US Gov't Seeks 7-Month Sentence For LulzSec's Sabu
An anonymous reader writes with this news from Wired: "As a reward for his extensive cooperation helping prosecutors hunt down his fellow hackers, the government is seeking time served for the long-awaited sentencing of top LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur, also known as 'Sabu.' After delaying his sentencing for nearly three years, the government has asked a federal court to sentence Monsegur to time served — just seven months — calling him an 'extremely valuable and productive cooperator' in a document that details for the first time his extensive cooperation providing 'unprecedented access to LulzSec.'" That's much less than the 317 months in prison he might otherwise face.
In some places being a snitch = a beating.
And not being in prison helps stop that how?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
He has more room to run away from the mobs of angry geeks. Unless he actually go into the subterranean lairs, aka their mothers' basements, he can avoid most beatdowns.
Other than that, how many people know him on sight? How hard would it be to walk through a crowd without being noticed?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
They probably had enough evidence anyway but wanted to keep their secret spying tech out of the news...
He will still be a snitch. Inside. Or outside. Someday, somewhere someone might just come calling.
Given the level of attention whore the little shit is I suspect he'll be his own worst enemy and start telling us about how awesome he was for raising awareness of corporate and government abuse on the internet but also how he decided he had to be a real good guy in the end "do what's right".
I'll be genuinely surprised if someone this utterly desperate for attention manages to keep his mouth shut about his life for more than 5 minutes after he completes his sentence.
The only reason he ever got caught was because he was so cocky and couldn't ever keep his mouth shut about anything. Then he got caught, and seems to have spent the last year blabbing everything and anything he knew to the authorities. Is there really any reason to think he'll suddenly realise he needs to keep his mouth shut to stay out of trouble now?
Just curious, but is he a 'little shit', because he was a member of LulzSec, or because he cooperated with the authorities?
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
So that is now the governments way of doing things and it is considered acceptable? Just bang people away in a cell with a trial magically taking forever and after getting what they want we call for a conviction of time served and let them go? This is not a positive thing for anyone.
I do not mind that this person turned traitor on his compatriots. That is only fitting for an evil, nihilistic organization like LulzSec. What I do mind is that somebody heavily involved in their activities gets off so easy. Probably the feds found that they actually like this guy and his style...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Just curious, but is he a 'little shit', because he was a member of LulzSec, or because he cooperated with the authorities?
Yes.
Yes to both. Extreme grandstanding, nihilistic evil actions and not even a hint of a backbone. An impressive number of the worst possible qualities a human being can have combined in one person. Of course the feds recognize somebody like that as "extremely valuable", they like failed human beings.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Man, I hate it when the Mormons do that.
This guy has the life expectancy of a fruit fly once he gets outside the nice safe confines of (unintentionally)-protective custody.
And no, not from random geeks raging online. From the likes of the Russian mafia. Expect to hear about him dying in a "colorful" way. I wonder how they'll top Polonium poisoning?
/ Snitches get stitches and end up in... lead-lined coffins buried in limed graves.
Both.
He's a little shit for being a narcissist asshole who thinks he can do what he pleases and for fucking over everyone else when he was too dumb to not get caught.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Would you consider someone who rats out the Italian mafia a snitch? Suppose he rats out a number of murders? Is he a good snitch or a bad snitch?
" calling him an 'extremely valuable and productive cooperator'" is another way to say "a rat".
Where I grew up, it was the Jehovah's Witnesses that came calling.
I just mentioned my grandmother's name, and they went away.
this guy is a total negative...he's the antithesis of my values on many things
but prison isn't the answer, we're not making anything better by putting him in prison
Thank you Dave Raggett
There is no such thing as a good snitch.
The world might be a better place if there were a lot more snitches.
;).
The line between whistleblowing and snitching is rather blurry
And more room for the mob to grab him and put him in the river without getting caught.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
well, outside you have a room that you can lock and unlock as you please.
however, everyone should be bitching more about the way US so called justice works nowadays. it's all backroom deals. well, not all but 80%+. what the law says that the punishment is for something has absolutely no relation to the time that the dealings put on them and the original charges have nothing to do with what the actual crimes are(or indeed what the prosecution even thinks happened) - and the prosecution and justice systems seems just happy with the state of things, where they decide who gets thrown into the slammer and how long and not the law and what is believed to have happened.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
And not being in prison helps stop that how?
In the hacker world being a snitch gets you hated, and maybe shitflooded on IRC.
In prison, being a snitch gets you a sharpened toothbrush rammed between your ribs.
Thats the difference.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
What about the golden snitch? :P
This is the piece of shit http://puu.sh/90GV5.jpg
That happens every day in the real world too ya know.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Who is your grandmother?
I told them I was a devil worshiper to get rid of them once. They went and got their pastor or whatever and came back to convert me. I told them to get off the property yet again and they held prayer meetings on the sidewalk in front of my house for the next week or so. They stopped everyone who walked by and asked them to say a prayer for me because I was on a dark path filled with lies or something of the sort.
I finally had to tell them that I only said I was a devil worshiper to get them to leave and if I had known they would have done what they did, I would have just shot them instead and told the police they were trying to attack me.
I have a fence and a big dog now. The most I get is flyers left on the mailbox. But if I ever move or if Grady becomes an inside dog in his old age, I would like to know the secret to keeping them away without inviting a full blown circus.
Oh, I don't know, maybe anyone capable of doing an image search? (My, what a nice big, soft, fist-friendly face!)
Generally if you just say "I'm not interested. Have a nice day." then close the door, that will be the end of it. If you get an especially pesky one, sometimes calling the local JW branch and politely asking to be removed from their list will fix it.
Arguing with them, or telling them you're a devil worshipper is about the worst thing you can do if you want them to leave you alone, as from their perspective you are now a challenge God has put before them.
Tell them politely "I already have a Church, thank you". Doesn't matter if you do or don't, that works.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
What is worse a destructive prankster with a loud mouth that will eventually be caught or give up, or a principled asshole that will never shut up or be caught, ever.
Really easy to talk about backbone (or lack thereof) when you aren't the one facing prison time, and don't have a pair of young cousins as dependents for him as sole provider.
Not saying what he did was right or cool or okay in any way.
Just saying that unless you've been in a similar situation, with family DEPENDING on you, your protestations are just so much noise.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Would you consider someone who rats out the Italian mafia a snitch?
A dead man walking.
Are you sure you should be using that word?
People are so clever and competent when it comes to producing religions, values, social institutions, economic systems, governments and other received ideas, it stands to reason that anyone that questions or repudiates them must be wrong.
That, in fact, might be the only thing they were right about. The world doesn't need hackers screwing up web servers or compromising account infomation.
He has more room to run away from the mobs of angry geeks. Unless he actually go into the subterranean lairs, aka their mothers' basements, he can avoid most beatdowns.
The geek's talk of revenge and revolution always seem to be in inverse proportion to his actions --- though now and again you are left to wonder if you are looking at someone like the Isla Vista shooter.
Then maybe, if he was/is sitting in a glasshouse, throwing stones as he did repeatedly, cruelly and immorally was a really, really stupid thing to do?
I do not really object to the deal-making so much (that I can understand), but to what he did before.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I have no clue what you are saying. But yes, destructive anarchists without any regard for fairness (they attacked individuals that had zero chances of fighting back) have no place in the world.
As to religions, "morals", governments, etc. these are among the most negative and evil constructs humans can come up with, no argument about that. The construction of these things is invariably driven by fear, greed, desire to dominate or kill others and the like. As I said, that may be why this person and the feds get along so well: They share a common belief system.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The other thing that makes them go away is listening to their ideas calmly, with the same sort of relaxed air that you might have in a philosophy course. Then the game is to lead the conversation somewhere that they find distasteful. Probe a little. You can always go straight for the throat with gay marriage, but there are other ways to make them squirm. Ask questions that betray their ignorance of the source materials for the New Testament, e.g. that there are no reliable accounts written until decades afterwards, and if I recall correctly there are no copies of the NT preserved before the 3rd century. Or dig into your knowledge of relativity or quantum physics, and ask them how the many-worlds hypothesis might affect God's Message (whatever that is). Did Jesus really rise from the dead, or was he just in a quantum superposition for three days until the box was opened?
Waste their time, ask questions they can't answer, say you're a lapsed Catholic (they all are) and ask about the differences, and hey, wait, where are you going? Church meeting wednesday? Okay, nice chatt-- ...Oh well. One of these days I'll run into someone whose religious beliefs aren't disturbed by hypotheticals or outright facts, and then I'll be in trouble -- or we'll have a dandy conversation. But these guys usually have time constraints too, like telemarketers, so you can annoy them in the same sort of ways. Try to convert them to your own religion -- do a religion swap? Just be polite, and you'll have the last laugh.
Doesn't count I don't go busting into other people's stuff with havij over tor and someone else's zero day they trusted me with defacing websites and running onto twitter to grandstand with a bunch of freedom, hack the planet, and the man can't keep me down nonsense only to get caught by being sloppy and not only fold like paper when caught but warmly embrace my role as a cool federal informant... even managing to get a new charge of impersonating a law enforcement officer when interacting with some nobody beat cop outside my apartment complex.
no dude I don't have to worry about how I'm going to hold up under the pressure of the authorities because if I'm going to jeopardize my freedom it's not going to be to impress my 4chan and python coding buddies on IRC and twitter.
Jeez this is why he's pathetic.
points for reference, original point regarding snitches as informants not withstanding
Again, this is why he was *caught*.
If you still find this objectionable, look up "Operation Overcast". Read up on it. Then tell me you're still outraged.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
You haven't seen the young hacker/cracker scene. It's like Nerd High School.
And I agree. He's pathetic. And what he did was reprehensible.
Still, when it came time to make a decision between taking care of his family and telling "the man" to fuck off, he made a responsible decision to take care of his family.
And yeah, the government is rewarding him by letting him off the hook for being as singularly helpful as he was.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
People like Snowden are hunted down or targeted for assassination but serial baby killer mothers or women who mutilate or kill their husbands get free without time served because "court has been traumatic enough for them to serve as a punishment".
Would you consider someone who rats out the Italian mafia a snitch? Suppose he rats out a number of murders? Is he a good snitch or a bad snitch?
When I was a child we learned that "nobody likes a tattle-tale".
Later in life I learned that "snitches get stitches".
The fact is that a snitch can never be trusted, his word is worthless. And I'm a firm believer that a man really is only as good as his word is.
Trying to convert them into Morrowind's Tribunal Temple worshippers, Dune's Zensunni, Doctor Who's Supreme Daleks or just real-world Church of Euthanasia is much more fun though.
Still, when it came time to make a decision between taking care of his family and telling "the man" to fuck off, he made a responsible decision to take care of his family.
If, for a second, you think he thought of his family, and not himself, you're deluded.
He also didn't care much for the families of those he ratted out, did he?
The anon crowd hates this guy. The police hates this guy. Anyone with a backbone hates this guy.
I hope his family doesn't depend on him anymore, because who will employ someone who becomes a turncoat first chance they get, and who comes with a high risk of a lot of unwanted pizza deliveries?
Suppose he gets the full punishment. It will serve as his deterrent, but it will also serve as a deterrent to others who could be (mark that should be) helpful to the authorities.
A good question to ask is "Who is the government?". The posting wrote "the government", without explaining if it was the local cop or the DA:
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Still, when it came time to make a decision between taking care of his family and telling "the man" to fuck off, he made a responsible decision to take care of his family.
If, for a second, you think he thought of his family, and not himself, you're deluded.
He also didn't care much for the families of those he ratted out, did he?
The anon crowd hates this guy. The police hates this guy. Anyone with a backbone hates this guy.
I hope his family doesn't depend on him anymore, because who will employ someone who becomes a turncoat first chance they get, and who comes with a high risk of a lot of unwanted pizza deliveries?
Hey. I've been in the scene. I know how fun it can be, mischief here and there. Very cathartic. Especially for someone with lots of responsibility IRL.
Did he think about his cousins when he was doing it? Oh fuck no!
Did he think about the predicament he'd put them (and himself) in after being caught? Oh fuck yeah!
As for the families of those he "ratted out".
He was given an agency deal. Right, wrong or otherwise.
Also, while I don't know about ALL of the lulzsec guys in this, and whether they deserved it or not. But I do know of at least one. One Jeremy Hammond, who's now deservedly back in federal lockup. Maybe he was entrapped. But he'd been locked up for this shit before. And he KNEW he wasn't supposed to be doing it. Yet he was in his basic "Fuck "The Man" I Want Attention" mindset. So, he now gets three square a day and all the rectal love he can handle. And if his family didn't know he was going to spend a good portion of his adult life in lockup, they weren't paying attention at any and all the court dates this guy had.
Sure. The Anon crowd hates this guy. So what? Anon is an amorphous mass of nerdrage with the attention span of a dog in a yard full of squirrels. Most of them are simply a bunch of angry people with few/no skills. And most of the skilled ones have their own agendas to push. And hounding sabu to death is about as interesting to most of them as watching a cop eat is way through a box of donuts.
As for "the cops".
Which cops?
Is some random cop going to go rogue and put a bullet in him?
And, as I said earlier. It's REALLY easy to talk about "backbone" when YOU aren't the person in the hot seat there Mr. Internet Braveguy.
Have some letter agency pull YOU in talk to you about your misdeeds. THEN come talk to me about spine and balls.
Until then, the whole "backbone" argument is a lot of hot air for a lot of very infantile minds.
As to who'll employ sabu?
Who'd employ Kevin Mitnick?
Who'd employ Adrian Lamo?
Who'd employ Kevin Poulsen
Isn't tflow now working as a security volunteer now that his probation is over?
What's Chris Goggans (Erik Bloodaxe) doing nowadays?
Isn't Bruce Francher (Timberwolf) actually gainfully employed?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Only just got back to this post, but others have already answered in the same way I would anyway. The two aren't mutually exclusive, the answer is both. The guy wasn't hacking because of his principles, but for attention, he blabbed to the authorities because he wasn't hacking for principles.
So the reason I call him a little shit is because everything he's done is for attention, and not for anything principled and he's ruined his life and that of many others in the process - he's ruined the lives of hackers that were genuinely principled, and he's ruined the lives of victims of his attention whoring. That makes him the worst of both worlds. Nothing good came from this guy, it was just a whole stream of negative regardless of the side of the debate you're on.
There is a world of difference between the two. - One is selling out their principles and friends or colleagues, either for money or because they have been caught themselves and were bullied or persuaded into it. The other is usually acting on principle, often to report some kind of crime - for the moral good, and very often at quite high costs to themselves - loss of money, jobs etc..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
If I had a couple of young dependants I wouldn't prat around doing something illegal just to get attention in the first place so the point is moot.
This just makes him even more of a little shit.
Oh exactly. As far as I can tell, unless you did something really heinous, for petty crime, drug crime, etc, the whole point of punishment is to make people who can afford to pay up. I have a particular friend.... you want to know how stupid the drug war is now....get this.
He was arrested in AZ; but lives near me on the east coast. He could afford a lawyer, he could afford to pay fines and fees. His entire court procedure was done...over the phone. He got probation.
What was he caught with? Was it a few joints? Was it an oz of weed? No....he was driving a rental car with 70 lbs of weed in the trunk. 70 lbs of weed...and he got probation and did it all over the phone through his lawyer.
Don't get me wrong, I don't even think he deserves to have been arrested for flowers but, doesn't it really say something when they can offer probation and fines to someone for 70 lbs but still say with a straight face that its a serious issue? Sure is a serious issue....if you can't pay for the process they say is due.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"