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Former Student Gets 30 Months For Political DDoS Attacks
wiredmikey writes "A former University of Akron student was sentenced Friday to 30 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release for conducting denial of service attacks on the sites of several prominent conservative figures as well as infecting several systems with botnet software. Mitchell L. Frost, age 23, of Bellevue, Ohio admitted that between August 2006 and March 2007, he initiated denial of service attacks on web servers hosting the sites of political commentators, including Bill O'Reilly, Rudy Giuliani, Ann Coulter, and others."
Good. Don't justify their fears by acting like a thug.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
That's seriously warped. Yes, what he did was wrong, but it's not like he permanently shut down the Internet.
30 months? Two and a half years? Damn, he should have just raped someone instead, he probably would have gotten less time and had a lot more fun in the process. I swear, I'm going to start voting against any politician that runs on being "tough on crime." It seems plenty tough enough as it is.
Two and a half years of someone's life, that's the price we demand now for some minor inconvenience? Damn, if I were his lawyer, I'd be tempted to appeal that for violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Meanwhile, Johannes Mehserle, a former BART police officer, shoots and kills an unarmed, restrained man while in custody in view of numerous eyewitnesses, and gets two years in prison minus time already served. Even if we take the defense's word on the matter and accept that it was completely accidental, does it really make sense to punish one person so much more severely for a crime that did not result in anyone's death?
Yes, I am well aware that in the US, those in positions of power--whether through political or financial means--are treated with leniency, and the unwashed masses suffer.
Freedom is speech is for all Americans - not just for the ones I or you agree with. Unfortunately, many sanctimonious politicians and college students don't believe in that as displayed by this student. Akron U is just down the road from me, hope this is not the education their spooning out.
-------- Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. --Ozzy
He allegedly "admitted" to what looks like ten counts or more, but since his special assessement was $200, he was only convicted of a single felony count. So, then, why ever would he have admitted anything else? That would be allocution, relevant conduct and further admitted behavior. When I plead out in February 2007, I admitted guilt on one count and all others were dismissed. I denied them (they were indeed false) and no one admits other behavior and gets done for one count.
According to the sentencing table, assuming this is his first offense, his offense was Level 22. He got a standard three-point reduction for admission of guilt and the judge gave him the low end of Level 19. He will do 87.5% of it, (no parole in feds) a little more than 26 months. He'll go to halfway house in 23.
But he will not go to a Camp. His relevant conduct will affect his custody, and he will probably go to a Low (basically a Medium with cubicles instead of cells), perhaps even FCI Elkton in Ohio where I was. Not fun.
My suspicion is whether he really admitted all those other counts, or this is journalistic excess.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Yeah. I saw guys in the feds who were doing 20 years because someone else committed a crime and they knew about it. I know a limo driver now at Elkton who picked up a fare at JFK, the DEA pulled them over and found the fare's bags stuffed with cocaine and meth. The driver knew nothing about it, denied all knowledge, and went to trial with a public defender. He got 37 years and lost his appeal, and does not have the money for collateral attack. Did you know that after one appeal, you must now use civil remedies, like 28USC 2241 and 2255, and you are NOT entitled to counsel for them?
I did five years for what most would call, at best, a silly prank that hurt no one and caused neither property or financial loss.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
"protected free speech"
I find it odd how the constitution seems to mention nothing about unprotected speech and yet people act as if this is normal. Actually, no, that's not odd. That's just the ancient tradition of government corruption kicking in.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Because NOTHING says "fair and open discourse" like blowing people whose opinions you dislike off the net in a great gale of "Shut The Fuck Up".
I'm not saying I agree with some of these people he DOS'ed, hell, some of them I dislike INTENSELY. But these are the actions of someone who has so little confidence in their own point of view that they have to try and make sure theirs is the ONLY one available.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
According to 18 USC 3553 the judge MUST consider the issue of disparate punishment. So the judge does. And does what he/she wants anyway.
It's a HUGE business, the prison industry, and it needs a steady flow of bodies, which it easily gets.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
because political operatives for the GOP have basically skirted the law for decades pulling shit like this and the DOS attacks on democratic offices and phone systems.
Citation needed. Try to make it within the past 20 years. Good luck.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
If it were a NON-POLITICAL DOS/bot attack, would anyone on Slashdot give a rat's ass if he went down for MORE than thirty months?
Ignore the political aspect, and he's just a vandal.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Are you serious? Free speech allows him to write his own website, it doesn't allow him to break theirs. Whether or not actual damages were inflicted is a different issue, much like "Attempted Murder" is just as much a crime as "Murder". The difference is in the punishment.
It pains me to see people honestly think that limiting other peoples speech is protected as free speech.
The above is not a subtle point at all. "sit ins" are by and large not legal at all. Think Abortion center protests. You can protest them, but you can't be a public disturbance, you can't be on their property, and you can't block people from access to the clinic. This is just what he did, he (attempted a) block of the websites, because he didn't agree with them. Instead of using his right to free speech to debate them, he decided to put his political feelings above others rights (free speech, right to assemble(people reading the sites), etc...)
Does the punishment fit the crime? maybe, maybe not, but this wasn't a protest, this wasn't a comment on some forum, This was a premeditated multivector attack on both the rights and the property of others. Just because he failed at it, or did it with a computer doesn't make it less wrong or illegal.
Ignore the political aspect, and he's just a vandal.
I concur. Like a spammer, he should suffer a penalty proportional to the crime. So, how many computers did he use in the DDOS attack, and what's the statutory penalty for fraudulent/unauthorized use of a computer?
Add them up, and he should probably do a couple of centuries of jail time.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Two wrongs don't make a right. Any right-winger using a DDOS attack on liberal sites should do time, too.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Where's the line between a DDoS against a political site and "protected free speech"?
I'd say the line is the use of other people's property without their consent. This is the same issue as spamming. His right to express himself doesn't include a right to use anyone else's property to do so.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If it were a NON-POLITICAL DOS/bot attack, would anyone on Slashdot give a rat's ass if he went down for MORE than thirty months?
Yeah, since manslaughter doesn't get you more than two years these days.* And a hit and run might not even be something a DA wants to pursue vigorously. **
But you wanna see the system freak out? Show the people with money and clout that the system has holes, that there are people who can do things with technology that they don't understand.
OK, it's really not just a tech thing. Both our statutory punishments and our sentencing is messed up in this country. Unfortunately, it's in no small part because we're quite simply very very stupid about the issue politically: we like to vote for people who are "tough on crime," so I don't expect a lot of change.
* May not apply if you're not a police officer.
** May not apply if you're not wealthy.
Tweet, tweet.
It pains ME to see an ideologue debase a basic free speech issue iinto another stupid liberal/conservative diatribe..
Those MORONS think the whole world revolves around their artificial bullshit dichotomy.
Reduce the world to liberal/conservative and you reduce choices. Reduce choices and you reduce freedom.
It is ALL about the power of Big Capital. It frames the dialog, and the lemmings folllow.
Well, Big Capital is one half of it. The other half of it is a public school system that takes great pains to never teach the basic logic, rhetoric, and critical thinking necessary to see that for yourself. Without that, many people would divest from the various sources of Big Capital and it wouldn't be Big Capital anymore.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
droopus has been commenting on his prison sentence for some time. He won't fess up to exactly what he did but from previous posts it appears he blew up some federal property with explosives. Whatever the case there is one thing you can count on, he will not tell you the whole story.
Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech...
As far as I can see, the Bill of Rights adds no qualifiers to speech. Am I missing something?
Our definitions of pranks must be different, a DDOS attack sounds as much like a prank as breaking into a jewelry shop and breaking all the glass display cases.
Sure, you may not have stolen anything, but it's hardly a prank.
If you would appreciate a different perspective, find some older (i.e. elderly) people and ask them about how police officers used to be.
In most places, the local cops acted more like neighbors. People knew who they were and it was okay to walk up to them and talk to them like any other human being doing any other job. They could lean on you really, really hard if you showed true maliciousness. Yet, most things that you'd call "childish pranks" were not dealt with so harshly.
For example, I have an older relative who grew up in the 50s. When they were teenagers and up to mischief, sometimes they'd actually throw eggs at police cars and do things like that. When they finally got caught, they were chewed out by the officer and were forced to clean up the car until it looked better than brand-new (maybe even with a toothbrush). They were then driven to their parents' and the parents were told what happened. Then they were in real trouble. It worked because after that they didn't do it again.
What happened was that growing up, they actually respected the police officers who served their community. They realized that they were given a break and allowed to grow out of their childishness. The cops were human beings, neighbors, maybe even friends. They were not trying to nail you as much as possible for every little thing. They were not thugs. Regular law-abiding people weren't afraid of them and in fact were generally glad to have them around.
These days, if some teenage kid threw eggs at a cop car I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he was tazed, arrested, charged with assaulting a police officer, tried as an adult, and given a criminal record that would haunt him the rest of his life. Some people really wonder why young adults today have little or no respect for authority. Somewhere along the lines the human element disappeared and now it's all about screwing you as hard as possible and with as little lube as possible. It's lost most of its respectability. I think this began in the 80s with a movement called "proactive policing" but its roots likely go deeper than that.
One way or another, we lost something valuable and irreplacable.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Let's be honest, this isn't something someone is going to do on accident. You're not going to set up a botnet and DDOS a major website by running Limewire in the background.
This guy here was purposely trying to hurt someone. He deserves to sit in jail, and take some time to reassess his life. Two years isn't really that long.
Qxe4
Civil disobedience is one thing, vandalism another. No-one should have the right to ddos another.
a DDoS is not speech any more than a punch to the face is speech, you are not sayin or expressing anything, you are using an automated means to disable computer systems and or networks
it's not a subtle point at all,
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
If the punishment were easy, parties on both sides wouldn't hesistate to use this tactic on a regular basis. They'd spend a night in jail, pick up some trash by the side of the highway, and then return to party HQ with a pat on the back and a hearty, "congratulations, you took your first pinch like a man". Thirty months in the pokey helps take that option away, although some hardcore operatives might still do it. In cases where the organization routinely funded it, you'd bring in RICO laws of course. It might be possible to RICO some community org, or even a labor union. Prosecuting a major party under RICO? Let's not go there.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Lengthy prison sentences are a product of, not only politicians and the War on Crime, but corporate ownership of jails. There is a financial and electoral incentive for putting people in jail. The growth of the prison population has grown dramatically in the last 50 years as a result of the commercialization of the penal system.
See also Republicans, and Teabaggers responses to their own being raging assholes.
Ok Nancy, we get it. You're upset you lost the house. Now quit calling people teabaggers and assholes.
There's no place like
Please god, if you are good, let me not die in a fire in a portable toilet.
Haida Manga
No. This punk is nothing more than a digital brownshirt, trying to silence those who he disagrees with.
Sorry, but silencing others is NOT protected as free speech.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I would go a bit further...
His right to express himself doesn't include a right to silence others.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
No, you fucking idiot, my posts on slashdot are being modded down by young assholes who don't like it when I point out the holes in their arguments and statements and ask for proof of what they say. They are probably not at my local university. Maybe you should learn to read, or is it that you are trying to twist my words?
I don't know you. You have no good reason to communicate like that. Imagine you were another person reading what you just wrote, and describe to yourself what they would think about you. (Google neurotic if you're having trouble picking out your self deficiencies) I'm obviously not a fucking idiot, and I am not twisting your words:
I live next to a major university and am a part of slashdot. I see plenty of young people who believe they have the right, if not duty, to silence right wing arguments. I am a victim of them, just read my sig.
You just said you were a victim of them modding down your comments on Slashdot, and you defined them as young people (implicitly liberal) from the university you live near. Apparently, I can read.
Also, and this may be a stark realization for you, but you can't actually know who mods down your posts. (When you Google neurotic, be sure to follow up on phobias) Did it ever occur to you that the reason your posts tend to be modded down might be that you call people fucking idiots, whereas people would rather have smart, reasonable conversations?
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Unless its a filibuster DDOS attack - those are ok.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Sit-ins are extensively used today all over the world, but curiously almost exclusively by the "left" of the respective country.
But the fact that they are so heavily used everywhere by people who proclaim themselves to be people's or peace activists doesn't exactly make it any more peaceful or respectable.
Sit-ins are peaceful only in a way that it doesn't punch people in the face. Other than that, they're more often than not illegal, that is, trampling someones right to move or use their property, not only the owner of the place they're sitting-in on, but also all the people around them.
In my opinion, it is a key trademark of the political left of any country in the Western hemisphere: they regard their goals as so important and their mind as so pure, that they habitually see themselves in any case above all their political opponents and their interests and opinions - but usually also above issues like the law, that is more often than not regarded as "protecting the enemy" instead of protecting everyone's freedom. It is this mindset that results in seeing all (their own) actions as "peaceful" as long as no one is punched to the face, no matter what other laws and freedoms they may have crossed. On the other hand, the Left - here in Europe - are the political faction most likely to commit violence, if that is of course "justified" in their own opinions.
Athens: have the lowest pension age of the entire western world, the most state officials per inhabitant and for many industries ridiculously low income taxes. Have the state increase the pension age, riot for months, destroy billions in infrastructure, send package bombs to everywhere in Europe
France: work in a factory, if 20% of employees must be let off in the worldwide crisis, kidnap and/or murder the boss that is still providing a job and income to the remaining 80%.
Germany: prevent any conservative or right-leaning party from ever be able to hold a congress, demonstration or election campaign, no matter what constitution and laws say about it. Beat people from conservative and right-wing parties (see ProKöln and others) to a pulp. People of conservative and right-wing opinions brought it on themselves, right?
Well, then you should realize that there are more elements in parallel than what you listed. Add also all the anti-religion and anti-God rhetoric and the "reason is all we need" kind of logic that is also prevalent today. Then look at the outcome. After the mob slaughtered all their bosses they turned on each other and slaughtered each other because each of the factions in the mob thought the other factions weren't politically correct.
History shows us that if we fail to learn from it we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes today that others in the same political/emotional environment made in the past. Take a look around you and see how often those who claim reason is everything and that religion is stupidity degenerate into nothing more than emotional rantings against those who disagree with them and those in charge of the government. The climate today is the same as it was back then, and it was the "smart" people in the French revolution that were the cruelest and most inhumane to their fellow man. They were the people who slaughtered anyone who disagreed with them....
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville