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Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling
- borp_borp 10y agoKind of shitty that they immediately used the computers to fuck people over... The Ohio Inspector General says investigators found an inmate used the computers to steal the identity of another inmate, and then submit credit card applications, and commit tax fraud. One inmate, Adam Johnston, reportedly admitted to applying for the credit cards, saying he just looked through the ODRC system for a young inmate with a long sentence, then used his information to get the cards. You'd hope that, provided access to something rare, the use would be benign and reasonable.
- greglindahl 10y agoBlekko had a contract with a VPN provider for search, and they were very popular in Egypt during the Arab Spring. We were hoping that we were powering curiosity about freedom, but the query stream was... 100% porn queries.
- Banthum 10y agoPeople end up in prison for a reason. Though how I wish it wasn't so.
- cooper12 10y agoPeople have gone to the prison in the past solely because of the color of their skin or because of their religion. People today go to prison just for possessing a plant or criticizing their head of state. Let's not pretend that being in prison is anything other than a moral judgement rather than an indication of someone's character. It just makes it easier to dehumanize prisoners ("they deserve it") and harder for them to reintegrate ("they must have been a bad person to get into prison"). It's the same attitude where when someone does something drastic, people who knew them will say to the news "I never expected them to do such a thing" or "they were such a sweet person". It denies that we all have the potential to be criminals depending on societies POV and our own situation.
- chongli 10y agoThese, along with victim blaming, are examples of behaviour consistent with the Just World Hypothesis [0]. It's really frustrating how many people seem to fall into this cognitive trap but it's understandable. I can see how people who are more aware of the fact that the world is a cruel, unjust, and arbitrary place could fall into a deep depression. I have been there myself. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
- qb45 10y agoWe need a program allowing prisoners to serve their sentence as home arrest at foster homes of volunteers to isolate them from their pathological upbringing and socialize them with law-abiding citizenry. To eliminate possibility of unjust moral judgments and discrimination, obviously the inmates would get to choose their hosts and not the other way around. I'm sure you would be happy to participate. Problem solved.
- cooper12 10y agoAh the good ol' tired "why don't you take refugees into your own home" argument. Why would I need to host them when I don't need to host a jail? The same thing with orphans and refugees. The government provides space for them paid for with my taxes. I don't invite every homeless person I see into my home permanently, doesn't mean I don't care about them or believe the government should combat the issue or open more shelters. Trying to put the onus on me saying "why don't you do it if you care so much" is just lazy deflection from the actual issue and a sad attempt of absolving anyone else of responsibility. Anyway, you invented a whole solution which had nothing at all to do with what I said; I never advocated against jails or anything to the effect, please improve your reading comprehension and construct better strawmen to sidetrack me with.
- bonniemuffin 10y agoI'm really surprised they did anything other than look at porn.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- codezero 10y agoOr this is just the spin the prison puts on it to make it sound worse, and to justify their own incompetence. Imagine if this didn't happen at all, and the inmates used this just to get online. This is what I assume.
- djsumdog 10y agoI wouldn't put it past the prison either.
- Overtonwindow 10y agoI'm not sure whether or be alarmed or proud.
- pmiller2 10y agoI'm going with "amazed."
- qb45 10y agoIt's quite neat that they managed to access the Internet using some staff member's credentials. Probably not a reason to be proud of him.
- lawless123 10y agoI think it's the clandestine computer building and network setup people are impressed by.
- codezero 10y agoProud. The US prison system is oppressive garbage. Good for the inmates.
- djsumdog 10y agoExactly. Especially in Ohio. I remember years ago listening to the District Attorney of Cincinnati say he didn't believe in rehabilitation! WTF? 1% of Americans have been through the incarceration system. That's insane. These guys are probably just going to be reprimanded and be given more time in prison, when really they should encourage their education and effort to push them to legit computer work when they leave. ..but once you have that criminal record, and are labelled as such, good luck getting anyone to hire you. The prison system in the US creates a lower class. Facilities where prisoners can earn below minimum wage is literally slave labour.
- vacri 10y ago> 1% of Americans have been through the incarceration system. That's insane. That's not quite correct. 1% of American adults are currently incarcerated. There's nearly 2.5M current prisoners, and the US total population is about 310M, so once you remove kids from that 'total pop' count...
- walrus01 10y agoHere's hoping they didn't smuggle a full size ATX motherboard through the facility using the 'old fashioned' prison method. Or even a 3.5" SATA hard drive...
- Overtonwindow 10y agoDVD drive...
- walrus01 10y agoMedium Tower ATX case. Ouch.
- kchoudhu 10y agoSouth Park s04e02 "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000". You're welcome :)
- geon 10y agoPut them way up inside there, as far as they can fit.
- ge96 10y agoS3 is out man wooo edit: well started anyway
- stephengillie 10y agoThe prison transportation infrastructure vastly subsidizes Arduino Minis for this reason.
- rl3 10y agoI'd say the Pi Zero is a far superior option. Vastly more computing power with only minimal additional pain. Bonus points if you hook it up to a battery and SSH into it during transit. Probably not the best idea to have something inside of you that occasionally catches fire, though. https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/pi-zero/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/pi-zero/
- jorblumesea 10y agoThat's crazy, how was security so lax that a physical connection was enough to access state systems? Surely you'd require some kind of staff login.
- 2arrs2ells 10y ago> When they checked the login being used, they discovered an employee's credentials were being used on days he wasn't scheduled to work.
- kazagistar 10y agoThat's what happens when you don't have layered security. MAC address whitelisting, crytographic hardware tokens, 2fa, etc all would have stopped it dead in its tracks, but someone decided a login screen would be "enough".
- walrus01 10y agoOr even just 802.1x on LAN ports.
- amelius 10y agoYes, but it's easy to find effective countermeasures after the fact.
- kazagistar 10y agoThe point is that if you have multiple layers of countermeasures, then as long as one of them works you are OK. Too often are people willing to just rely on their one defensive layer.
- walrus01 10y agoIf it's a state government running the LAN at the prison they've failed to implement really basic standard LAN security measures like keeping ports down until they're actually in use by a known desktop PC or WAP, 802.1x, etc.
- jameslk 10y ago> The inmates were able to get the parts from a program where inmates break down computers in order to learn computer skills and recycle the parts. It appears the program provided an effective education.
- paulajohnson 10y agoRight. You can learn a lot of Javascript by breaking up old computers. This isn't an "education", its just slave labour.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- narag 10y ago???? Computer skills are not only JavaScript.
- tonyedgecombe 10y agoDid you not read the Electron thread?
- metafunctor 10y agoHmm? Electron? What is that? Are all comment threads on HN now supposed to be correlated? I pick and choose. I read maybe 10% of what's on here.
- tonyedgecombe 10y agoWell it was meant to be humour, I guess it's wasted here.
- metafunctor 10y agoHumour is appreciated. I usually don't upvote humorous posts, unless they are exceedingly funny, because I don't want this site to turn into Reddit. But hey, go ahead and try to turn HN into Reddit if you guys feel that's where it needs to go. I feel we've already seen how useful a Reddit is to the world.
- sspiff 10y agoSo they were able to connect to the prison network, look through the state prison database using these computers and issue security passes to gain access to restricted areas. I think the prison needs to get someone to look at the security of their network and applications.
- lacampbell 10y agoIf Shawshank redemption has taught us anything, the network administrator is probably a soft-spoken aspiring prisoner hired by the corrupt yet outwardly morally upright prison warden to illegally pocket more money.
- iplaw 10y agoI bet the only security measure was that it was a local machine accessing the database, or a machine within a specific IP block allocated to the prison network.
- nebabyte 10y agoI know a few prisoners who could help with that...
- forgottenpass 10y agoThere might be some weak technical measures worth improving, but they may not have been the root cause of this access. >When they checked the login being used, they discovered an employee's credentials were being used on days he wasn't scheduled to work.
- anaganisk 10y agoActually prisons can do more of this, ofcource in an ethical and secured environment with thorough check up of Prisioners. They could become low cost assembly houses, instead of shipping in from China.
- AlexCoventry 10y agoIn the prison where I volunteered, there is no way this could have happened without the cooperation of the guards.
- Lord_DeathMatch 10y agoHah, reminds me of the plot of "The Blue Nowhere", wherein the protagonist builds a computer (and a modem) from discrete components whilst in prison
- sharun 10y agoThe craziest story to me is the building of the Colditz Cock - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colditz_Cock https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colditz_Cock
- source99 10y agoThe article was written tuesday (April 11, 2017) but the computers were discovered in July 2015. Slow news day...
- antman 10y agoThey should be immediately released and then hired. Apparently the prison system needs their skills.
- Cthulhu_ 10y agoI'd go for a life of crime if it meant building a computer could get me out that easily. I mean come on, it's not rocket science to build a computer out of parts, and nobody should be pardoned for that kinda skill without considering why they were put in jail in the first place.
- mason240 10y ago>One inmate, Adam Johnston He killed a man during a robbery. http://odrc.drc.ohio.gov/OffenderSearch/details.aspx?id=A414233&pg=x http://odrc.drc.ohio.gov/OffenderSearch/details.aspx?id=A414...
- nebabyte 10y ago"Does whatever it takes to get the job done" https://xkcd.com/705/ https://xkcd.com/705/
- dopamean 10y agoPeople can have redeeming qualities and still deserve to spend a lot of time in jail. Demonstrating that you could have done more with your life, after you've been convicted for killing someone, shouldn't excuse your crime.
- matthewleehess 10y agoCase in point: http://www.inquisitr.com/1069377/carl-herold-popular-reddit-user-carlh-accused-of-raping-torturing-9-year-old-son/ http://www.inquisitr.com/1069377/carl-herold-popular-reddit-...
- nullc 10y ago"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."? :P
- retox 10y agoInformation (and inmates) wants to be free.
- EvanAnderson 10y agoDid anybody notice the photo of the wiring rack? No wonder the inmates could get away w/ running cables: http://static-26.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/a6609eb6-d7ab-41dc-a578-79c611ae7aee-computersfoundinceiling2.JPG http://static-26.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/a6609...
- bryogenic 10y agoLooks like they need... port security.
- ccvannorman 10y agoTLDR: Inmates, thirsty for knowledge, construct an internet-connected computer in the ceiling! Cool! Aaaand... immediately use it for tax fraud. facepalm
- zellyn 10y agoMaybe it's just because I'm a programmer, but disallowing access to the internet seems cruel and unusual.