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Hack a Million Systems and Earn a Job
An anonymous reader writes "It has been a number of years since the fantasy that hackers will be offered a job by those who they hacked was even a potential reality, but this might still be the case in New Zealand. An 18-year-old hacker responsible for writing a number of applications used by an online group called 'the A-Team' that allowed the creation of a million-plus machine botnet and a range of credit card fraud activities to take place, has walked free from court sans conviction despite pleading guilty. And to top it all off, the NZ police force were interested in talking to the hacker about working for them, and 'several computer programming companies' were also chasing him for his skills."
...so I'll be driving everywhere with my foot to the floor, hoping for a drive by 2010!
This has been on the news for awhile in NZ, the funny thing is the paper the other day said tens of thousands, then another one said hundreds and now it's a million!
Awesome.
This guy has already proven that he will break the law. By working for the police department, he can write the systems for them, then later leave and hack their system. The guy has already been proven that he can't be trusted, so why work with him.
According to a local story he was discharged without conviction because he didn't show criminal intent, rather he was he motivated by proving his abilities, and conviction would be unduly detrimental to his future prospects.
Honestly, he's an 18 year old with Asperger's. In other words, he's a lonely teenage nerd, with a literal handicap in the personality department. The only thing to do is give the kid a job.
Asperger's, like autism, makes cause and effect a little difficult to process. That said, people with Asperger's also tend to be very methodical (as his computer expertise can attest.) Setting down a clear set of expectations for him about how to behave in the computing realm is difficult, but it's not the same thing as trying to reform a hardened hacker. He's young, and he's not entirely with it, at least not in terms of personal interaction. I imagine that's exactly why he hasn't been charged.
Some more context might be useful. Walker had mild Aspergers syndrome; criminals were paying him to work, but the judge believed that he was unaware of what they were doing with his work. Even the crown prosecutor acknowledged that he had not profited financially, nor had he used the botnet (which, I guess, he helped make) for fraudulent purposes.
Summary: Aspergers kid develops amazing programming skills; gets exploited by bad guys; when it all blows up his family starts paying more attention to him and he gets more sociable. Judge realises that he done wrong, but he didn't mean wrong; sending him to prison would ruin his life and cost taxpayers money, whereas keeping him out of prison will let his family set him straight and turn him into a profitable, functioning member of society.
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
As a New Zealander, I can assure you that, despite what has been represented in the media, it is not illegal to smack your child here. What happened was that the defence of 'reasonable force' was removed from the crime of child abuse. What that means is that you can smack you child, but you can not beat the crap out of your child and then claim you were just disciplining them.
fyi: I heard a policeman say on the radio yesterday that he definitely has *not* been offered a job at this stage. dunno why all the news stories are running that one.
Typical, they are a decade behind the rest of the world.
Yeah the "world" is so ahead isn't it. Poor Kiwis, why haven't they got all their troops in the middle east already, and a mortgage crisis, and incalculable foreign debt and nuclear power and massive prisons and... and when can I move there?
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
As a society, we need to realize that criminals or 'outcasts' (for whatever reason) can be extraordinarily intelligent. As a society, we need to learn how to harness their skills.
Frank Abagnale (the main character of said movie) turns from a check-forger into a designer of secure checks... by using his knowledge of what's hard to forge. We're all better off as a result.
There was a kid a couple of months ago who had the creative and technical skill to make a CounterStrike map of his school. I sure as hell can't do that. Now instead of letting him do an independent study in game design or 3d modeling, or even teach a class (after school or whatever), they sent him to a 'special' school (where they send all the stupid bullies).
We need to give people who possess this intelligence another outlet.... otherwise they'll continue to eat our lunch. Being on the wrong side of the law is obviously more interesting, which is presumably the appeal - a Google-style approach of 'work on cool projects on a flexible schedule' ought to keep them interested enough to do productive work.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Why is this modded Funny? In this case it's a perfectly reasonable justice system. He's already been fined NZ$15,000 (~US$11,000) which would likely be a lot for him.
The judge looked at the situation and the context (including the fact that he's autistic), took into account that the police weren't too interested in seeing him in jail (NZ police are interested in actually preventing crime rather than simply locking people up), decided he's young and is probably unlikely to do it again if given a second chance, took into account that he's received other forms of discipline already, noted that he'd actually realised and accepted the consequences of what he did and was willing to try and pay reparations, noted that an on-the-record criminal conviction would limit him in a lot of ways for the rest of his life and probably put him in a position where he'd more likely offend again, and determined that all of this information outweighed the possibility of a discharge-without-conviction encouraging others.
This seems like a very good justice system to me. The judge is actually considering the case on its merits and taking into account that throwing someone into jail will just make it more likely they'll re-offend when they get out.