| ▲ | whywhywhywhy 14 days ago |
| > Stanley, at 15, bragged about "fucking up servers," a now-deleted Internet Archive screenshot reportedly showed. Another, reneg4d3.com, was launched when he was 16. There, Stanley branded a competing messaging board "stupid noobs" after supposedly gaining admin access through an "easy exploit," I'd expect a large percentage of high talent adult developers to have done exactly this at 15 years old if not more. Pathetic of journalists to be reporting on essentially totally normal 15 year old nerd and neurodivergent things from 20 years ago. |
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| ▲ | netdevphoenix 14 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Doing a crime when underage doesn't stop it from being a crime even if tons of people have done it in the past. Bragging about committing a federal crime is not something we should normalise regardless of the neurodivergence (or lack thereof) of the individual. It does seem to me that some people in this thread are condoning unauthorized computer access (which is a federal crime). |
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| ▲ | IshKebab 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > condoning unauthorized computer access Yeah I'm condoning it, if you're young, just doing it for fun and not causing any real damage. I think that's fairly normal among computer nerds even if it is a federal crime. | | |
| ▲ | netdevphoenix 14 days ago | parent [-] | | So you also condone people breaking into personal cloud accounts for "fun"? If someone young breaks into a house for "fun" and not causing any "real" damage, you condone that too? How about a commercial building? When does the line stop? What does "real damage" even mean here? | | |
| ▲ | pc86 14 days ago | parent [-] | | There is clearly a difference between signing into some server just to see if you can, and breaking & entering into a building. Yes of course they're both wrong, you may even think they should both be serious federal crimes, but it's a very clear difference in degree at the very least. "Real damage" means exactly what any reasonable person would think it means, I don't even understand the question. If you break a door or window to gain access, that's real damage. If you SSH into a server there is no real damage. If you delete files, there is real damage. | | |
| ▲ | netdevphoenix 14 days ago | parent [-] | | You are still condoning unauthorized computer access. You are accessing facilities or resources that you are not authorized to access. Just because you are typing on a computer does not make it any less worse. "Real damage" means more than that. You can enter a building without breaking a door or a window, not sure where you got the notion that is not possible. If you enter a building there is no physical damage but the reputation of the security company managing the building gets damaged once it's found out. Just because you don't see it, does not mean that the damage is not there. Similarly, if you SSH into a server, the company handling the security gets its reputation tarnished. In both cases, there is a financial penalty that those companies will suffer. Someone in some company will be under crazy stress because of your actions. Just because you don't get to meet that person does not mean that the damage is not real. Similarly, accessing someone's private cloud and viewing their files will cause someone emotional distress. Again, you won't see it but does not make it any less real. Imagine, someone spying on you while you sleep (whether online or in person) or while you are in the toilet, again there is no "real damage" according to you but the emotional distress is very much real. All those people hacking web cams for "fun" without causing "real damage" are indeed causing emotional distress which very much falls under real damage. I suggest you review your definition of "real damage" as it is likely to get you into trouble one day. You should not be condoning federal crimes. | | |
| ▲ | pc86 14 days ago | parent [-] | | Respectfully, I suggest you spend a bit more time actually making sure you're responding to what people have actually said and not just what you think they're getting at. > You are still condoning unauthorized computer access. Not at all, literally the opposite. You need only to read past one sentence in my post to see: "Yes of course they're both wrong" > You can enter a building without breaking a door or a window, not sure where you got the notion that is not possible. Not once did I say it wasn't possible. I was using that as an example: "If you break a door or window to gain access, that's real damage." If. As in, it's not required to do this, but this is an example of "real damage." > Similarly, if you SSH into a server, the company handling the security gets its reputation tarnished. If you tell people, yes. And that constitutes real damage. If you SSH into a server to prove to yourself you can do it, and then log out, you have still committed a crime but you have not committed any real damage. There are absolutely people in this thread making the arguments that you're responding to. Unfortunately I wasn't one of them. |
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| ▲ | mc32 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | People will defend or denounce hackers not on the actual activity but will base it on politics. Ic someone aligns with the hacker hacktivist then that person is good. (All the Anonymous activity a decade back), if they don’t like their politics then they want to bring the weight of federal regulation down on them. People are hypocrites. For example, Manning, Schwartz. they are typically seen in good light. Then there is the scourge of those who hack for money (ransomware) that just about everyone hates. | | |
| ▲ | kelnos 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Swartz was acting to make locked-up information (information derived from research largely paid for with tax dollars) free, because he believed it was an injustice to charge people for it. Stanley was hacking Paypal and defacing other people's forums and websites, for the lulz. While I think it's safe to say both committed crimes, I'm a lot more sympathetic to Swartz than to Stanley. Anonymous is a bit more grey: they perhaps exposed things that needed to be exposed, but they were often indiscriminate and hurt people in the process. This isn't politics or hypocrisy; it's thinking critically about different circumstances and applying common-sense ethics and morality. | |
| ▲ | adzm 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Your examples are not about politics per se, but motivation. | |
| ▲ | rbanffy 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Then there is the scourge of those who hack for money (ransomware) that just about everyone hates. Didn't he mention he hacked other people's PayPal accounts? | |
| ▲ | beeflet 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't really care about ransomware distributors either. I think the burden is on the victim defend their own systems. |
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| ▲ | kelnos 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I agree that we should be skeptical of the idea that we should judge people in their 30s based on things they did in their teens... but I'm a "high talent adult developer" who had a modem in the '90s and didn't do anything anywhere near as shitty when I was that age. I dunno. People change a lot as they grow up. But it says something that he was committing computer crimes as a teenager. And now he's participating in the dismantling of a democracy. So I feel like his current actions do actually reflect the crap he pulled as a teen. |
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| ▲ | whywhywhywhy 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > and didn't do anything anywhere near as shitty when I was that age. Being honest could you even have done it at 15, hard to be virtuous about not doing something you're not capable of. I used to boast about hacking stuff to my friends at that age, couldn't actually do it though, wasn't smart enough was just teenage bravado. | | |
| ▲ | rbanffy 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > hard to be virtuous about not doing something you're not capable of. I am a good shooter and never in my life I fired a gun in the general direction of another living thing. I simply don't see a point in doing it. | |
| ▲ | 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | overallduka 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | brohoolio 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The context is that administration bypassed the typically vetting processes for almost everyone and is flaunting various rules openly (see signal controversy). Those processes for vetting are important to ensure that folks won't betray the U.S.A. and can be trusted. This individual might be highly talented and completely trustworthy, but because of how the administration is operating opens everything up for scrutiny including things that should have a bit of scrutiny. |
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| ▲ | pc86 14 days ago | parent [-] | | The whole signal thing is an excellent example and I know several people who voted for Trump who agree that was a boneheaded move (having a signal chat at all let alone accidentally adding a journalist to it). What evidence do you have that DOGE (which is just USDS that everybody loved during the Obama administration) has bypassed any vetting for its employees? | | |
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| ▲ | huxley 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| He hacked into PayPal accounts as a kid and now still is messing with people’s lives and livelihoods, the little shit deserves everything he is getting. Bring neurodivergent isn’t a get-out-of-jail free card, bad decisions have consequences. |
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| ▲ | secondcoming 14 days ago | parent [-] | | How do you feel about Aaron Schwartz? | | |
| ▲ | kelnos 14 days ago | parent [-] | | Aaron Swartz believed it was unjust to lock up research papers behind paywalls when most of that research was paid for with tax dollars. I don't see how you can seriously compare him to someone hacking Paypal and defacing people's websites for fun. Well, unless you're just trying to argue in bad faith, that is. | | |
| ▲ | pc86 14 days ago | parent [-] | | People commit crimes because they believe it's morally right all the time. That doesn't mean it's not a crime, and the fact that Swartz committed multiple series crimes has never been disputed. It's simply a question of whether you think it was a justifiable crime or not. So if you don't think Swartz's crimes were justified, you're just talking about two people who both committed crimes. You don't need to be arguing in bad faith to think that they're comparable even if their motives were different. |
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| ▲ | analog31 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Imagine if he was an essentially normal 15 year old, and caught breaking into a car instead of into a computer. And didn't spend a few years in college learning to coexist with society. He'd probably still be living in a concentration camp. |
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| ▲ | croes 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| What is pathetic about reporting facts? |
