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LulzSec Member Pleads Not Guilty In Stratfor Leak Case
TheGift73 writes with an update on one of the many LulzSec court cases. From the article: "A former LulzSec member has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he hacked into the servers of global intelligence company Stratfor and stole credit card data and personal details of 860,000 of its clients. Jeremy Hammond entered the plea on Monday during a brief hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the Associated Press reported. He's been held in federal custody since an initial court appearance in Chicago in early March, when federal prosecutors named him as a lieutenant of LulzSec ringleader Hector Xavier 'Sabu' Monsegur. There was no request for Hammond to be released on bail during Monday's hearing, according to the AP report."
I plead not guilty for the lulz your honor.
~S
Since they arrested him they must have some good idea that its him, but it will be interesting to see what evidence they have, how it was collected, and how they can show it was only he who could have done the deed. With how easy it is to remotely control computers and especially if he had a wifi router, who's to say that his computer wasn't rooted and someone remotely did what he is accused of.
News that Stratfor, the "private intelligence service," has been whacked by Anonymous has brought the former organization and its reputation into sharp focus. The fact that Stratfor hadn't bothered to fulfill one of the lowest requirements of cybernetic security -- encrypting sensitive client data -- is one of the most damaging things that can be said about any company in the digital age, much less an "international security organization." This intrusion went quite a bit farther than most -- the Guy Fawkes boys actually managed to extract funds (a reported $500,000 worth) from Stratfor's clients (whom the company insists on calling "members"), which they then gave to charities. The humiliation here is total, and Stratfor will be lucky to survive.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/the_stratfor_scandal.html
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
The real lulz come from the fact that people take Stratfor seriously, and continue to use their overblown moniker of "private intelligence firm". They were/are a news aggregating group that sold stale news articles from REAL news organizations like ITAR TASS and Xinhua. And since most American corporate executives never heard of ITAR TASS, Xinhua, ABN, etc. etc., they were able to pawn it off as their own work. Not only did they sell old news, but they charged a huge price for it. They were essentially an expensive HuffPo with a wanna-be CIA spook edge for effect. Not surprising at all that they didn't encrypt their data, or provide any real security.
For someone who already has a felony conviction and is a repeat offender? Not a chance in hell.
It is a pity that Hammond didn't direct his talents against the internet scam artists and credit card thieves. That would have been so cool.
But Hammond is going to get LAUNCHED. The feds let him off relatively easy the first time. It won't happen a second time.
I'll feel sorry for the misdirected loser as he rots in prison. Poor guy: Smart and Stupid at the same time.
And, unlike his fawning sycophants, I'm going to call him what he is.
A douchebag. Plain and simple.
I was involved with the FBI and helped them put him away the first time.
It's a sad commentary that a couple years in prison didn't straighten him out at all.
I've seen his name pop up a couple times in local news. Usually for some new random act of overweening stupidity.
I'm just stunned that he stooped to credit card theft AGAIN.
Then again, with his record, and his lack of anything even resembling social skills, he's damn near unemployable.
But Jeremy now has what he always desired. A national audience. And, unfortunately, there are just enough brain-sick slobs out there for whom his half-witted messsage is attractive. And he's got a martyr complex the size of the Sears Tower.
He basically belongs in prison, deprived of computer access. Hopefully they'll send him someplace slightly harsher than FCI Greenville this time.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The potential penalties or so severe that pleading not guilty might be his only hope. Frankly i hope he wins.
I spent 52 months in Feds from 2006 - 2010. IMVHO, this is what's happening, at least on the legal side. He will never get bail. He's innocent till proven guilty, of course, but fed bail is supposedly all about flight risk. "Danger to the community" implies guilt so it can't be used..technically. The question for the Magistrate (who usually decides bail, not the Trial Judge) is: does a set of conditions exist which will assure the defendant's appearance at court? And that, is typically up to the US Attorney or AUSA. I did not get bail and was held at Donald W Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, RI for 22 months before finally pleading out.
If Hammond goes to trial, he will never get out. 92% of all fed criminal cases plead out. Why? Because when the choice is possibly three mandatory life sentences vs five years, you end up taking the lesser of two evils. The Feds add all sorts of sentencing enhancements to make it so risky to roll the dice with a jury, it just isn't worth it. I was not guilty of the offense it was claimed I committed, but I couldn't risk the rest of my life on being able to convince 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty.
Hammond's other option is USSG 5K1.1 (Sentence reduction for substantial assistance in convicting another criminal.) The Government must submit a motion for this reduction, IF they like what you snitch. There are other options such as the Safety Valve (for which Hammond is not eligible due to previous offenses. Rapper T.I. got out of prison after like 18 months for machine guns and silencers because he gave the Government substantial assistance. Real gangsta.
If Hammond miraculously gets out anytime within the next ten years, he got a 5K1.1, most likely. When the feds want you, you're fucked.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Some of those card numbers belonged to people. If I'd gotten a real job right out of college I woulda been one of the first to buy their service. It was $99 a year, and I was too poor/cheap to swing it.
I doubt many of those people were actually screwed by the hack. Contesting charges is not hard. The last analysis I saw actually indicated that the charities Anon "gasve" money to actually lost out on the deal because they had to process both the payment and cancelling the payments.
Yeah, and I was one of those people to whom one of those credit card numbers belonged. I got a deeply discounted membership to Stratfor for a year, but then didn't renew it because I didn't think their news service was worth $99 per annum. While I didn't get any false charges on my credit card, I was inconvenienced by the perpetrators of this hack because my bank cancelled my credit card, and required me to get a new one. I then had to contact to everyone who was automatically billing my charges to that credit card, and give them the new number. Inevitably, I missed a couple, and got some late charges. It wasn't a disaster, but it was certainly inconvenient.
What really angers me about incidents of this type is the tone of moral superiority taken by their perpetrators and certain members of the community who support them. Somehow, these faceless actors are ascribed the right to judge which people and which organizations are evil, and to mete out punishment accordingly. If they have such a right, then we will soon arrive at the stage where no one has any rights.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Once a suspect is under that degree of intense surveillance it is difficult to emerge from it unscathed.
1. There was some compelling reason (right or wrong) to place the suspect under surveillance.
2. Hundreds of Thousands of dollars have been spent and none of the people involved in task want to come up empty.
3. By combining data from 1 and 2 this becomes a targetted and educated search for convictable case evidence.
4. 1, 2, and 3 together means that they are not pulling off the surveillance or making the arrest (especially in this case where the suspect is not aware of the surveillence and not a serious flight risk) without a preponderence of evidence to get that conviction. Warrants are issued. Agents/devices are in place. Evidence is piling up. The question is asked. "How much do we really need to convict this suspect?" This decision/answer comes from the U.S. Attorney/prosecution.
5. Yes. It is possible to that the surveillance turns up nothing, but this usually only occurs when the suspect is truly innocent, changes their behavior, or covers their acts well enough that surveillance yeilds no convictable evidence.
Getting a conviction in this case carries a large amount of ego/political/social baggage for the prosecution. They want a "heads must roll" payback or a "we will find you" deterrent for all of the lulz seekers out there.
Innocent until proven guilty, yes. However, I believe that a conviction is pretty much a forgone conclusion in this case. It would take a better lawyer than I, to successfully defend this case. I would imagine that Hammond's lawyer is already focused on the "plea deal".
Of course, that is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson