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Reuters' Matthew Keys Accused of Anonymous Conspiracy
B3ryllium writes "Matthew Keys, a Reuters social media editor, is accused of deliberately encouraging Anonymous to hack his previous employer, and even gave them access credentials to do it. An indictment appears to recommend charges that could result in up to 30 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. From the article: 'He is alleged to have identified himself on an internet chat forum as a former Tribune Company employee and then provided members of Anonymous with the login and password to the Tribune Company server.
The indictment alleges that Mr Keys had a conversation with the hacker who claimed credit for the defacement of the Los Angeles Times website.
The hacker allegedly told him that Tribune Company system administrators had locked him out.
Mr Keys allegedly tried to regain access for the hacker, and when he learned that the hacker had made changes to a page, Mr Keys is said to have responded: "Nice."'"
Sigh.
Nice name :)
Welcome to the Democratic People's Republic of America.
My two cents on the insanely high draconian penalty for this is that we are living in an age where truth has become so malleable than anything which even remotely threatens the apparent integrity of that truth becomes a greater offense than any actual damages committed by that act. In this sense, it is a sort of heresy against the proto-religion of the state and media, where hackers are not unlike astronomers pointing out that the sun does not revolve around the earth. Instead, they are pointing out that the official messaging is so false that it doesn't deserve much more than a joke headline. The same sort of thinking applies to Wikileaks -- everyone overseas pretty much knew what was going on already (I would guess that the Afghanistanis are smart enough to figure out that a gunship blew their family away, not a random lightning bolt), but what they did called into question the "official" flow of information, and ultimately, the "religion of the state." This really isn't much different from the thinking of the Soviet Union back in the day -- anyone disputing the official message was a far greater threat that someone stealing a truck or smuggling goods (the SU had a surprisingly high crime rate in spite of their draconian controls). We've just now gone digital with all this.
The guardian article on this makes an odd comment:
A Reuters spokeswoman said the company was reviewing the matter but pointed out that the alleged action occured more than a year before Keys joined.
If that's true how did he obtain the data in the first place, and how does this mesh with claiming to be a former employee? Did he hack the site first, claim to be a former employee, give the data to Anon and then join the company or what? Or is something being miscommunicated here?
It doesn't exactly describe how his involvement was discovered from the standpoint of criminal investigation.
Assume Reuters contacted the authorities. Then, the FBI and the Reuters IT staff were able to find out that Keys's ID was used. What's the next step to discovering this dialogue with the hacker? Were they both so clueless as to communicate via g-mail or something?
Anonymous = honeypot, if password was given what that has to do with hacking?
Looks like another big news media attempt to set precedence in controlled environment for future 'similar cases' they are defining punishment guidelines and scare potential bad employees. If hat would be true anonymous it would NEVER come out.
The United States of America. I would be ashamed if I were a citizen of that country.
And, the "story" by Sam Biddle? Wow, talk about sensationalism. Live updates on this earth-shattering, breaking news! I am on the edge of my seat.
don't add a 3 when it doesn't exist. The only number to exist at the moment is zero. Wait until this gets to court and we see actual evidence before you start believing even a shred of anything being claimed, in about 3 years.
Right now, this amounts to nothing whatsoever.
I'm seeing this word used a lot here. "Allegedly", hopefully that means his involvement is still uncertain. As in, he hasn't been pronounced guilty before he's had his chance to prove his innocence.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
30 years. Now that US militarized the internet, any small mistake, or that looked from very far aggresive move will have that kind of punishment, as they see anything related as war crimes. Even falling in a social engineering trick puts you into the enemy of the state category.
Meanwhile bankers that steal billons or just screw the entire world economy, are too big to jail or just gets even a lot more money from government.
And it's already to late to change anything of this. Any try to fix the system will get people 30 years of jail too.
I know this is somewhat off topic but I'm reminded of when the Hillsborough Baptist Church taunted Anonymous by daring them to hack the church's website. Spokespeople proclaimed that the website was invulnerable to attack because it was 'Protected by God.' If my recollection is correct, Anonymous pwned the website in all of five minutes. This gave me one helluva laugh! If that created an argument for atheism, I've not heard a better one.
What happened to, "Not your personal army"?
Could have used pastebin to "save" a security paste ; )
So how would his knowledge of passwords from when he used to work there be of any use? Do they not immediately change all the passwords he had when he left the company? Did they let him keep his keys to the building as well? The real villain here is the victim's IT department.
I don't call that hacking, I call it logging in so a server. I do it every day at work, lol. OMG I'm a hacker! OH NOZ!
I can kill someone and rob a bank and still get less!
Ya want to play? Then be prepared to pay the penalty.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Why would he be so stupid to even get involved in that stuff and not expect to be treated as a terrorist?
However, there are probably individuals within Anonymous who are snitches and if you're dumb enough to hang out with them and give them your dox and real info don't be surprised if when they commit a crime they say you did it. Blackhat hackers are not the kind of people who typically are trustable with information or with secrets. Who is surprised?
He will probably never work again anywhere as a journalist. It's hard to make a living as a journalist, exceptionally hard. 6 months probation and being blackballed, while not as bad as 30 years in prison, can still destroy someones life.
If a so called 'hacker' can get 30 years in prison for what basically amounts to mischief, then I suggest the DEATH Penalty for the law makers and politicians who think this is a good idea.
LOL!
http://gizmodo.com/5990635/?post=58287849
"According to Ars Technica, the maximum sentence for the charges he faces is 10 years and $250,000"
And with Aaron, as he refused to plead guilty, they dug around and found as many charges as they could to inflate that, in the hope of forcing him to plead guilty. But, really, is 10 years even appropriate? It's a six monther at best here, on the potential damage (as claimed by the prosecutor), and on the actual damage, (a comedy headline) a slap on the wrist and a bad reference.
It was clearly a prank, prosecutor is conflating 'Anonymous' together as a single criminal organization, and wants to smash this group. Which is a bit bizarre, a bit like not liking a Slashdot A/C comment and trying to smash this group of Anonymous Cowards that post messages on Slashdot.
I sort of imagine these prosecutors watch too much Batman as a child, and every crime is the act of a criminal group run by the Joker or the Penguin, and in their heads they're fighting some crime group. They've sort of lost a grip on the real world.
What matters isn't the maximum penalty under the law, but the federal sentencing guidelines; they limit the maximum he can "face" based on the circumstances.
CFAA is a bad law because it treats all such cases as felonies, because it inserts the federal justice systems into cases where it doesn't belong, and because it is generally badly written. But don't blame the prosecutors for that, and don't keep writing this nonsense of how many years people supposedly "face".