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UK Hacker Ryan Cleary Has Asperger's Syndrome, Court Told
An anonymous reader writes "Ryan Cleary, the British teenager accused of launching DDoS attacks at the likes of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a court heard [Saturday]."
Looks like the UK Government are going to help him with his fear of open spaces.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I don't have a source ready, but that has been his defense for over a year.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
"it's not my fault i'm a sociopathic piece of shit"
Isn't that punishment enough?
Well, maybe he thought it was an agency run by serious organized crime. :-)
Well, thinking again about it, in that case it would have been an even more stupid action to DDoS it ...
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Man on internet has aspergers. Film at 11: Sun is hot.
So what if he has Asperger? Are the lawyers implying that he is less responsible for his acts due his condition? Clearly they do not know anything about Asperger's syndrome and in fact are offending people with this kind of syndrome, this simply infuriates me, people with Asperger around the world are trying HARD to demonstrate that they can behave as normal as anybody else and this lawyers come with this just to save this guy's Ass, thats plain irresponsible!
I guess they have another department for catching the humourus disoganised criminals
It's not like it's the Very Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Gary McKinnon based much of his appeal to be exempted from extradition to the US on Aspergers & failed. Aspergers makes people mal-adapted to much of society but does not affect their comprehension of right/wrong & so is irrelevant.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Indeed. I probably have Abserger's, I score highly on most of the indicators, my wife (a paediatrician) thinks so, I think so. (I'm also a qualified doctor, but no longer practising). I have not been formally diagnosed, but I don't feel the need to do so.
I've never sought to make it into a "condition". It's not a label I apply to myself. It's just part of the way I am. In some ways, I consider myself fortunate - it's almost certainly a contributor to my facility with computers, a skill that puts bread on my table.
And it definitely doesn't interfere with your ability to distinguish right from wrong, or generate any uncontrollable urges to do "naughty" things.
In some ways, I *would* have like it spotted earlier, because I could have had an easier time of school if people had just explained to me some of the things that people take for granted are "built in", like an understanding of interpersonal relationships. I know I have developed purely intellectual ways of dealing with these things, because I spot myself doing it now. When I did an Asberger's test, I recognized that for many of the questions about social interaction, my answers were not typical of Asberger's - but that I would have answered very differently 20 years ago, largely because I now understand how to form a social niche that I find workable.
No! I'm Asparagus!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This must be some new variant which only strikes when the Lulz stops and you're sniffing and blubbering in the cells.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Exactly. If he had been diagnosed with moderate to severe Autism or something and basically lived inside his own head it might be some excuse for his actions (ie not being able to understand they were criminal). Asperger's syndrome just means you have some of the cognitive issues, particularly in regard to social situations, that people with Autism share. If you have those symptoms to the point they are crippling you will generally get diagnosed with Autism.
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CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
Yep.
Their job is to find absolutely anything which will get their client off and/or decrease the sentence. Doesn't matter if it's a medical condition, addiction, or something nasty like child sexual abuse, it's their duty to represent it to the court as something which drove the behaviour.
The prosecution will, of course, be digging up evidence that the kid is some kind of Machiavellian criminal mastermind using his inhuman hacking skills to springboard to world domination...
Log in or piss off.
I don't know what this means legally exactly but in UK law there is the defense of 'diminished responsibility'. For example, someone who would normally be convicted of murder may instead be convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility if they were suffering from an abnormality of mind.
However what you seem to be suggesting is that if someone with a previously diagnosed condition would like it to be taken into account, then they shouldn't if sufferers of that condition usually try to get on with their lives? If so I think that's a difficult point to argue. Those with schizophrenia try to live normal lives and take responsibility for their actions but surely no one would claim that a sufferer who commits a crime whilst experiencing delusions was responsible.
It's a matter of degree. I once had someone with asperger's in one of my classes and it was very difficult indeed. She once walked into my colleague's office, ignoring him completely, and began browsing his bookshelf! Now, if she had walked out with one of those books, would she have been responsible for theft? Legally? Of course. Compassionately? I would make allowances based on her condition...
Agreed. I don't mean to dismiss Aspergers, because I know that there are some people that it actually applies to and who are actually impacted (to some degree) by symptoms of it. Like the inability to discern certain social and facial/emotional cues. However, since it first became a "thing" a few years ago, 90% of everyone on every geek oriented website has self-diagnosed themselves with it. You can set your clock by it, too. Post anything about it at any time and anywhere and a flock of people claiming that they're "pretty sure they have it" will arise. With such evidence as "I am kind of socially awkward sometimes" and "I get really obsessed with certain things" or "I am super detail oriented". (I've heard very few descriptions of Aspergers as anything other than just being different. Basically, if you weren't Mr. Outgoing, on the glee squad, and interested in football -- you have Aspergers.... of course, if you're outgoing and a social butterfly and interested in sports, you're probably going to be diagnosed as "suffering" from something else).
Aspergers is one of those things put in the DSM so loosely that pretty much anyone could theoretically be diagnosed with it. Sort of the same way most people read a horoscope and say "wow, how do they know me so well?!". What I don't get is the whole appeal of "wanting to have it". Some people seem so eager to claim they have Asperger's that you'd think it gave you a nine inch dick.
In this particular instance, it's actually a bit sickening. The impression I'm given from story after story after never-fucking-ending story about Aspergers is that it has nearly no impact on those that have it (which kind of makes it seem pointless to be a "thing" that has to be "diagnosed", right?). I mean, the people we're always given examples as "probably having Aspergers" are Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and the like. Wow, what a terrible affliction. So it makes most people extremely intelligent, socially-awkward, wealthy successes . . . and this guy a criminal?
He might as well claim to be suffering from "seasonal affective disorder" (otherwise known to normal people as FUCKING WINTER).
... people with Asperger around the world are trying HARD to demonstrate that they can behave as normal as anybody else...
It strikes me that this is a really strange thing to say. Surely it is exactly the nature of Asperger's syndrome that they NEED to try hard BECAUSE their natural ability to grasp what is "normal" is different to the other people they interact with!
If your challenge was "he shouldn't be able to avoid prosecution on the grounds of his ability to perceive social standards", then the question is raised as to what the relationship between responsible agency and the comprehension of social standards is. We learn to understand what is right and wrong through our interactions with the social world around us, because that's the feedback mechanism - we get praised as kids for good behaviour and scolded for bad. Although law is a separate mechanism, concepts of consequence and contract (on which theories of law are often grounded) are both learned through the same kinds of channels.
Obviously, Asperger's entails a difficulty with such cognitive mechanisms, rather than a complete failure of them, so people nonethless retain responsibility for their actions. The question is to what extent this responsibility can be diminished in proportion with that difficulty, and there is a positive liberty argument to be made to the effect that you can't be held as a fully reasonable agent under the law when there are blatantly obvious consequences for your actions that you have never learned to formulate. That's also the essence of arguments for public education and not giving kids voting rights.
You are entirely entitled to feel offended that the position hasn't simply been immediately ruled out. After all, it suggests that being on the autism spectrum might affect one's entitlement to equal treatment under the law. But that doesn't make the position wrong. Consider cases of people with severe low-functioning Autism (which, it should be pointed out, are woefully neglected in the general media beyond childhood) - these are people with serious needs that they are not in a position to fulfil for themselves, and it often falls to family members to provide the difficult and expensive care that they require. To state straight-off that the law should be blind to such situations is just callous; it at least deserves consideration.
Finally, it should be entirely anticipated that people with Asperger's syndrome might have trouble seeing why the position could be right. That's what the condition is. So I'm sorry, but I think your judgement of "irresponsibility" is premature. We can't just throw out the argument of diminished responsibility on the grounds of sentiment or intuition. It's a proper legal discussion that needs to be had, and perhaps an important question of moral philosophy too.
Myu:
What does that have to do with aspergers?
Most people would go to well in prison. I'd probably seriously consider suicide if I was looking at doing time in a place where I had to be the bitch of one prison gang or another just to survive, live in a cell the size of a bathroom stall, and have absolutely no freedom.
Oh - also - MOST people don't like new routines or environments.
Not really, he's a doctor, OTHER people are supposed to figure out what he wrote...
Except it is spelled with a P. Typos or not, those keys aren't that close together.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
One way a "aspie" may compensate for issues in daily life is by forming a fantasy world where they have a degree of control.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Being weird isn't a medical condition.
I'm not saying that there aren't symptoms which can be severe enough together to deserve a diagnosis and some sort of effort to mitigate them for certain people, but all these people saying "well, gosh, I was awkward when I was in high school; now I know why" and therefore diagnosing themselves with Aspergers are just being dumb asses. People are different. Some are weird. Some are awkward. And in high school, pretty much EVERYONE was awkward. Hell, for the rest of life most people are kind of awkward.
There is this sick desire to label everyone who deviates from a specific and fine line of normality as having something wrong with them (treatable, of course!) and for everyone who deviates even slightly from the "norm" to be diagnosed. It's just messed up.
I don't intend my comments to apply to the few people who actually suffer from real and actual severe cases of legitimate Aspergers and have been diagnosed as such. Just the people who sickly cling to things like ADD, Aspergers, seasonal affective disorder, and whatever else they can think of to both differentiate themselves as unique and . . . explain why they have always felt different.
If a person has problems controlling his/her actions then why shouldn't "Society" be allowed to exert more control over that person (e.g. jail, restrictions, loss of freedoms). Parents are essentially allowed to be near-dictators over their children till their children have "grown up".
And if anyone does something wrong and claims to not have free will, why should he/she be treated better than a faulty machine that has failed?
people with Asperger around the world are trying HARD to demonstrate that they can behave as normal as anybody else
If they have to try that hard, then that says something in itself...
There's nothing in Asperger's that would "excuse" anyone from being tried regularly. Insanity is a defense used for those that couldn't, at the time, understand what they were doing was wrong. However, there is nothing in that which would dismiss a criminal case.
The previous application of Asperger's in the UK was to establish that it is a condition that would not be treated appropriately in the US were the person with it to be extradited. It wasn't used as a "he has this, he should be excused" argument, but that "he has a condition that would be ignored should he be extradited, and as such, it would be inhumane to extradite him because of that."
If you actually understood Asperger's, I'd assert that the most offensive thing about this article is the last sentence (specifically the snide comment in the last clause), "He said Cleary is highly intelligent but agoraphobic and has difficulty interacting with people, presumably unless they are on the end of an Internet connection." The last clause adds nothing to the article, but takes a shot at those with Asperger's using computers to shield themselves from others. It's actually a good thing. Those who do not use or understand social cues do much better where those cues are filtered so that everyone is on a level playing field. And for some, it's mentally not even talking to other people, or they would be more nervous. They type, responses show up. Whether those responses are people or bots or such is irrelevant. It's not personal contact and could be anyone anywhere or maybe nobody at all, so it doesn't trigger the same anxiety as being there in person.
Another aspect of Asperger's is that it is a spectrum disorder. That is, someone could have it and actually be indistinguishable from normal by others around them. And some will indistinguishable by those around them from someone with Autism. Those with the "light" version should be quite capable of passing themselves off as "normal" and those with the "heavy" version would have more trouble with it. That those with "light" Asperger's are trying hard to demonstrate normality is irrelevant to the ability of those with "heavy" Asperger's to do the same.
Learn to love Alaska
I can't tell from the article what's going on in the case at this point. The previous UK resident to bring up Asperger's wasn't doing it to get out of the charges, but to affect the request for extradition (claiming it's a diagnosed condition that would not be appropriately treated in the US, and the US essentially agreed that it would not be considered or treated were he to be extradited).
Perhaps it's nothing more than setting up a basis for the agoraphobia or such to claim a basis for a neurosis or psychosis (aggravated by but not directly caused by Asperger's) that would be the grounds for an insanity plea. Or perhaps it's making sure to get out the "troubled teen with a mental disorder" line early and often in the case to affect sentencing should they lose, steering it to a hospital stay rather than prison if it comes to that. Or, like above, it could be setting the basis to deny an extradition, as the US system does not appear to take "mild" mental conditions seriously and refuses to treat or even acknowledge them within the justice system.
Learn to love Alaska
+1, but I'm not convinced that your point about computers is "a good thing" per se. Computers are tremendously enabling for people with Aspergers, and I don't doubt that it gives people independence and self-governance in a way that is life-affirming and incredibly positive. The problem is that this very enabling is what creates social fragmentation.
Externalising the way we interact with the world is great when we externalise correctly. However, the epistemic gap to the world is always very difficult to bridge, and the problem with such externalisation is that it is so easy to get things wrong. For an example of doing it incorrectly, look at extremist religion. For a (very salient) example of doing it incorrectly online, look at 4-chan.
Myu:
Computers are tremendously enabling for people with Aspergers, and I don't doubt that it gives people independence and self-governance in a way that is life-affirming and incredibly positive. The problem is that this very enabling is what creates social fragmentation.
I agree with your point. They allow for equal interaction without addressing the underlying issue. Much like chatting would allow a deaf person to interact with others without revealing any limitations. But, because we get people who don't address the spectrum as a spectrum, we get the "it's just Asperger's, everyone has it, just get over it" statements. When there's understanding and acceptance based on that (which would be little to none), it will encourage others to not even try. But if there was a permanent crutch, then there'd be little incentive to try to integrate. But again, as with the deaf community, they often deliberately segregate themselves and cause social fragmentation. But people don't fault them for it like they do people with Asperger's.
Since 80% (or so, depending on who you talk to) of communication is non-verbal, it could even be argued that the deaf people have a better chance of integrating with society than those with Asperger's, but yet they often segregate without complaint. But someone with Asperger's who tires of the work required to play in a society they don't fit in is considered a lazy quitter. It's that level of intolerance of Asperger's (usually promoted most strongly from those who have or think they have a mild form of it) that drives even more to give up because they just can't do it as easily as those who say they have it have done, so they must be doing something wrong. And there are very few resources for those with it (and many more for those who are parents of those with it). The general answer is "just deal with it."
Learn to love Alaska
My son has Asperger's. He seems to be able to refrain from criminal activity.
I think anyone who has Asperger's would be pretty pissed off by this moronic defense attorney trying to imply that their condition has anything to do with the ability to distinguish right from wrong.