You're right. I'm trying to keep things calm and rational here.
You're determined to "win" this conversation through hyperbole and misdirection.
There's absolutely no way for us to have a meaningful conversation since you're not actually interested in having a conversation. You're looking for a soapbox.
Trespass usually doesn't get you prison time.measured in years. Nor does speeding.
Also, again, what he did while part of it was comparable to trespass, please keep in mind that the other component of what he did was THEFT.
You rob a bank of a million bucks. You go to jail.
You do it again. You go to jail for LONGER.
I'm willing to bet that if this was a second time burglary at a similar dollar level to what he did this time, he'd be going away for JUST as long.
And no. It's NOT like putting his head on a pike. If we did that, that's effectively a death sentence with no possibility of returning to civilian life after his debt to society is paid. That is NOT what is happening here.
So stop with the hyperbole. All it's doing is detracting from your position.
By 22 I'd served my country, gotten an education, and was holding down a job. I won't say I was 100% responsible (I had an AWFUL lot of speeding tickets in my younger days...) But that sure has hell doesn't mean I didn't understand that theft and vandalism of any sort was Not Acceptable.
It's people like you that'd have kids living with their parents until the parents fall over dead. Instead of stepping up and taking responsibility for their lives.
If its his parents fault for infantilizing him, okay. I can get behind that. But it DOESN'T mean I'm going to simply accept his actions as "okay". The fact is, they're NOT okay. He'd been booted out of school for a similar offense with no charges filed. He'd been arrested multiple times for physical assaults. If light doesn't dawn in the swamp by that time, yeah, it's time for a legally mandated "time out" to allow this person to relax and try to clear their head.
That didn't work with him. He went right back to the stupid shit he was pulling previously. Hell, he was doing it in violation of his parole!
This guy was given MULTIPLE chances to step up, be responsible and try to bring some REAL benefit to society (or at least keep his nose clean).
He actively chose NOT to.
And now, he's squirming and trying to appear as some sort of hacker martyr (or whatever's popular at the moment) to somehow try to dodge the consequences of his actions.
The second is a critique of sentencing guidelines.
That's where I see the problem. Rapists will get out in less time than this guy that hacked into this newspaper publishing small business of twenty people that likes to hype itself as the "shadow CIA".
First time rapists? Probably. But second-offender rapists? I HIGHLY doubt it.
As I said, he is a REPEAT OFFENDER. After the first offense, subsequent offenses mandate more stringent punishments.
Prison should be a deterrent not because of the fear of frequent and grave danger to your life and person, but of the loss of selected civil rights (mobility, some association, some privacy, some speech). This is punishment enough; human rights should be transcendent to law and absolutely inalienable.
As I said, I think your view of what prison life is like is somewhat colored by its depiction in the media. Prison is depicted as a really, REALLY bad place to be. But unless you're a complete fuckup, monster, or just plain stupid, prison life, outside of the boredom, isn't a hellish nightmare for non-violent offenders.
For this guy, house arrest with extremely restricted communications access (landline phone only, no internet access) and probably years of community service seems appropriate.
But, oh, one of his targets was a government contractor, so, of course, we need to send him to be "rehabilitated" by method of getting a dick up his ass for ten years.
Seriously?
No.
SERIOUSLY?
House arrest?
Whose house? His mom, who thinks he's an angel and can't understand why her son's being "picked on"?
His dad, if his dad isn't already in jail for child molestation (yeah, his dad is/was a music teacher who was arrested for taking liberties with his students)?
At one of his friends' places?
Yeah. Good luck enforcing any no-internet strictures there!
And community service? He'll weasel out.
He dodged a vandalism charge that way. Promising to come back and clean up the mess he made. He came out once, left an even bigger mess, then dropped off the radar for a while.
Keep in mind, Jeremy Hammond is only civic minded insofar as it benefits HIM. PERIOD.
Hammond isn't a "good guy". He's a thug with a thin veneer of technical knowledge and barely enough charisma to make random idiots believe he's some sort of righteous social crusader.
1: Unfortunately for the public pocket book, executions are banned in most states now. 2: Jeremy Hammond is NOT a child (he's childish, but not an actual child). He's currently 27 years old. And more, he went to prison when he was 22 (also not a child) for the same offense.
And we have removed NOTHING. When they chose to break the law and hurt others, they have no expectation of being allowed to continue their "pursuit of happiness".
Chuck Manson was in pursuit of his happiness. Should we have just let him continue on?
The prison system in the US actually DOES make me ill. Nowadays, these prisoners are coddled excessively. They sit around idle most of the day, and are unproductive leeches on the ass of society. All prison terms should be "at hard labor". Allow these prisoners the opportunity to repay society for the damage they've done.
When Google and Facebook do this for a profit, hide the data collection behind an EULA, and then sell your personal data to third parties, they are called geniuses and made billionaires.
I don't give Google or Facebook my credit card info. And, if I did, that's between ME and THEM. If I've authorized them to have it, I've authorized them to have it.
Hammond broke into someone else's systems and STOLE that data.
Sorry but there are actually two separate arguments here:
Violent vs non-violent offenders.
Hammond's criminal record shows that he's been BOTH types in the past.
Anyhow, this sort of thing is solved by the various forms of prisoner segregation already in place in the prison system. So Hammond probably won't be going to a Super-Max. And he probably won't be housed in a violent offenders' wing.
As such, the non-violent thread he represents to society is silenced.
The second is a critique of sentencing guidelines.
Please keep in mind that Hammond is a serial offender. He's got a fairly lengthy criminal record in multiple cities already. Plus, there's the fact that Hammond was tried and convicted of this same offense about 6 years ago.
He's already received a "light" sentence for his first offense.
This is now his SECOND offense. So, obviously, his sentence is going to be more onerous.
And remember, this isn't like the Snowden incident. He didn't break in and reveal a bunch of government wrongdoing. He broke in and stole financial data which he was going to use.
This guy isn't a hero, a martyr, a revolutionary, or even just a nice guy in a bad situation. He's a career thug.
Okay, I happen to be VERY familiar with Jeremy Hammond (for someone who isn't part of his butt-kissing crew). I associated with him for a couple years in hacking circles in the mid-2000's. My opinion of him isn't very high. And I can't tell you what I think of his ethics, as he has none. He's someone who's constantly looking for an enemy to somehow oppress him and fight against.
This argument MIGHT hold water if this was Hammond's first offense. It isn't.
He was expelled from college for a hacking incident. Not for the hack itself, but for installing back doors into the systems and then failing to disclose them when he came forward to "teach the admins" about the methods he'd used to get into the systems in the first place.
He assaulted a Chicago city cop during a gay pride parade in 2004 while trying to confront a heckler.
He was fired from his job at a Mac consultancy in the Chicago area after teaching people how to hack into systems using the consultancy's servers as guinea pigs (machines that held LIVE CUSTOMER DATA).
He and a cohort looted the coffers of the Chicago Communist Party after a failed attempt to take control.
He's had multiple arrests as a public nuisance.
He and a group of his erstwhile friends hacked a site called Protest Warrior and stole credit cards. And he left such a bad taste in these friends' mouths that one of them rolled on him to the FBI. He was caught, prosecuted and sent to jail for 3 years (got out after 2 on good behavior).
After getting out he was busted for assaulting a holocaust denier in a public establishment.
He was busted for theft and destruction of property during the Chicago bid to host the Olympics.
And, what did he do? He hacked Stratfor and stole credit card numbers (with intent to use) AGAIN.
So what are we supposed to do? Impose a "no computers, no cell phones" sentence on him? In this day and age it's practically impossible to enforce. There's also the fact that he's a repeat offender.
Is he really and truly PHYSICALLY dangerous? No. But prison isn't about simply physical protection of society. It's also about deterring those who abuse society on a constant basis.
And Jeremy Hammond is one such abusive element. He's a thug with a martyr complex. He wants to feel important, authoritative and in control. He wants to be seen as a "rebel". The fact is, he's a script kiddie, using the work of others and trying to make it appear as if he's some vastly knowledgeable authority. He has only a thin veneer of social skills to get by on, and basically defaults to "smash and grab" when he doesn't get his way.
In short, he's a boil on the butt of society. And prison is about the only place for him.
Why? He's doing an EXCELLENT job of flushing the country down the drain. All by his widdle lonesome self.
Eventually the people in his own country are going to wake up to the consequences of his policy of thuggery and theft. At that point, if he actually survives the coup, it'll be a miracle.
First off: Square Enix? YAY! Now they can put up a countdown clock for how long until they (or someone breaking into their systems, or both) misappropriate your financial information to make unauthorized purchases on your account.
Second off: Ubisoft? The "We're stupid enough to think DRM actually works, so fuck you, all you customers are really criminals!" company?
Third off: The latencies involved simply preclude certain types of games (like FPS).
Fourth off: It's still going to be in the shit-tastic console format?
Then it's creepy robots molesting little boys. Then it's creepy little-boy-molesting robots paying for someone to have "his" kids. Then it's creepy little-boy-molesting robots who paid for someone to have "his" kids OD'ing on prescription drugs!
Their "schtick" is including a credit card magstripe reader that plugs into the headphone jack of an iPhone or iPad.
It's actually fairly useful, as it allows all sorts of businesses to take credit cards that would, otherwise, be too small to afford some form of mobile payment acceptance. It also allows the vendor to e-mail receipts to their customers if the customer so chooses.
I use them at conventions as a backup if our normal credit card readers stop working for any reason.
"You opened your mouth. Zis is KAOS! Err... The NSA! We do not open our mouths here!"
Anyone saying " And I can say, I know all about that, I had a hand in that." is out of a job and probably getting a first class ticket to GITMO if they don't run first.
But, until I'm too old and decrepit to actually drive MYSELF anywhere, I'm more sure of my ability to drive a car than that of a computer.
It's a simple trust issue. We're still seeing issues where computer systems in cars, THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH AN AUTODRIVER, are fouling up because they're hitting corner cases and multi-system interoperability issues the developers never planned for. And the result? We see dead people!
As such, this is supposed to inspire enough confidence in me to hand over driving duties?
Slashdot Mirror
You're right. I'm trying to keep things calm and rational here.
You're determined to "win" this conversation through hyperbole and misdirection.
There's absolutely no way for us to have a meaningful conversation since you're not actually interested in having a conversation. You're looking for a soapbox.
You've been watching too many prison flicks.
Uhm. Try again.
Trespass usually doesn't get you prison time.measured in years.
Nor does speeding.
Also, again, what he did while part of it was comparable to trespass, please keep in mind that the other component of what he did was THEFT.
You rob a bank of a million bucks. You go to jail.
You do it again. You go to jail for LONGER.
I'm willing to bet that if this was a second time burglary at a similar dollar level to what he did this time, he'd be going away for JUST as long.
And no. It's NOT like putting his head on a pike. If we did that, that's effectively a death sentence with no possibility of returning to civilian life after his debt to society is paid. That is NOT what is happening here.
So stop with the hyperbole. All it's doing is detracting from your position.
By 22 I'd served my country, gotten an education, and was holding down a job. I won't say I was 100% responsible (I had an AWFUL lot of speeding tickets in my younger days...) But that sure has hell doesn't mean I didn't understand that theft and vandalism of any sort was Not Acceptable.
It's people like you that'd have kids living with their parents until the parents fall over dead. Instead of stepping up and taking responsibility for their lives.
If its his parents fault for infantilizing him, okay. I can get behind that. But it DOESN'T mean I'm going to simply accept his actions as "okay". The fact is, they're NOT okay. He'd been booted out of school for a similar offense with no charges filed. He'd been arrested multiple times for physical assaults. If light doesn't dawn in the swamp by that time, yeah, it's time for a legally mandated "time out" to allow this person to relax and try to clear their head.
That didn't work with him. He went right back to the stupid shit he was pulling previously. Hell, he was doing it in violation of his parole!
This guy was given MULTIPLE chances to step up, be responsible and try to bring some REAL benefit to society (or at least keep his nose clean).
He actively chose NOT to.
And now, he's squirming and trying to appear as some sort of hacker martyr (or whatever's popular at the moment) to somehow try to dodge the consequences of his actions.
FUCK THAT NOISE.
That's where I see the problem. Rapists will get out in less time than this guy that hacked into this newspaper publishing small business of twenty people that likes to hype itself as the "shadow CIA".
First time rapists? Probably. But second-offender rapists? I HIGHLY doubt it.
As I said, he is a REPEAT OFFENDER. After the first offense, subsequent offenses mandate more stringent punishments.
Prison should be a deterrent not because of the fear of frequent and grave danger to your life and person, but of the loss of selected civil rights (mobility, some association, some privacy, some speech). This is punishment enough; human rights should be transcendent to law and absolutely inalienable.
As I said, I think your view of what prison life is like is somewhat colored by its depiction in the media. Prison is depicted as a really, REALLY bad place to be. But unless you're a complete fuckup, monster, or just plain stupid, prison life, outside of the boredom, isn't a hellish nightmare for non-violent offenders.
For this guy, house arrest with extremely restricted communications access (landline phone only, no internet access) and probably years of community service seems appropriate.
But, oh, one of his targets was a government contractor, so, of course, we need to send him to be "rehabilitated" by method of getting a dick up his ass for ten years.
Seriously?
No.
SERIOUSLY?
House arrest?
Whose house? His mom, who thinks he's an angel and can't understand why her son's being "picked on"?
His dad, if his dad isn't already in jail for child molestation (yeah, his dad is/was a music teacher who was arrested for taking liberties with his students)?
At one of his friends' places?
Yeah. Good luck enforcing any no-internet strictures there!
And community service? He'll weasel out.
He dodged a vandalism charge that way. Promising to come back and clean up the mess he made. He came out once, left an even bigger mess, then dropped off the radar for a while.
Keep in mind, Jeremy Hammond is only civic minded insofar as it benefits HIM. PERIOD.
House arrest... *SNERK*
Honestly. I think your view of prison life has been slightly tainted by the media.
It's not candyland or anything. But, if you keep your nose clean, it's FAR from the depictions of super-max prisons you've seen in TV and movies.
If I hadn't already commented in this thread, I'd have modded you up.
Thank you for that informative post.
Hey. You. Dumbass.
Hammond isn't a "good guy". He's a thug with a thin veneer of technical knowledge and barely enough charisma to make random idiots believe he's some sort of righteous social crusader.
Not in this case.
This is Hammond's second offense for this particular crime (plus a 10 year history of other violent and non-violent crimes).
As such, the sentence is longer.
So the judge IS following the sentencing guidelines.
Anyone acting as if this is Hammond's first offense or that he somehow stumbled on this by accident is:
A) Misinformed
B) Naive
C) Knowingly spreading false information (for myriad reasons).
You're forgetting something.
This is his SECOND OFFENSE.
And he's not simply going away for "hacking".
He's going away for THEFT (see "burlary").
He was ALREADY sentenced to a 2 year stint in Greenville Correctional in 2006 (and got out in 2008).
As this is now his second offense, the sentencing guidelines are more stringent (see "Do it again and you go away LONGER!")
Actually, as this is his second offense for this sort of thing, "good behavior" isn't necessarily in play.
1: Unfortunately for the public pocket book, executions are banned in most states now.
2: Jeremy Hammond is NOT a child (he's childish, but not an actual child). He's currently 27 years old. And more, he went to prison when he was 22 (also not a child) for the same offense.
And we have removed NOTHING. When they chose to break the law and hurt others, they have no expectation of being allowed to continue their "pursuit of happiness".
Chuck Manson was in pursuit of his happiness. Should we have just let him continue on?
The prison system in the US actually DOES make me ill.
Nowadays, these prisoners are coddled excessively. They sit around idle most of the day, and are unproductive leeches on the ass of society.
All prison terms should be "at hard labor". Allow these prisoners the opportunity to repay society for the damage they've done.
When Google and Facebook do this for a profit, hide the data collection behind an EULA, and then sell your personal data to third parties, they are called geniuses and made billionaires.
I don't give Google or Facebook my credit card info. And, if I did, that's between ME and THEM. If I've authorized them to have it, I've authorized them to have it.
Hammond broke into someone else's systems and STOLE that data.
I repeat, he STOLE data which he had no right to.
That's a BIG goddamn difference.
Sorry but there are actually two separate arguments here:
Violent vs non-violent offenders.
Hammond's criminal record shows that he's been BOTH types in the past.
Anyhow, this sort of thing is solved by the various forms of prisoner segregation already in place in the prison system.
So Hammond probably won't be going to a Super-Max. And he probably won't be housed in a violent offenders' wing.
As such, the non-violent thread he represents to society is silenced.
The second is a critique of sentencing guidelines.
Please keep in mind that Hammond is a serial offender. He's got a fairly lengthy criminal record in multiple cities already.
Plus, there's the fact that Hammond was tried and convicted of this same offense about 6 years ago.
He's already received a "light" sentence for his first offense.
This is now his SECOND offense. So, obviously, his sentence is going to be more onerous.
And remember, this isn't like the Snowden incident. He didn't break in and reveal a bunch of government wrongdoing.
He broke in and stole financial data which he was going to use.
This guy isn't a hero, a martyr, a revolutionary, or even just a nice guy in a bad situation. He's a career thug.
"Personally I think a 10 year sentence is pretty excessive. "
Keep in mind. This is now his second offense for this sort of thing.
2 years in Club Fed weren't enough to cool him off.
And keep in mind, this case is only PERIPHERALLY about "hacking". The main thing he's been prosecuted for is theft.
Okay, I happen to be VERY familiar with Jeremy Hammond (for someone who isn't part of his butt-kissing crew). I associated with him for a couple years in hacking circles in the mid-2000's. My opinion of him isn't very high. And I can't tell you what I think of his ethics, as he has none. He's someone who's constantly looking for an enemy to somehow oppress him and fight against.
This argument MIGHT hold water if this was Hammond's first offense. It isn't.
He was expelled from college for a hacking incident. Not for the hack itself, but for installing back doors into the systems and then failing to disclose them when he came forward to "teach the admins" about the methods he'd used to get into the systems in the first place.
He assaulted a Chicago city cop during a gay pride parade in 2004 while trying to confront a heckler.
He was fired from his job at a Mac consultancy in the Chicago area after teaching people how to hack into systems using the consultancy's servers as guinea pigs (machines that held LIVE CUSTOMER DATA).
He and a cohort looted the coffers of the Chicago Communist Party after a failed attempt to take control.
He's had multiple arrests as a public nuisance.
He and a group of his erstwhile friends hacked a site called Protest Warrior and stole credit cards. And he left such a bad taste in these friends' mouths that one of them rolled on him to the FBI. He was caught, prosecuted and sent to jail for 3 years (got out after 2 on good behavior).
After getting out he was busted for assaulting a holocaust denier in a public establishment.
He was busted for theft and destruction of property during the Chicago bid to host the Olympics.
And, what did he do? He hacked Stratfor and stole credit card numbers (with intent to use) AGAIN.
So what are we supposed to do? Impose a "no computers, no cell phones" sentence on him? In this day and age it's practically impossible to enforce.
There's also the fact that he's a repeat offender.
Is he really and truly PHYSICALLY dangerous? No. But prison isn't about simply physical protection of society. It's also about deterring those who abuse society on a constant basis.
And Jeremy Hammond is one such abusive element. He's a thug with a martyr complex. He wants to feel important, authoritative and in control. He wants to be seen as a "rebel". The fact is, he's a script kiddie, using the work of others and trying to make it appear as if he's some vastly knowledgeable authority. He has only a thin veneer of social skills to get by on, and basically defaults to "smash and grab" when he doesn't get his way.
In short, he's a boil on the butt of society. And prison is about the only place for him.
She's a killer man!
Why? He's doing an EXCELLENT job of flushing the country down the drain. All by his widdle lonesome self.
Eventually the people in his own country are going to wake up to the consequences of his policy of thuggery and theft.
At that point, if he actually survives the coup, it'll be a miracle.
Yeah. It was fairly disturbing in a squicky kinda way.
First off: Square Enix? YAY! Now they can put up a countdown clock for how long until they (or someone breaking into their systems, or both) misappropriate your financial information to make unauthorized purchases on your account.
Second off: Ubisoft? The "We're stupid enough to think DRM actually works, so fuck you, all you customers are really criminals!" company?
Third off: The latencies involved simply preclude certain types of games (like FPS).
Fourth off: It's still going to be in the shit-tastic console format?
PASS!
Then it's creepy robots molesting little boys.
Then it's creepy little-boy-molesting robots paying for someone to have "his" kids.
Then it's creepy little-boy-molesting robots who paid for someone to have "his" kids OD'ing on prescription drugs!
Just say NO man!
Square is a payment processor.
Their "schtick" is including a credit card magstripe reader that plugs into the headphone jack of an iPhone or iPad.
It's actually fairly useful, as it allows all sorts of businesses to take credit cards that would, otherwise, be too small to afford some form of mobile payment acceptance. It also allows the vendor to e-mail receipts to their customers if the customer so chooses.
I use them at conventions as a backup if our normal credit card readers stop working for any reason.
Exactly.
"You opened your mouth. Zis is KAOS! Err... The NSA! We do not open our mouths here!"
Anyone saying " And I can say, I know all about that, I had a hand in that." is out of a job and probably getting a first class ticket to GITMO if they don't run first.
But, until I'm too old and decrepit to actually drive MYSELF anywhere, I'm more sure of my ability to drive a car than that of a computer.
It's a simple trust issue. We're still seeing issues where computer systems in cars, THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH AN AUTODRIVER, are fouling up because they're hitting corner cases and multi-system interoperability issues the developers never planned for. And the result? We see dead people!
As such, this is supposed to inspire enough confidence in me to hand over driving duties?
Guess again.