is that he was the butt of jokes by the other kids. A bunch of the neighbor kids were into collecting basketball cards. Some of the crueler ones would put common cards back into the pack and glue the top together, and they'd sell or trade them to Adam.
As I heard about this through my brother, it was portrayed that Adam was hella gullible. One pack had a card from the wrong brand in it (e.g. a Topps card in an Upper Deck pack); the other kids told him that it must be some error and might be more valuable. Whether the kid actually believed it or just went along to avert more bullshit is a question for him.
Stories like this were pretty common, and I wonder what that does to a kid, having no good friends around.
Now, I'm not saying that's an excuse; he's a total stupidass for what he did.
My stupid web site
If they were deterred from commiting a crime, then they wouldn't be a criminal. :)
It also doesn't shock me that criminals were not deterred from committing crime (for some reason or other).
incarceration is to deter people from
incarceration is to prevent people from
Given the definition of deter is "To prevent or discourage from acting, as by means of fear or doubt", I'm missing the distinction.
I think you do have a good point, I'm just not catching it. Could you elaborate?
Yndrd1984
It is a very effective deterrant.
Yeah, right...that's why murder rates are so high in the states. It's only effective if the gov't kills everybody.
Not saying it's 5 1/2 years' worth, but still... He was far worse than just an annoying guy.
Keep in mind that he was already convicted in Michigan of hacking an ISP (the first to be convicted under Michigan's new hacking law), and was still on probation (with only 2 weeks to go) when he was caught for this crime. When they caught him, he was about to flee the country. These reasons (probation violation and flight risk) is why he was in prison since he was captured, and why he is getting a harsher sentence, unlike the other accomplice (Botbyl) who has been out on probation until sentencing (which is to happen today).
The defendant was already on probation. He was busted in 2000 for cracking passwords on arbornet.org. He was 17 at the time, and one of the terms of his probation was to stay off the internet.
n ews-11/1103213452260230.xml
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/
(limited personal information cookie-filling-out required)
Boo hoo. He voilated the terms of his cake-walk probabtion. Have fun in prison.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
A cracker is a thing you eat with cheese.
"I'm calling myself a white hat code wizard."
A stroke of pure genius! Invent a Four-Letter-Acronym, that takes care of everything.
A hacker is found in the company of computers, a cracker is found in the company of cheese or dip. That hasn't changed in 30 years, it isn't about to.
I should've said 70% of the voting population perhaps :)
In honor of Brian Salcedo, I'll be offering a solo of "My Heart Bleeds for You" played on the world's tiniest violin.
Here is a photo of the perp, I think.
Click here or here.
I doubt they had the expertise to crack the network had it been properly secured, and almost certainly would not have bothered, so maybe they should sue Lowe's or at least the IT admin in charge of the wireless network for making it possible to commit the "crime".
Reading at high threshold levels is group-think.
Since the "crime" of wardriving is effectively similar to trespassing, we should look at it from the same point of view. In order to be charged with trespassing in most states, one must be made explicity aware (ie: by signs, verbally, etc.) and then disregard those warnings. Thus, the third person involved in this case who was convicted of a misdemeanor charge for checking his email on the network, shouldn't be held accountable since there was no warning or security system in place to keep him out.
Reading at high threshold levels is group-think.
This has been reported over a year ago. See the DOJ Press release...
DOJ Link for Salcedo here.
Also see the Security Focus article here.
There are plenty of articles about the case. The DOJ and FBI have most of it as public information for the search engine savy. The key is, there is a lot of potential damage to end consumers and the company with crimes like this. Considering it was his second offense and he hadn't even gotten off probation for the first, 9 years seems reasonable to me.
I have been following this case online for a while. They were involved with the 2600 scene, attented "Hacker" conventions, and were already known for things that some might view on a grey line (IE telephone companies - See Telcodata.us). The thing is that occasionally there are bad apples that learn from others and commit crimes. Showing a 9 year prison sentence might help keep some of the apples from rotting.
root 10956 5164 0 Oct 22 - 0:23 sendmail: rejecting connections: load average: 70 (isn't sendmail just too kind)
What's a typical sentence for that?
I'd guess it's not 9 years.
Changa hates change.
What is the deal with the wardriving charge? Is that actually a crime now? I thought it was legal, just that accessing the networks was not (which would be a seperate thing, not wardriving.)
This is wrong. Murderers these days get off easy. Sounds exactly like today's so called drug "crimes". They say all of this is to scare people away from doing the crime in the first place. I don't see how harsher punishments will really affect the crime from occuring. It will just keep the violent people out of jail and the non-violent people in.
trevorj
I probably should at least know a little. So should you. I was on the team that caught him in 2000. He should have gone down on a littany of Federal charges. Letting him take probation for only the Michigan violation was a gift he squandered. Nine years is not long enough.
Brian didn't really have the kindest words regarding you guys either (yes, I know him, and Timmins too). I re-iterate; he was made an example of. Granholm wanted to look tough on crime so she could run for governer, and she had this brand new computer crime law to trumpet.
9 years for what is, essentially, a case of attempted credit card fraud. I don't care what you claim he may or may not have done (knowing Brian, he probably did it) - the sentence handed down was too harsh *for the crime he was convicted of*.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
When I was 13, I did a little something wrong. I won't elaborate, but it was along the lines of TP'ing a house. Cops rolled up mid-process. It was around midnight when I got popped. I spent that night, the following day and night, and a third morning in juvenile hall before finally facing a hearing and being released to my parents. On charges of petty vandalism and malicious mischief, I spent approximately 36 hours or so in juvenile detention. The charges were eventually dropped.
In that time, I mingled with kids who had committed carjackings, armed robberies, and rape. Apparently the ones who were accused of murder got cells, the rest of us just hung around in chairs in a big room with a tiny TV. Of all the people I talked to, it seemed as though I was the least offender of them all. If I'd known of Alice's Restaurant at that point, I would have added "and creating a nuisance" when they asked why I was there.
I talked to a pair who had robbed the same liquor store over and over, getting away with hundreds of dollars each time, until finally the cops set up a sting (duh... like someone else said, most of the people in jail will be stupider than you). I talked to a group who described to me, in detail, how they pulled off home-invasion style robberies armed with nothing but walkie talkies - no weapons - and got away with a bunch of them before getting caught. The worst ones were the guys in there for rape. While everyone else seemed to be "just a kid who got caught doing something wrong," the ones who had raped were different, like they were proud to be there and had no remorse.
There is no pound-me-in-the-ass in juvy, at least it didn't happen during my stay and I don't imagine it would have been possible due to the constant monitoring. What you do get is incessant sexual harassment from the guards. You line up to take a shower, you disrobe one at a time. The guy in front of you starts taking his garb off, if you try looking off to the side or close your eyes to avoid seeing it, the guard will yell at you "face forward!" When it's your turn to disrobe, you get shit like "my dog has a bigger dick than that!" or "look at those shriveled peanuts!" or "Hey [other guard], this one doesn't have much hair!" The guards had a wonderful time demeaning everyone in this manner. Personally I think they take the job just to see underage cocks and balls, cause they sure do spend a lot of time looking and talking about it.
Tip of the iceberg. From a day and a half, I could probably write a book about it. Being in there was like being in Criminal Education 101. And that was just juvenile detention, and I was only there for 36 hours. "Idle hands," and all. I just wanted to confirm that your point #2 is spot on. In my personal experience, incarceration is just a way for criminals to socialize and further their education in the ways of the wrong. Thank god I was only there a day and a half.
I really don't care what he says about us. I told the AG's office to go easy on him four years ago hoping he'd learn a lesson. From this, I have learned this was misguided thought.
He committed a felony while on probation. He is a repeat offender. The system offered him an opportunity to rehabilitate himself and he failed. Therefore, the system must now take action necessary to protect us all from a twice-convicted criminal. Salcedo has nobody to blame for this but himself. And unless he learns this, he will continue to be useless to society in nine years.
On first blush, I'd agree with you. But then, I stopped and thought about why they might have failed. In some cases, it's clearly just bad luck or incompetence. In other cases, you find their hands switched at the moment of shooting or, despite a good knowledge of knife techniques and human anatomy, they managed to strike the person in just the right place to miss all the vital organs. I'd say that's psychology working against them, which messes up the intent.
Then too, attempted murder is too often charged in cases where the defendent obviously never really attempted to kill the person. Everything from warning shots to pranks to kids LARPing is grounds for "attempted murder."
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.