Barrett Brown, Formerly of Anonymous, Sentenced To 63 Months

An anonymous reader writes with news that a journalist linked to Anonymous, Barret Brown, has been sentenced. "Barrett Brown, a journalist formerly linked to the hacking group Anonymous, was sentenced Thursday to over five years in prison, or a total of 63 months. Ahmed Ghappour, Brown's attorney, confirmed to Ars that Brown's 28 months already served will count toward the sentence. That leaves 34 months, or nearly three years, left for him to serve. In April 2014, Brown took a plea deal admitting guilt on three charges: "transmitting a threat in interstate commerce," for interfering with the execution of a search warrant, and to being "accessory after the fact in the unauthorized access to a protected computer." Brown originally was indicted in Texas federal court in December 2012 on several counts, including accusations that he posted a link from one Internet relay chat channel, called #Anonops, to another channel under his control, called #ProjectPM. The link led to private data that had been hijacked from intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, or Statfor."

Comments

There is no anonymity

[Taco Cowboy]

I've been on the scene since the '70s, and as much as I hope that my real identity to not be revealed to the world, I understand that once I post something online I take a risk (calculated or otherwise) of having my real identity exposed

There is no anonymity online or offline

Re: There is no anonymity

[Sarten-X]

There is a risk, calculated or otherwise, that you are Pierre Mohammed Finklestein III of Bychawa, Poland.

I have determined this based on my keen understanding of the information I have about you. With a little more information I could reduce the uncertainty...

Re:There is no anonymity

[Lumpy]

A lot of these guys get caught because they open their yaps. A lot of us old timers from the early days never got caught. When the 414's were taken down I know several people that avoided it simply because they actually listened to the "trust no one" mantra. Just like how the guys that took over WTTW never got caught because they did NOT open their big fat mouths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

So a tip from someone old..... earning "cred" is for noobs. Keep your mouth shut and you really reduce the risk of getting caught.

Re: There is no anonymity

[lucm]

You are an unattractive girl, mid 20s, who has glowing stars on the ceiling of her bedroom and who goes to hot yoga class without realizing that yoga pants are not for everyone. You are lazy and significantly overestimate your intelligence. Your father is a fat guy who works in an unionized organization and prepares tax returns for $20 cash during tax season. You have a small pet, probably a semi-exotic bird, and there's a faint rancid smell in your bathroom that you can't explain. Your front teeth are ok but the side ones are yellow. You put the underwear that has no stain on the left side of your top drawer, and when you clean the lint from a dryer you tend to throw it behind the machine if no one is looking. You have vague notions of a foreign language, probably Spanish, but you always try to let other people think that you are fluent in that language. One time in middle school you did something wrong, like stealing booze, and when the theft was discovered you planted evidence to have someone else take the blame. When you masturbate, you think about the following: the young teenage girl next door (20% of the time), being raped by two old bums behind a dumpster (30%), doing a striptease for Steve Martin while he's drinking a can of lukewarm Diet Pepsi (50%).

That's who you truly are. Your name or address is just paperwork.

Be afraid

[gophther]

I'm not a fan of anonymous, but you should be very afraid when you look at these charges. This rather random assortment of charges that make you go "huh?" shows that the thinking went like this: 1) Get this guy 2) Charge this guy for things you don't charge all other people who do the same things. 3) Profit!!!

Re:Be afraid

[AHuxley]

Re "This rather random assortment of charges that make you go "huh?"
The US press and media thought it had it all after the Pentagon Papers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers#The_Supreme_Court_allows_further_publication
Now the US press has to try and stay how many hops away before publishing or commenting?
Very chilling for the US press.

It's unfortunate.

[rahvin112]

IMO he had a good case and could have won but I understand him taking the plea.

He didn't know the information was there in the link that led to this whole thing and the "threats" were hyperbole at the best. He probably couldn't afford a good attorney and he was looking at decades in prison. Typical FBI strategy is charge them with everything in the book so they plea to lessor charge you actually want.

It's a travesty what they did to him.

Re:It's unfortunate.

[anagama]

10.5 decades to be exact.

Barrett Brown Faces 105 Years in Jail: But no one can figure out what law he broke. Introducing America's least likely political prisoner

You can't trust any hacking charges now

[Anonymous Coward]

He was accused of hacking. We learned from the recent NSA Snowden leaks, that NSA hacks computers, but sends the data to scapegoat targets and collects the data as it crosses the public network.

So when you see a high anti-US person conveniently on a hacking charge, you have to immediately ask if he's been fitted up for the crime, if he's one of these scapegoat targets.

http://boingboing.net/2015/01/18/ecstatic-nsa-spooks-delight-in.html

"But the loot isn't delivered directly to ROC's IP address. Rather, it is routed to a so-called Scapegoat Target. That means that stolen information could end up on someone else's servers, making it look as though they were the perpetrators."

There's quite a few of these that have raise eyebrows, Pirate Bay founder hacks Sweden, supposedly to look for extradition warrants, and yet leaves a trail of evidence back to himself?? Handy, who gains most from that? Not him, there is no extradition treaty between Laos and Sweden. North Korea hacks Sony, NSA justifies its surveillance program. Who gains most?

I have my doubts.

hit somebody with his car

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy should have hit and actually killed somebody with his car, he would have faired better in court. These laws need some serious relooking.

Re:And now... 3... 2... 1...

[Baloroth]

Aside from the fact that that wouldn't work anyways (intent to link to the illegal material would be required, and that certainly wouldn't meet that qualification), the hyperlinking charges were dropped. Yeah, the Slashdot summary is a bit deceptive (absolutely shocking, I know).

Re:who is he? (Al Capone the tax evader)

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

the charges he's going down for are from his threats to law enforcement and their families, not even the hacking.