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Rich Pretexter, Poor Pretexter
theodp writes "David Kernell used pretexting to gain access to Sarah Palin's e-mail. And now Kernell faces the possibility of a 20-year prison sentence. HP used pretexting to gain access to its Board's phone records. And now HP faces the possibility of supplying phones to the very companies that were victimized in the HP pretexting scandal. So perhaps Kernell should try coughing up $14.5 million to see if that'll make his pretexting problems disappear. Seems to have worked for HP!"
In the HP case, I don't think they publicized or gave away that information to potentially harmful persons. Palin could legitimately fear identity theft while the HP case that was more invasive seemed to have a very small group of people accessing the private information. Basically, was there potential identity theft in either case? Kernell's jury was hung on that, if I remember. The other thing is that the HP employees didn't seem to want to press charges (aside from one, if I recall correctly). So the pretexting victims need to step up and remember, the telephone companies weren't the biggest victims, it was the actual phone account holders that had their records accessed via pretexting. I'm no legal expert on the issue but I think if the people whose records had been accessed stepped up to sue then the result would have been different. I imagine Palin will exercise all options in prosecuting Kernell and since she's not in anyway trying to salvage a relationship with Kernell he'll get the book thrown at him whether he's sorry or not.
Also, I read about this in ValleyWag and didn't see it linked to in the summary. Not sure if theodp works there or if it was just coincidence but if this comparison was gleaned from there, some small credit should be given.
My work here is dung.
there will never be proof that HP or it's officers told someone to break the law. they told the PI's to get the info and it was up to them how to do it
Under American law, corporations have almost all privileges of citizenship without most of the responsibilities of citizenship. And people acting on behalf of a corporation have lots of legal protections that us regular schlemiels lack. They benefit extensively from the protection of the US military (both in and outside of US territory), and of course have ready access to all the more local services such as police, the fire department, municipal water supply, and so on. Thanks to the current Supreme Court, they also have full rights of political speech.
However, about the only responsibility of citizenship that they have to any degree whatsoever is that they are required to pay taxes, and many of them manage to dodge even doing that. Interestingly, if the interests of their shareholders conflict with the interests of the US, they are legally supposed to go with the shareholder's interest. So, for instance, if it is profitable to find a legal loophole that allows some subsidiary to sell uranium to Iran, a corporation capable of doing so is generally obligated to do just that.
The craziness of this: if Carly Fiorina pretexts to find out whether her husband is cheating on her, she's likely to be in a similar boat to David Kernell. If she pretexts to find out whether there's a leak on her board, she's now acting as a corporate officer, and thus the company is liable, not Carly, unless the prosecutor or plaintiff can convince a judge to pierce the corporate veil. Same person, same act, but in the second version there's an extra layer of legal protection.
I am officially gone from
Pretexting is just a made up word to make it look like they did something clever.
We used to call these "criminal impostors" back in the day. If a thief, masquerading to be a cop, pulled you over and then stole your wallet, would you call it "pretexting"?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Kernell does not face 2o years for pretexting. Kernell faces 1 year for unauthorized computer access and 20 years for felony obstruction of justice. To the best of my knowledge Kernell has not been sued by anyone over his unauthorized access.
HP settled a civil suit brought by Verizon for US$ 14 million. HP and the investigators hired who did the actual pretexting still face criminal charges. Those charge may result in jail time. There is little chance of a 20 year sentence as there is no felony obstruction charge in the HP case. Each count of unauthorized access carries a penalty which can run either concurrent or consecutive.
Verizon currently sells an HP netbook. HP may buy Palm, but there is no guarantee that Verizon will continue to carry Palm/HP phones. But, that US$ 14 million settlement may result in Verizon continuing to carry HP devices, especially if said devices are popular.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
what would have happened to you if you'd gone around distributing thousands of CDs to people that, when placed in a computer, installed a rootkit?
Now, what happened to Sony?
And now you understand how the system works. Give yourself a pat on the back and get back to the salt mines.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
You might be able to make the civil disobedience argument if he had, say, broken into the email account, downloaded everything, and sent it to a site like Wikileaks. Instead, he put the password on 4chan, and in the process he didn't really expose anything and delegitimized anything that might have been found.
Painting this kid as some sort of noble hacker/whistleblower is pure fantasy.
(At the same time, I do feel empathy for him, as we all know what law enforcement would do if someone broke into one of our personal webmail accounts: Absolutely nothing.)
That isn't how the legal system works. The court doesn't say "you've done X damage, pay for it with money or time". Would you propose we go back to debtors prisons?
If Bill Gates stabs someone and a jury convicts him of murder, could he "buy off" his life sentence?
Your understanding of justice in the US (and the rest of the world as far as I know) is fundamentally wrong.
Obstruction occurs AFTER the initial crime and takes place during the investigation. It can be as simple as lying about the whereabouts of a person (I know someone arrested on misdemeanor obstruction for just this reason). Wearing a mask during the original crime doesn't count as obstruction because it does not occur during the investigation, but it could fall under other laws banning the wearing of masks in public.
Kernell is charged with two crimes; one crime is unauthorized access of a computer system and he is charged with a separate crime for destroying evidence during the investigation of the first crime.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
That's a pretty good point. On the other hand, it's also true that public perception of this type of activity changed dramatically in the year that passed between those two events and the response by authorities had shifted considerably. 1989 was a pretty unique year.
For this reason, it's somewhat difficult to compare the two situations on the same grounds. It is unlikely that economic disparity is not the only influential factor.