4 ms·

Former Reuters Journalist Matthew Keys Found Guilty of Hacking, Faces 25 Years

9 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

danso 11y ago
I'd like to see more details on this: > In order to be convicted under the CFAA, the damage had to exceed $5,000. The government claimed that Keys caused $929,977.00 worth of damage. During the trial, the defense tried to cast doubt on the total damages, claiming that the expenditures in response to the hack were not reasonable, and Tribune employees had grossly inflated the hours spent on incident response. In a previous article from VICE, it is mentioned that the defense referred to an email from Keys's ex-boss, which suggested (to some other Tribune exec?) “If you bill a thousand dollars an hour, that will help us get it prosecuted.” [1] Maybe that statement is taken out of context...because I can't believe that the Tribune company would spend less than $5,000 to do an audit of their system after it got so thoroughly compromised...then again, the Tribune company is often considered to be a shitshow even compared to news organizations in general, so it wouldn't be surprised if a news executive had no fucking clue about how much damage an online hack could do. The case itself is evidence of their technological savvy: Exhibit A: The login credentials for a fired web producer were not revoked. Exhibit B: A web producer for a Sacramento TV news website has the same privileges as a front-page web producer at the LA Times...I know the Tribune owns both news sites (as well as many others nationwide), that doesn't mean their web producers should have universal editing privileges. So I could see the damages for the incident being $5,000+ for normal security consulting fees...but $900K+? Again, hard to know if that's really what the Tribune ended up paying because of their disorganization, or if it's number dreamed up by a rabid prosecution. [1] http://motherboard.vice.com/read/low-level-vandalism-or-high-damage-hacking-day-two-of-the-matthew-keys-trial http://motherboard.vice.com/read/low-level-vandalism-or-high...
PhantomGremlin 11y ago
The problem is not in the conviction; that was probably justified. The problem is in the ridiculously long 25 year maximum sentence. This is a federal crime, so there's no parole. You serve about 85% of your sentence if you behave yourself. Let's hope he gets something closer to the 5 years mentioned in the article.

9 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

danso 11y ago

I'd like to see more details on this: > In order to be convicted under the CFAA, the damage had to exceed $5,000. The government claimed that Keys caused $929,977.00 worth of damage. During the trial, the defense tried to cast doubt on the total damages, claiming that the expenditures in response to the hack were not reasonable, and Tribune employees had grossly inflated the hours spent on incident response. In a previous article from VICE, it is mentioned that the defense referred to an email from Keys's ex-boss, which suggested (to some other Tribune exec?) “If you bill a thousand dollars an hour, that will help us get it prosecuted.” [1] Maybe that statement is taken out of context...because I can't believe that the Tribune company would spend less than $5,000 to do an audit of their system after it got so thoroughly compromised...then again, the Tribune company is often considered to be a shitshow even compared to news organizations in general, so it wouldn't be surprised if a news executive had no fucking clue about how much damage an online hack could do. The case itself is evidence of their technological savvy: Exhibit A: The login credentials for a fired web producer were not revoked. Exhibit B: A web producer for a Sacramento TV news website has the same privileges as a front-page web producer at the LA Times...I know the Tribune owns both news sites (as well as many others nationwide), that doesn't mean their web producers should have universal editing privileges. So I could see the damages for the incident being $5,000+ for normal security consulting fees...but $900K+? Again, hard to know if that's really what the Tribune ended up paying because of their disorganization, or if it's number dreamed up by a rabid prosecution. [1] http://motherboard.vice.com/read/low-level-vandalism-or-high-damage-hacking-day-two-of-the-matthew-keys-trial http://motherboard.vice.com/read/low-level-vandalism-or-high...

PhantomGremlin 11y ago

The problem is not in the conviction; that was probably justified. The problem is in the ridiculously long 25 year maximum sentence. This is a federal crime, so there's no parole. You serve about 85% of your sentence if you behave yourself. Let's hope he gets something closer to the 5 years mentioned in the article.