Genious or criminal?

Deliverance

Regardless of the aspergers thing:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/200...k-hacker-gary/

Is this man an actual criminal? He certainly seems to be posing a threat for some reason? I imagine that he is a bit of an internet genious by being able to access and hack the most 'secure' sites on the planet.

I think personally that the USA are trying to poach this fella from the UK using the extradition treaties that are in place. He is a national threat to them because he is so damned good at what he did and the potential of what he can do. The UK are trying to keep him as best as they can by using the aspergers line.

This fella has a massive talent and is like I said an internet genious. The fight for his extradition / non extradition seems to me to be more like an extreme political venture to poach or keep this genious in the UK shores?

Am I right or wrong on this?

ntlbell

Deliverance wrote: »

Regardless of the aspergers thing:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/200...k-hacker-gary/

Is this man an actual criminal? He certainly seems to be posing a threat for some reason? I imagine that he is a bit of an internet genious by being able to access and hack the most 'secure' sites on the planet.

I think personally that the USA are trying to poach this fella from the UK using the extradition treaties that are in place. He is a national threat to them because he is so damned good at what he did and the potential of what he can do. The UK are trying to keep him as best as they can by using the aspergers line.

This fella has a massive talent and is like I said an internet genious. The fight for his extradition / non extradition seems to me to be more like an extreme political venture to poach or keep this genious in the UK shores?

Am I right or wrong on this?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he get in via an externally facing RDP connection using admin and a default password to get in where he did?

(i don't know too much about the case)

but from what I have "heard" he got lucky, or what's turning out to be rather unlucky.

Unless we're really devaluing the term genius, I don't think this guy is much of one.

he also connected directly from his home internet connection and made no attempt to hide his tracts

(i haven't read the article in your post)

but I'm making the assumption you're taken the piddle?

fergalr

Deliverance wrote: »

Regardless of the aspergers thing:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/200...k-hacker-gary/

Your link is broken.
I presume this is the one you were shooting for.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/08/uk-hacker-gary/

Deliverance wrote: »

Is this man an actual criminal?

I don't believe he has been convicted of anything yet.
But it sounds like he has committed crimes from what he has said.

Deliverance wrote: »

He certainly seems to be posing a threat for some reason?

Being a criminal isn't the same as posing a threat.
By all accounts he seems more of a fool than a danger. People say there is an element of administrative revenge in the whole setup. I can't comment on that, but it really does sound like he is more stupid than dangerous.

Deliverance wrote: »

I imagine that he is a bit of an internet genious by being able to access and hack the most 'secure' sites on the planet.

Very wrong. Bad assumption, basically.

By media accounts he sounds much more like a fool who guessed some passwords and got in over his head. He did go looking for trouble; but I don't think he's any sort of an evil genius.

Things you might expect to be secure often are not as secure as they should be.

Deliverance wrote: »

I think personally that the USA are trying to poach this fella from the UK using the extradition treaties that are in place. He is a national threat to them because he is so damned good at what he did and the potential of what he can do. The UK are trying to keep him as best as they can by using the aspergers line.

At this point I wonder whether you are trolling?

Deliverance wrote: »

This fella has a massive talent and is like I said an internet genious. The fight for his extradition / non extradition seems to me to be more like an extreme political venture to poach or keep this genious in the UK shores?

Am I right or wrong on this?

You really sound like you are trolling here.

But giving you the benefit of the doubt, no, he's not necessarily any sort of a genius - probably just a fool. I extremely doubt that this extradition is about 'poaching him'. Anyway, it would have been easy for the UK to reject it if they wanted to keep him.


Maybe he has some special talent for guessing peoples passwords...

I hope he gets a fair trial - like everyone should.

Deliverance

fergalr wrote: »

Your link is broken.
I presume this is the one you were shooting for.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/08/uk-hacker-gary/


I don't believe he has been convicted of anything yet.
But it sounds like he has committed crimes from what he has said.



Being a criminal isn't the same as posing a threat.
By all accounts he seems more of a fool than a danger. People say there is an element of administrative revenge in the whole setup. I can't comment on that, but it really does sound like he is more stupid than dangerous.


Very wrong. Bad assumption, basically.

By media accounts he sounds much more like a fool who guessed some passwords and got in over his head. He did go looking for trouble; but I don't think he's any sort of an evil genius.

Things you might expect to be secure often are not as secure as they should be.


At this point I wonder whether you are trolling?



You really sound like you are trolling here.

But giving you the benefit of the doubt, no, he's not necessarily any sort of a genius - probably just a fool. I extremely doubt that this extradition is about 'poaching him'. Anyway, it would have been easy for the UK to reject it if they wanted to keep him.


Maybe he has some special talent for guessing peoples passwords...

I hope he gets a fair trial - like everyone should.

No I am not a troll.

fergalr

Deliverance wrote: »

No I am not a troll.

All trolls say that.

But ok, fair enough...


I guess my main message would be that this 'computer hacking' stuff is often made mysterious and glamourised by the media - because mystery and glamour sells newspapers.


The thing is, media articles don't tend to make a distinction between people that commit computer crime using very basic, unsophisticated methods (like guessing passwords) and people who are more sophisticated.

Let me put it to you this way: imagine you were walking down grafton street, and someone hit you on the head with a wrench, took your ATM card, guessed your PIN, and stole your money.
And the next day someone printed an article saying "Hacker genius breaks into Bank Of Ireland!".
Would you be impressed?

Because the bit where they guessed the password basically makes them in the same league as McKinnon.

Equally, with the 'phone hacking' in the UK press - thats often people calling voicemail and using the default password - its just hacking (as used in the press) is such a generic term, it really doesn't convey much information.

This fella has a massive talent and is like I said an internet genious.

So thats why this statement of yours is unfounded.
Its such a hyperbolic statement, in the obvious absence of information that I wondered if you were just trolling. You see what I mean?

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on it - and if you were trolling, fair enough you've successfully wasted some time, wahey...

Either way, maybe there's a job as a copy editor for you in the future :-)

Slutmonkey57b

Jesus. Already sick of this tripe on El Reg and the like.

The guy committed a crime.
Knew in advance he was committing a crime.
Knew what the potential penalty was.
Has admitted to it.
Is not mentally incapable.
Does not have "autism" - potentially has mild assburgers (a bull**** condition in my opinion).

His asshole family have dragged the case all through the british courts twice, all the way through the european courts, gone to the Home Secretary twice, and are still fighting it on the basis of
"Yes he did it but we don't want him to get punished for it".

Assholes.

fergalr

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Jesus. Already sick of this tripe on El Reg and the like.

The guy committed a crime.
Knew in advance he was committing a crime.
Knew what the potential penalty was.
Has admitted to it.
Is not mentally incapable.
Does not have "autism" - potentially has mild assburgers (a bull**** condition in my opinion).

His asshole family have dragged the case all through the british courts twice, all the way through the european courts, gone to the Home Secretary twice, and are still fighting it on the basis of
"Yes he did it but we don't want him to get punished for it".

Assholes.

While I agree with some of what you are saying, would you not agree he comes across as a bit feckless? I mean, he pretty clearly didn't have a bulls notion of what he was at.

He did admit to committing a crime, and as I posted already, he did go looking for trouble.
But, the justice system must attempt to be fair and just; and there needs to be a sense of proportionality of punishment to crime.
His crime under UK law would probably have merited a slap on the wrist, or fairly short jail time - in the states he could be looking at 60 years, in the worst case.

Do you think a 60 year jail term is proportional, for what he was accused of doing? Especially considering that he is, in most likelihood, with available information, either somewhere off neuronormal - or a fool?

I don't want to be defending the guy here - but there must be some sense of proportionality in the justice system; people must get a fair trial. Will he get a fair trial in the states? Couldn't they just have tried him in the UK?


Finally, theres an argument to be made that its dubious extraditing him for computer crimes committed from the UK, where the crime in the UK is a substantially lessor offence.


If you were on the telephone to someone from a country that had a very hard line religious law, and you said something that was illegal under that country's law, how would you feel about being extradited to that country?


I agree with you that it seems he broke the law, and did so knowingly - that's teh bad. But 60 years in jail in the states, considering his situation, is pretty frickin harsh.

RoadKillTs

This fella has a massive talent and is like I said an internet genious. The fight for his extradition / non extradition seems to me to be more like an extreme political venture to poach or keep this genious in the UK shores?

Massive talent? If he had massive talent he wouldnt have got caught of even better not have done it in the first place.

Is this man an actual criminal? He certainly seems to be posing a threat for some reason? I imagine that he is a bit of an internet genious by being able to access and hack the most 'secure' sites on the planet.

Yes. Know matter what is wrong with him he was well aware of what he was doing and also of the implications.


They are going to make an example of him just like that other "internet genius" kevin mitnick.

Kevster

I have Asperger's syndrome and I am an administrator on a very popular Asperger's forum, and the general view is that he should be punished for what he did. He was well aware of what he was doing, and his mental 'illness' should not be taken into account.

However, what I think is happening here is that the US and UK governments want to make a big point that this sort of thing is simply unaceptable. If they simply let him go, how would that make them look? Eventually, he'll get a last-minute reprieve I believe, but that'll be after he is extradited and after he has gone to court over there.

Kevin

pwd

7 years of this sh!te. 4 years of station bail. Numerous court appearances. Is there any proof that he did more than access the computers and leave a message?

PogMoThoin

He's not a terrorist and isn't a threat, let him be