eBay Founder Pleads For Leniency For the PayPal 14

DavidGilbert99 writes "The founder of eBay, the parent company of PayPal, Pierre Omidyar has called on U.S. prosecutors to have mercy on the 14 members of Anonymous who are appearing in court this week facing up to 15 years in jail and a $500,000 fine for their part in a DDoS attack against PayPal in 2010. Despite thousands of Anons taking part, and most of the damage being done by two major botnets, the 14 are set to bear all the responsibility if U.S. prosecutors have their way."

Comments

EXAMPLE TO BE SHOWN !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Make them pay, pal !!

Activism

[Luthair]

Its odd how online activism is treated much differently than that which occurs in meatspace. Many protests occur in real life where access to buildings or simply roads are blocked yet the treatment of the two types protestors is very different.

Re:Activism

[TheNastyInThePasty]

It's a difference in views. People view blocking a street as free speech. They see people staging a sit-in as trying to raise awareness for their cause and the send a message.

DDoS, on the other hand, they view as vandalism (unfathomably severe vandalism, if these prosecutors are to be believed).

Objectively, I don't see much of a difference between a sit-in and a DDoS but that might just be because I understand what a DDoS is. Most people don't.

Re:Activism

[robinsonne]

The difference being that meatspace activism is almost pointless these days. It might get a 30 second mention on the news on a slow day, but otherwise you're just shunted into a "free speech zone", traffic gets routed around the protest and is flat out ignored.

Hacktivism on the other hand, has relatively immediate, noticeable (sometimes very much so) consequences that can either cost an organization money or if nothing else cause embarrassment.

Meatspace protests make you feel good, and are probably amusing to the powers that be. Online, a few people can a real nuisance, which is what activism is trying to do: be a nuisance until a change happens. [sarcasm] We can't have things like that happening in this country. Obviously we have to set an example for these 14 people. [/sarcasm]

Re:Activism

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't see a difference because you aren't being objective.

A protest is people communicating some kind of a message in a public place. Sometimes it is inconvenient when they block streets, etc. A DDoS on the other hand is like guys in ski masks showing up at your shop, kicking in the doors, running off your customers and not allowing you to do business for as long as they are there.

Re:Activism

[tysonedwards]

To follow the analogy, "filling the streets with stuff" is illegal due to it's classification as littering and that effort needs to be undertaken to remove said litter.

Once a DDoS attack is completed (assuming that the sole action taken was DDoS and not defacement or intrusion), there is nothing to "clean up". When you stop, everyone picks up their "stuff" and walks away.

history in motion, transiting from hooliganism

[Anonymous Coward]

it's sort of like how union leaders used to get put in jail (or killed) for organizing strikes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike

Right now what they did does seem illegal hooliganism, as does most civil disobedience. Sometimes society adapts to see things differently. For now this is still hooliganism. I think they need to show a compelling good coming out of this if they expect a different response. The question is, what good would that be?

Re:history in motion, transiting from hooliganism

[noh8rz10]

are these 14 people the lead organizers or instigators of the ddos, or just some kids who thought it would be cool but didn't hide their tracks etc?

Re:history in motion, transiting from hooliganism

[Charliemopps]

They all used Anons ddos app. It doesn't disguise your IP or anything. The point of it is, this is supposed to be a type of protest. I doubt there were any leaders in this case. 1 dude just pointed the application at the target and everyone else just ran the client for a few minutes. It's insane that this is illegal. This should be entirely a civil matter. Your ISP should ban you or you should be subject to a civil suit. But criminal charges? This is clearly a protest. Sounds like it was a hippie protest to me, and I hate hippies. But if we throw them in jail for bitching now, what's going to happen to all us non-hippies when we decide to bitch?

Re:history in motion, transiting from hooliganism

[Anonymous Coward]

No it would be awesome to live in a world where protesters would only be allowed to protest in a convenient place where they didn't bother anyone else. Maybe designated "free speech" zones where they won't disturb the rest of us who need to sleep, go to work, go shopping etc.

Anyone who protested elsewhere and disturbed other people should get 15 years in jail and a $500,000 fine.

What a wonderful "Black or White" world that would be right?

Re:history in motion, transiting from hooliganism

[ebno-10db]

I disagree w/ the GP. It's reasonable that this is illegal, but ... "up to 15 years in jail and a $500,000 fine" is insane. Get a good lawyer, and you can probably get away with less for murder. Armed robbery? Piece of cake. Yes I know they haven't been sentenced yet, but just the threat of sentences like that is absurd. It takes it from the government prosecuting a crime (in which no one was injured and even the founder of the "victim" company is asking for leniency) to the government saying "we can do whatever we like to you". Whole different animal. The first is a legitimate function of the government, and the latter is a step towards authoritarianism.

As for damage, FTA:

PayPal's website was down for an hour on 8 December and another brief period on 9 December. The company estimates the damage caused by the attack was $5.5 million

That $5.5M was probably calculated in the absurd way that such business losses are usually calculated. For example, if someone steals the source to a proprietary OS, then even if they do nothing with it, the "cost" is calculated as the entire cost of developing the OS. Right, they never made any sales and will never make any sales in the future.

The selective prosecution aspect of it is absurd too. Forget the fact that they're only prosecuting 14 of the participants. Search on "William K. Black". Far from being some fringe character, he was a major official the the OCC (Office of the Controller of the Currency - one of the banking regulators) when the S&L crisis blew up. He helped establish the case law on control fraud, and they obtained over 1000 criminal convictions. He's the ultimate "been there, done that, hence speak with authority" kind of guy. According to Black (many other knowledgeable people think this as well), the more recent financial meltdown, which makes the S&L crisis look like petty theft, has all the hallmarks of the same type of control fraud. Number of convictions for control fraud: 0. Number of attempted prosecutions: 0. Now that's selective. You don't really expect me to have any respect for federal prosecutors, or more importantly their past or current bosses, do you?

Will the Government Listen?

[Grantbridge]

This makes perfect sense. If an angry mob smashes up some shops fronts, but police only catch 14 people you wouldn't charge them with the total damage of the entire mob, as well as the cost of upgrading security to protect against an angry mob in the future. You would charge each individual according to the damage they actually did. In this case a single person using LOIC doesn't really do any significant damage at all. You could charge them a 1/1000 of the cost of overtime for personal to deal with the attack, and the extra bandwidth they caused the company, but its madness to hold them responsible for the damage done by the entire swarm. In a cynical POV, this is also an excellent way for PayPall to remove themselves as a target when the PayPal14 are found guility.

Re:Unfortunately, guilt by direct association is r

[i kan reed]

But it won't work that way. It's never really worked that way. Making things more illegal doesn't really put more hindrance on what people do compared to just being illegal, else we'd have the whole crack thing wrapped up by now.

"Tough on crime" is a moronic stance that doesn't address why people actually engage in crimes. A hint: very few people breaking the law are thinking rationally about consequences when they do.

Re:Fuck Them

[mwvdlee]

These few are fined for the actions of thousands of individuals.
This means that if the detectives did their job better and caught more individuals, each individuals' fines would be lower.
Why should these individuals be punished for a sloppy job done by others?
They should be punished, they should pay a fine and they should pay damages. But they shouldn't have to pay damage caused by others.

Re:Fuck Them

[serviscope_minor]

Oe noes. Financial damage oh the woe. Nothing can be so bad as financial damage. We must nail their balls to a wall to serve an example to others.

Fuck them.

Apparently the chaiman of the coppany that owns the damaged one wants leniency. That is the person who represents those who suffered financial damage. Who the hell are you to call otherwise?

Re:Fuck Them

[PIBM]

Unless 10 000 people spray paint a town one night. If you catch a few of them (14 ?) and you know they only took a spray can and shot a few seconds (they did almost nothing vs the botnets), would you charge them for cleaning up the whole town ?

Deterrent

[EMG at MU]

The objective here isn't to punish anyone proportionally to the crimes they committed. The whole point of online activists having the book thrown at them is to deter future activists.

The corporations already feel like meatspace activists have too many rights, so it is imperative to set a precedent that online activism will be dealt with harshly.

Re:Deterrent

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

The objective here isn't to punish anyone proportionally to the crimes they committed. The whole point of online activists having the book thrown at them is to deter future activists.

You are right that this is a deterrence. I posted yesterday a much longer comment about this in the thread about the guy who got a huge fine and 2 years probation for participating for a very short time in the DOS. Basically US law allows for punitive damages in some cases and the system allows them to be exorbitant and perhaps even illogical. Sometimes these get reduced on appeal, but not always. The point is indeed to provide a deterrent against others doing the same thing in the future. It's not at all about fairness. If you are American and don't like it, work to change the system (probably not possible though) or complain all you want, but it's not going away. If you're not American, you can complain all you want about it but you can't change it.

I mentioned this in my post yesterday too, but some of it is that jury members in general know little about technology and some are almost Luddites. Judges and lawyers in general also know little about technology. This leads to prosecutors and judges overreacting against things they don't understand very well and juries overreacting to punish people due to not really understanding what they did.

Re:Fuck Them

[i kan reed]

If I choose to pay someone $5.5 million to put up a "no trespassing" sign and a chain link fence after getting hit by vandals, that doesn't mean the vandals cost me $5.5MM

If only they have incorporated.....

[tekrat]

Then the 14 would only have to pay a small fine and admit no wrongdoing. Really, what they should have done was form their own bank if they wanted to steal money. I mean, look at Paypal, and they aren't even a bank!

Re:Fuck Them

[TheCarp]

So we should ignore the fact that making punishments harsher is a terrible deterrent; in spite of how simple it sounds? The chance of getting caught is what is an actual deterrent.

So hitting a few people, very hard, for an action much larger than them, produces very little result. Whereas slapping a lot of people lightly on the wrist, would likely produce a much bigger result.

Course, paypal deserved it. I applaud everyone who took part.

Re:Fuck Them

[N0Man74]

Spray painting a wall costs people time and money, and you know what, we don't drop fines that ruin peoples' lives over it.

We have zero tolerance for making companies lose money... now when companies or banks make us lose money (or homes), it just shows the system works (the way they designed it).

The facts speak otherwise.

[mcrbids]

... a position which is frightfully naive. Of course making things more illegal is a deterrent. It used to be totally legal to drive with your kids in the back of your truck on the open freeway. It's now more illegal (at least in California) and you don't see (very many) people driving on the freeway with kids in the back of their truck.

All officially recognized crimes are punished with the intent of deterring future crime, and you live in a time and place which ranks as among the most peaceful and civilized periods in all of known history. To suggest that this concept does not work betrays a stunning lack of understanding and respect for all the work put in by the millions of people who worked to establish and maintain the system that provides such domestic peace and tranquility.

Did you actually think that spending 10 years in jail actually compensates the parents and loved ones of a murder victim? Sorry, if they're dead, no amount of punishment will ever bring them back, and until you've personally experienced the loss of a close loved one, you cannot really understand just how devastating such a loss can be.
  However, even sociopaths can understand personal injury and suffering even if they lack the ability empathize in any way with their victims.

Re:Let em off cuz most weren't found?

[Wootery]

I think the intent was that the full sum of the blame is unfairly being distributed across the few who were caught.

Re:Fuck Them

[Imagix]

You need to complete your analogy. The ones that "only took a spray can and shot a few seconds" were willfully joining into an expansive coordinated attack with the intent to amplify the damage. This wasn't a case of "wrong place at the wrong time", they knew they were joining a larger group. One of Niven's laws... "Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man."

Re:Fuck Them

[TheNastyInThePasty]

There is an easier real world analogy than the one GP picked. If there's a city-wide riot and the police only are able to arrest a few people, do those few people have to pay for all of the damage done during the riot?

Re:Let em off cuz most weren't found?

[Samantha Wright]

That, and, Omidyar feels that many of the participants in the PayPal DDoS saw it as a form of protest. He doesn't attribute malice to them.