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Aaron Swartz's Federal Judge Gives Anonymous Hacker 10 Years In Prison For DDoS Attacks On Children's Hospitals (zdnet.com)
Danngggg writes: Many will remember Martin Gottesfeld since he was arrested on a speedboat coming from Cuba. He volunteered at trial that he and his wife had just been denied political asylum by Castro. Gottesfeld has said he did it to defend the life of an innocent child named Justina Pelletier. On Thursday, the same judge that over saw the Aaron Swartz case sentenced the Anonymous hacktivist to 10 years in federal prison for a DDoS of Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard-affiliated hospitals, and Wayside Youth and Family. The sentence included $440,000 in restitution, 3 years supervised release, and other conditions. The week before, Gottesfeld docketed a 690-page affidavit (including exhibits) documenting the judge's conflicts of interest and why he doesn't belong anywhere near the case. That's available on the FreeMartyG website. Local news spoke to his wife after the sentencing hearing as well.
This guy was trying to DDoS hospitals. I can't think of any excuse that would actually excuse that, and "doing it to save some child's life" is flat out unbelievable. If it takes him 680 pages to document "conflicts of interest", I have to think there is a lot of smoke being blown to inflate that page count, and probably not much fire.
If it takes him 680 pages to document "conflicts of interest", I have to think there is a lot of smoke being blown to inflate that page count, and probably not much fire.
Basically, The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Reminds me of the (literally) hundreds of Tweets I've seen from some idiot saying something about "no collusion" ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
No, he's going into the Feds on a 10 year sentence for a computer crime not related to sex offense or pedophilia.
Since it looks like he's east coast in all respects, he'll likely go to either Butner or Allenwood, maybe Lexington if he has health problems. 10 years with no criminal history and no violence means he'll probably be eligible for Low Security. The key to success at these places is to keep to yourself for a week while you figure out who is who. Then just treat everyone with respect, show that your word is good, and stay away from drama (e.g. guards, rats, pedophiles). Doing these three things is known as 'keeping your face clean'.
Deciding ahead of time that you are going to kick someone's ass your first day in Federal Prison is a good way to get your ass kicked by someone who's been doing it for years. Alternatively, if you do kick someone's ass, you might be the recipient of a lock-on-a-sock from one of his friends.
The FBOP is very different from the various state systems. Maybe in some states that would be a good strategy.
Murderers can be paroled after 7 years, so 10 years in prison for a computer crime seems harsh.
They could put an ankle monitor on him, and he can spend 10 years cleaning bedpans in the hospitals he DDoSed. He would be contributing to society instead of a drain on the system.
Prisons should only be for people that are physically dangerous. For everyone else, there are more constructive punishments.
First, the government taking kids away from their parents, in violation of their constitutional rights, is a never-ending source of violence between the public and government. I don't need to mention the police and sheriffs don't want to get involved in a lot of that. The correct check on that power is a jury trial, not just because it's guarunateed by the constitution as custody is a right that cannot be taken away without due process, but also because ultimately, its the public that has to bore the fallout of the violence and drama that these kinds of situations produce. If the situation is dire, charge the parents, put them through a speedy trial, this is reasonable. I've seen news stories just like this since the 90's and the body count from this shit has to literally thousands of cops, parents and kids a year. Enough is enough. We need to fix this.
Understand, the reason he attacked the hospital is because he genuinely thought the hospital was unduley enriching itself by kidnapping children. And if they were, what mechanisms exist in society to stop that? Lawsuits? They're generally immune. Administrative oversight? When was the last time a doctor was tried and convicted for malpractice? About the only check and balance, sadly, is lead. That is a serious problem and needs to change.
Second, this is an impressive 86-page handwritten letter and hundreds of pages of news articles and other research. He's got enough here to show the judges are being paid and we need to start getting polices and sherrifs involved to investigate and ensure we don't have a pedophilia ring operating here, or something worse.
The difference here is that he's going into the Feds. There is no parole in the Feds, except for convictions prior to 1987 or military convictions.
If he does not lose any of his good time for disciplinary infractions he will do about 87% of his sentence, so about 8 years, 9 months.
Sentences tend to be longer in the Feds, but the treatment tends to be better (not 100% of the time) and there is generally less violence.
Having said all of that, I agree with you that we should seriously rethink how we use prisons.
> Prisons should only be for people that are physically dangerous. For everyone else, there are more constructive punishments.
I would say attacking the systems used to care for critically ill children is physically dangerous. I'm sure the doctors and nurses did their best to care for the kids despite the attacks; I'm also sure that they use computerized systems to improve the quality of care.
You mentioned parole. He can get time off for good behavior.
I don't necessarily have an opinion on what his sentence should be, and I don't know if that is controlled by what some other person got for some other crime. I don't know enough about the facts of the case, ornhis history. Sentencing decisions are also just plain very difficult. I do see this as physically dangerous, taking out the hospital's electronic systems reduces their ability to care for very sick children.
I also note that someone who has already attacked a children's hospital has demonstrated that they are able and willing to harm sick kids. I don't really want to give him a chance to see what he does next. I particularly don't want to trust him hanging out in the very hospitals he attacked, which he now has even more rage against since it's their fault he's sentenced to his prison (in his mind). I wouldn't want him anywhere near my kid if she were hospitalized.
My sentence was 130 months and I went to a low.
one the right wing press ran with heavily. It's not an uncommon thing and I can't tell if there's anything to the stories. Too often when you've got a kid not getting treatment it's because of religious parents who want to take them home and pray until they die. There's a sizeable portion of folks on the right wing that support allowing this. Some of them are insane but well meaning but there's quite a few who are just using it as one more distraction and one more thing to get the rubes worked up about.
Its kinda amazing that we got so many comments without anybody bringing up the case that kicked this all off. Its an extremely emotional case that was played up in the media for sure. But the thing that always troubled me about that case is that the hospital initiated a legal action to take Justina without doing any medical due diligence. Apparently, this is a problem for folks that have the kind of mitochondrial condition that she had.
I think the hospital was worried about was a Munchausen by proxy situation. But, the parents had verifiable genetic proof that Justina had a specific medical condition and the hospital could have verified this with a single phone call. We know they didn't bother to verify this until after they had already completed legal action to take Justina due to the testimony of the geneticist (who was at the same university as the child abuse expert they called instead).
Nobody is claiming that the parents are religious nuts. They looked emotional distraught during the media coverage but wouldn't you be if the government had just effectively kidnapped your child and was refusing to give necessary medical care to her? Seriously, most parents would feel like burning down buildings in that situation.
I want to hear some sort of cogent hypothesis for WTF the hospital was thinking when they initiated (and completed) a legal action to take a child without doing even the most cursory due diligence to ensure a mistake wasn't taking place. Somehow, that sort of lack of judgement should be criminal and most folks would probably be OK with those who are convicted of such a crime being put to death. Given all of this, its disingenuous to act as if the hospital didn't make a huge mistake and is probably covering up their actions. That being said, DOS'ing the hospital is hardly the right response given the high chance you will kill innocent sick kids in the process. So fuck this guy but don't let the hospital off the hook for their huge mistake either.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
I wish.
130 months for bank robbery, carjacking, and gun charges.
I would say attacking the systems used to care for critically ill children is physically dangerous.
That is not what "physically dangerous" means. Would he physically assault anyone while cleaning bedpans? There is no evidence to suspect that. Can he run a DDoS attack while cleaning bedpans? Unlikely.
If access to the Internet is a really big concern, then he could be sentenced to repairing hiking trails in remote forests. For non-violent people, there is always a better alternative than prisons. Every other country in the world imprisons fewer people than America, and most have lower recidivism rates.
America's prison system is expensive, dysfunctional, and counterproductive. We need to end the knee jerk response of dealing with every problem by locking up more people. When a politician brags that he is endorsed by the police and prison unions, you should vote for the other guy.
He brings in his kid because there's a specialist at the hospital that can help.
Others at the hospital look at his kid - refuse to send the kid the specialist. When he tries to get his kid back, they accuse him of child abuse and take his kid.
You are working under the mistaken assumption that people are rational...
95% of people are rational about incarceration. The other 5% are Americans.
If they were, we would be living in an entirely different world.
Nope. Just a different country.
One of the point if you look around for more balanced article, is that the dr korson at the time had not done a muscle biopsy (one diagnosis which is deemed necessary - and reading what he told over the year about his method of "clumping" versus "scattering" diagnosis this brings up certain doubt about him). And certainly there was no mitochondrial genetic analyzes.
Couple of things: 1) I can tell you are not a parent, 2) most juries are composed mostly of parents
Maybe perhaps the hospital should have done one of those first before resorting to CPS? As for what you say, it seems to be true. Its also true they didn't know any of it when they called in CPS. They would have had to contact the geneticist first for them to know that. They only found this information out after CPS had taken the child. So its more papering over what they did rather than admitting what they did. The fact that they can do this now, and that they are willing to throw a fellow medical researcher under the bus to do it, should tell you what they are willing to do to get out of this one.
The dumbest thing the hospital has done so far (other than the original mistakes) was to not settle immediately. The hospital can quibble and go back and forth about mitochondrial issues and all its going to do is make the jury want to hang them more. Because the simple fact is, they didn't know any of it when they called CPS in the first place. And the fact that there is clearly medical uncertainty here, will count against them. People will quite reasonably have the attitude that "YOU(the hospital) SHOULD HAVE BEEN SURE BEFORE CALLING CPS". Anything that counts against that no matter how complex or smart or medically sound, will get them into even more trouble. Before you take people's kids, you have to be sure. Anything that seems to go against that simple premise will get harshly rebuffed by almost any jury. You want to see an outrageous legal settlement? Argue that you should be able to take people's kids without due processes or even reviewing all the information at hand.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
It's funny that this document, which is mostly hand written, would be considered a "conflicts of interest" document. None of it actually contains any conflicts of interest. All of it includes a rambling story of a manifesto which includes reasons why some person was harmed by a hospital group, as if this were the justification to do damage to the hospital group to avenge the harm that was done to some person...
If the guy is looking for a defense, he's only using a shovel to dig his hole deeper by producing and submitting such a document to a court of law. The judge is rightfully correct in giving the unremorseful defendant such a long prison sentence. This person obviously cannot be rehabilitated, and the only protection from society from such a person with no conscience is a long prison sentence. He suffers from mental illness if he thinks his manifesto describing his reasons for revenge are going to have any positive impact on the judges decision. Anyone reading that document probably thinks the guy is a lunatic who deserves ten years in prison for what he did. He obviously does not regret what he did. To the contrary, he authored a 690 page manifesto describing why it deserves to be done. What a psychopath.
You should do a lot more background reading. The child in question was the victim of a "medical kidnapping" being held in a psych ward and denied necessary medication. It seems the doctors at that hospital disagreed with doctors at another hospital and they were willing to keep her locked up to prevent the parents from transferring her.
This is an uncommon but growing problem.
Eventually, with mounting publicity and legal pressure, the child was released and is now slowly improving. Some of that publicity came from the DDOS making the news.
You DO know that a hospital's web pages and business admin don't run in the same space as the patient monitors, right?
He attacked a children's hospital and then has the temerity to think he's some kind of hero activist. He's a self-important jerk and his ass is going to be in jail for 10 years. I hope he gets to enjoy every last minute of it.