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!"

Comments

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[hannson]

What I find most interesting about this case is that the initial sentence is up to 1 year for the unauthorized access itself and 20 years for the "obstruction of justice". I just can't see how that punishment fits the crime.

Verizon isn't letting this go...

[GPLDAN]

If Verizon can find the identities of the investigators who did it, they will prosecute them. They have a few IP addresses, but it hasn't resulted in any names.

Corporate espionage types do a better job of covering their tracks than David Kernell. He was sloppy, now he's going to federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison.

A big Slashdot-y example of this from my life

[br00tus]

On November 2, 1988, Robert Tappan Morris Junior released his worm, on an Internet that at that time had very little security. It took down a significant chunk of the net, crashing thousands of machines. Morris's father was a bigwig in the national security establishment, Morris was an upper middle class WASP who went to Harvard. Despite all this damage, he did no jail time.

On January 24, 1990, in New York City, three MoD hackers were arrested. I had met all three before they were arrested. In terms of damage, only one machine they had ever been on had crashed, and all three denied crashing that one machine. There was no proof they had crashed it, and dozens of hackers had been on that Learning Link machine. Even if one had crashed it, which I don't believe, how can you accuse three people of the same crime? All three lived in poor or working class neighborhoods in New York, went to public schools etc. The judge said he would make an example of them and sent all three to jail.

I was 16 years old when they were arrested, and this was my first real experience seeing the "justice system" - an upper middle class WASP whose father was high in the military establishment admits he crashed thousands of machines and is called a misunderstood genius who made a mistake, and walks on charges. A year later three guys younger than him are arrested for crashing a computer which they all plausibly deny crashing (and how does it take three people to crash one computer anyhow), a computer which had dozens of other hackers on it. They come from working class neighborhoods in Queens, with modems connected to Commodore 64's, not Unix workstations at Ivy League schools like Cornell. They go to jail, Morris walks. An early lesson for me on how America really works.

Re:A big Slashdot-y example of this from my life

[mellon]

When Morris released the worm, there were no laws on the books specifically forbidding that activity, so there wasn't much they could charge him with. The MoD hackers were a test case for the new law that Morris' case led congress to pass. So yeah, it sucks, but you can't pass a law making something a crime and then charge someone for the crime of having done that thing before the law was passed. While there certainly are examples of the phenomenon you're talking about in law (e.g., the difference in sentencing for crack vs. powder cocaine), this is not such an example.

Re:Corporatocracy

[jeffasselin]

I prefer the term "corporate oligarchy". Means mostly the same thing, but those words actually exist.

Re:Can we please go back to calling it "LYING"?

[iPhr0stByt3]

We could also remove words such as running, sneaking, walking, jogging and sprinting and just say "going".
Pretexting is a specific type of lie that means setting up the false pretext to be someone else - typically by using valid and/or confidential information about that person or by using the pretext over a prolonged period of time to make the ruse seem more convincing.

I appreciate having this extra bit of information instead of just saying "he lied".

Re:Some Differences in These Cases

[Enderandrew]

If I recall, it was assumed that merely having a personal email account was a means to skirt public disclosure requirements, but after multiple ethics investigations, they didn't find anything.

So was there proof she was doing "sekrit" business in her personal email account or not?