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."

Comments

Meanwhile, a cop gets 2 years

[wickerprints]

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.

Re:Meanwhile, a cop gets 2 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's how it works. There are three classes of people in American society. The first class is the people who run the large institutions: the politicians in government, and the executives of corporations. The second class is the people who protect these institutions: police, lawyers, the media, etc. The third class is everyone else. To calculate a criminal sentence, just use the following formula:

adjusted sentence = original sentence * 10^(class of perpetrator - class of victim)

If you kill someone of your own class, you might get 20 years in prison. But since the BART cop was in the second class, while Grant was in the third, this was dropped down to 2 years. Here, it's the reverse: the student targeted conservative pundits (second class) so instead of 3 months he gets 30.

Re:Meanwhile, a cop gets 2 years

[causality]

This isn't physics, it's law.

Yes. A man who was already restrained and presented no threat was shot and killed.

The law should be asking one question: if a police officer has restrained a suspect and that suspect no longer presents any threat to the officer's safety, why was the officer's hand anywhere near his gun? Why was that gun not in its holster with the safety on? If that does not indicate intent to murder the suspect, then what would? Are we to believe that a trained police officer who is regularly evaluated on marksmanship does not understand the basic gun safety rules known to any redneck? At some point the whole idea that this was an "accident" loses all credibility. I find it much easier to believe that cops simply have an easier time getting away with murder.

Re:As a rabid lefty

[KingSkippus]

Good. Don't justify their fears by acting like a thug.

That's two and a half years. Yes, he deserves to be punished, but it strikes me that he's not the one acting like a thug here, and I don't give a damn whether he's a rabid lefty, righty, or indy. If I heard that someone had gotten two and half years for taking down Reid'a, Pelosi's, and Michael Moore's sites, I still boggle in disbelief that someone got two and a half years.

Seriously. Damn!

Re:As a rabid lefty

[shutdown -p now]

As another lefty, I agree in principle - some people are really assholes (Coulter would qualify for sure), but that doesn't mean that they do not have the right to demonstrate that to the world through unimpeded speech. Those who do not enjoy it have the freedom to not listen.

That said, I wonder about the length of sentence. 30 months sounds way too much to me for this kind of crime. In fact, any prison term sounds harsh - unless I'm missing something about what he did, it looks like the kind of thing that is best punished by a hefty fine and some community service.

Re:Jesus! 30 months!!?

[droopus]

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.

Re:Scratch a Liberal, find an Autocrat.

[jmottram08]

"a bit of thought?"

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.

Re:Scratch a Liberal, find an Autocrat.

[jcr]

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

30 months is too long

[weston]

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.