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Hacker Adrian Lamo Dies At 37 (zdnet.com)
Adrian Lamo, a well-known hacker known for his involvement in passing information on whistleblower Chelsea Manning and hacking into systems at The New York Times, Microsoft, and Yahoo in the early-2000s, has died at 37. ZDNet reports: His father, Mario, posted a brief tribute to his son in a Facebook group on Friday. "With great sadness and a broken heart I have to let know all of Adrian's friends and acquittances that he is dead. A bright mind and compassionate soul is gone, he was my beloved son," he wrote. The coroner for Sedgwick County, where Lamo lived, confirmed his death, but provided no further details. Circumstances surrounding Lamo's death are not immediately known. A neighbor who found his body said he had been dead for some time.
Every time my wife goes to the doctor, I warn her: "Don't let them give you any zombie pills!"
They often try.
He came to the Sac 2600 meeting a few months before his parole was up, carrying a cellphone (under a tech ban as part of his parole!) and schmoozing the group. It didn't last long since another friend of his started shit with the group that remained on 2600's #916 IRC leading to them not coming back after that. I was somewhat annoyed by the whole affair, but didn't have any particular reason to dislike Adrian until after the Manning affair, when it became apparent he was an FBI narc back then too. Good thing nobody left at the time either publicly discussed or was into illegal activities (the OGs had either disbanded or moved to private get-togethers, rather than looking over their shoulders for narcs with n00bs every time someone new showed up.)
Won't miss the guy.
Please accept this special Russian Air Freshener.
lamo whistleblew on a whistleblower
That's not whistleblowing, it's acting as an informant.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Adrian Lamo was not a "whistleblower." Please don't lump that asshole in with people who have accomplished so much in showing to us what the governments of the world would keep in the shadows. Adrian Lamo was a paid government informant. I can only imagine that it weighed rather heavily on his mind once it became public knowledge and he wasn't the hero that he pretended to be.
Decent-ish Guy, exposed a traitor with severe mental issues.
You forgot the "as"
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And now to burn some karma with Slashdot's most unpopular opinion...
The world runs on faith. We have faith that people will keep waking up, going to their jobs, and keep society running. We have faith that the people we trust will live up to that trust. We have faith that our observations of the world have been genuine.
Adrian Lamo extended that faith to the government. He had faith that the people in government offices were true to their oaths, and he had faith that eventually a proper justice would be served. He had faith that talking to the authorities would lead to a righteous outcome.
I do not know exactly what considerations Mr. Lamo had when he made his choices. I have faith that he was trying to do what was right for the world, and I have faith that were I in his position, having had his experiences and knowing what he knew, I would also understand his decisions.
Rest in peace, fellow human. From my perspective, I may or may not have agreed with you, but that different perspective is what makes us all important.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
When is this country going to stop passing out opiate pills like candy and threating in to kill heroin dealers while young people die in droves?
Heroin dealers aren't lacing heroin with fentanyl and carfentanyl - they want repeat customers.
The fentanyl is made in China, shipped to Mexico, and cut there with heroin made in Afghanistan (Taliban operations supported by the US Army). The CIA imports the heroin, and they get exactly the desired effect - dumbasses like you calling for more power for the government to engage in extrajudicial killings domestically.
End the drug war, sell clean heroin at Walmart, and divert all the money into treatment centers, and you'll clean up both the crime and the body count. This experiment has been run and it works everywhere it's tried. At this point people who support the drug war are either making money on it, useful idiots, or those who just enjoy seeing people die.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Did you complain as loudly over the several years and multiple hearings over Bengazi that wasted far more money than this?
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
We have often disagreed, but Bill has this right. (Except, perhaps, for the CIA importing heroin... that's so 1970s. But they still could be, for similar perverse reasons.)
Basic economics has shown, and by real-world experience: end the drug war, and you also solve the other problems.
Drug use does not go up, compared to other countries.
Addiction rates go way DOWN. Without criminal penalty, more people seek treatment.
Disease rates go way DOWN. No incentive to share needles (or other means of transmission) and spread disease.
ALL LOGIC AND EXPERIENCE OVER MANY DECADES says that just like alcohol prohibition, the War On Drugs is not just a failure, but the cause of most of the problems.
The majority of the non-suicide firearm deaths in the US are "criminal-enterprise-related". That means, almost always, something drug-related.
Remove the underground profit motive, and you remove most of the related crimes and deaths.
It's not just logic, we have 100 years of practice saying that is so.
The status quo benefits BOTH sides: law enforcement, and drug dealers. Both have bigger budgets, and better weapons compared to before.
And that won't stop. Until we eliminate the need for a black market.
It's really pretty simple economics.
Why would you expect him to give you evidence, when that isn't even close to what he said?
I admit to being puzzled by your assertion that he said the CIA mixed anything with anything.
Maybe you need to read it again?
Addiction rates go way DOWN. Without criminal penalty, more people seek treatment.
More is needed than that. With so many states being right-to-fire states, I suspect that many people do all they can to hide their addiction, so they don't lose their job. Becoming unemployed is likely more of a problem for someone who has an expensive addiction and cannot afford CORBA, cannot afford to pay for rehab, and has no chance of passing a drug screening test to land a new job until the addiction is beaten.
In other countries, social stigma and shame are bigger problems, but here in the US, the economical impact is likely the biggest hurdle.