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Man Behind Hacks of Bush Family and Other Celebs Indicted In the US

Posted by Soulskill on from the bet-you-wish-you'd-stood-in-bed dept.

New submitter criticalmass24 writes: 42-year-old Marcel Lehel Lazar, better known as Guccifer, the hacker that gained unauthorized access to email and social network accounts of high-profile public figures, has been charged in the United States. According to the Department of Justice, "[F]rom December 2012 to January 2014, Lazar hacked into the e-mail and social media accounts of high-profile victims, including a family member of two former U.S. presidents, a former U.S. Cabinet member, a former member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a former presidential adviser. After gaining unauthorized access to their e-mail and social media accounts, Lazar publicly released his victims’ private e-mail correspondence, medical and financial information, and personal photographs. The indictment also alleges that in July and August 2013, Lazar impersonated a victim after compromising the victim’s account." The full indictment can be read online.

7 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Do it right next time by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you want to invade the privacy of people and sniff through their most intimate of details, get a job with the government.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Do it right next time by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, there's a number of things the Government retains a monopoly on, by intent. Argument by hypocrisy doesn't make sense for criticism of the government*.

      "Want to forcibly enter people's homes? Get a job with the government."
      "Want to kill another human being? Get a job with the government."
      "Want to demand money from another person? Get a job with the government."

      These are normal behaviors practiced by parts of every government in the world(except maybe Lichtenstein, the Vatican, etc). Now I'm all for shutting all the bullshit the NSA does down, and wish our democracy was better engineered to allow that, but the structure of the argument you're using is absurd.

      *I know it's a joke, this post is more directed at the people modding it insightful, as if this is some meaningful argument.

    2. Re:Do it right next time by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The difference is maybe that a legitimate government does all that with a warrant and oversight. You know, where a judge has to ponder whether it's ok to violate someone's privacy. The older ones here may remember the time when we had a government like that.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Do it right next time by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      With a job like this, your moral integrity becomes crucial, at least in my opinion. You are given a LOT of power. You may do what others may not do. You are granted permissions that others don't get for good reason, because it is easy to abuse them and it is hard to prove that abuse. NOT abusing such power in such an environment takes a pretty high personal morality.

      "Liking" and "wanting" something is not per se a problem. The reason WHY you like and want to have a job like this, is. Personally, I love hacking. It's fun and rewarding to outsmart a server's logic and to outwit the programmer who came up with its locks. It's interesting to pit your mind against that of the admin trying to secure it. It's not a moral question whether you like breaking a server's security. The moral question is where you do it and what you do when you succeed. The "good" moral way is to do it on machines you have the permission to, and to stop the moment you broke the lock. The "bad" way is to do it on machines you don't have permission for or to not stop and sniff through the files you just opened up. Essentially, to force an analogy with doors and locks, do you stop when the door is open and tell the owner who asked you to test whether his lock can keep someone out that he should get a better lock (preferably with a few tidbits of information what to look for in a good one), or do you first take a trip through his (or her, depending on your preference) underwear drawer?

      Likewise, I don't think that wanting to join a force where you might at some point get to invade someone's privacy is a problem itself. The question is why you want to join such a force. Because you want to outsmart a criminal, or because you want to sniff through the private belongings of anyone, criminal or not.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. Re:Ain't that a bitch? by chinton · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Two wrongs... etc, etc, etc...

  3. So Disappointing by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As I was skimming Slashdot I saw a headline that contained "Bush" and "Indicted" and I thought it was for war crimes. My first thought was, "I hope they get Obama too" but sadly, it was not to be.

  4. The real news by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If my email gets hacked is the federal government going to extradite someone from Europe to charge them?
    The real story here is special treatment for special people. For some reason the department of justice thinks the invasion of privacy of political and media elites is a worse crime than the invasion of the general publics privacy. It's so transparent it's laughable.