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Adrian Lamo has died
- T3RMINATED 9y agoHe was assassinated by Government officials because he knew too much. Sad =(
- amyjess 9y agoWow. I remember, long before he became famous (I think he went by ill at the time), discovering his Inside-AOL site that delved into the workings of AOL. It was really fascinating to me to find out how so much of it worked (that was the first place I heard of Rainman). I've always loved reading about how complex systems work, and that site was like crack to me. I know that most people here will probably remember him mostly for what happened between him and Chelsea Manning (and, quite frankly, I automatically like anyone who makes an enemy of Julian Assange), but I want to remember him for his early work more than anything.
- andrewmcwatters 9y agoThat takes me back, I haven't heard anyone mention Rainman in over a decade...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- loggedinmyphone 9y agoHe was Magus on aol https://mattmazur.com/2010/06/26/adrian-lamo-aol-files-profile/ https://mattmazur.com/2010/06/26/adrian-lamo-aol-files-profi...
- patorjk 9y agoThat page isn't loading for me, but he was not the Magus behind the famous Fate X AOL prog. I actually talked to that Magus and several of his friends a few years ago [1]. I'd heard Lamo claimed to be Magus, and maybe he went by that handle in some cases, but he was not the author of Fate X. [1] http://patorjk.com/blog/2012/05/03/cracking-magus-fate-zero-encryption/ http://patorjk.com/blog/2012/05/03/cracking-magus-fate-zero-...
- loggedinmyphone 9y agoHe also went by Line Trace. AMP link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/mattmazur.com/2010/06/26/adrian-lamo-aol-files-profile/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/mattmazur.com/2010/06/26/adrian...
- bob_theslob646 9y agoFor those who do not recognize his name as I did not: > Lamo first gained media attention for breaking into several high-profile computer networks, including those of The New York Times, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, culminating in his 2003 arrest.[7] > In 2010, Lamo indirectly reported U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning to the Army's Criminal Investigation Command,[8] claiming that Manning had leaked hundreds of thousands of sensitive U.S. government documents to WikiLeaks. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Lamo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Lamo]
- incompatible 9y agoI first heard of him from the initial version of his Wikipedia entry, and I wondered if he had written it himself (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adrian_Lamo&oldid=237418 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adrian_Lamo&oldid...) Wikipedia was different in those days. A few hours after it was posted, Larry Sanger himself added a comment to the end saying "Um, can we clean up the above puff job, please?"
- kragen 9y agoI'm conflicted about this news. On one hand, he was one of us, and he shared his knowledge. On the other hand, he was a traitor, and he betrayed the trust of a true hero in order to put more unaccountable government power in the hands of people like Donald Trump. Who would have expected that Adrian Lamo would outlive Chelsea Manning? Did he commit suicide — as she nearly did?
- adamnemecek 9y agoWas it ever found out why he did it? I don't know the guy but it just seems like idk, what is there to gain out of this?
- powerkiddie 9y agoCheck out Alex Gibney's We Steal Secrets. Lamo is featured quite a bit, in pretty intimate interviews.
- dec0dedab0de 9y agoHe had claimed CYA, because he assumed he was being watched. If I recall there were a few conspiracy theories at the time because He had recently been arrested, and then put on psychiatric medication as a result.
- daxorid 9y agoI'm guessing the same reason Sabu turned rat fink snitch.
- VectorLock 9y agoHe was alarmed that the indiscriminate leaking could provide dangerous to people's lives (which by some accounts, it was)
- danso 9y agoHere's an article about a public defense he gave back in 2010: https://gizmodo.com/5591905/wikileaks-critic-adrian-lamo-defends-manning-decision https://gizmodo.com/5591905/wikileaks-critic-adrian-lamo-def... > He told the audience that he, like Manning and WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, had acted out of conscience. Lamo believed the cables were dangerous. "Holy fracken crap, there's 260,000 documents," he said, "Do you think you could look through those and make sure they wouldn't cause anybody's life to be lost?"
- cypherg 9y agoThis guy was seriously mentally troubled, and that's too bad. Chelsea Manning (Bradley/Bradass at the time) confieded in Adrian, Adrian snitched, and the rest is history. He did what he thought was right, but the consequences were absolutely disastrous. Kids, don't be a snitch.
- andrepd 9y ago>Kids, don't be a snitch. Simplistic. Kids, please be a snitch sometimes, like Manning.
- jakear 9y agoBut when you're being a snitch, don't snitch out the people that were snitches for you. Manning released the identities of Afghan nationals who helped the counterinsurgency, leading to their deaths at the hands of the Taliban.
- notthemessiah 9y ago[citation needed]
- jakear 9y agohttp://www.newsweek.com/taliban-says-it-will-target-names-exposed-wikileaks-74257 http://www.newsweek.com/taliban-says-it-will-target-names-ex...
- tzs 9y agoI don't think it is possible to specifically name anyone who actually died because of the leaks. It's similar to lung cancer deaths caused by smoking cigarettes. No one has ever been able to specifically name someone who died from lung cancer caused by smoking. In every single case, it is possible that the named person is one of the many people each year who die from lung cancers caused by things such radon exposure, asbestos, an unlucky mutation, or air pollution. We do know that when the Taliban would find out that someone was aiding those who opposed the Taliban, they would go after that person (and often their family, too). So we know that the leaks would have made some people targets who would not have otherwise been targets at the time. The best we can do is, as with lung cancer, is think about it statistically. Compare the people exposed in the leaks to similarly situated people who were not mentioned, and see if the former had a statistically significant higher death rate from Taliban attacks for themselves or their families. I don't know if the data is available to carry out that analysis.
- aliasnexus0 9y agoDefinitely check out the documentary Hackers Wanted [1], which follows Adrian. I found it interesting how he was able to break into some of the "high-profile computer networks". [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2292707/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2292707/
- VonGuard 9y agoSo, I'm gonna lay it out here as I am having a bad day and don't feel like censoring myself. I'd known Adrian since 1998. He came to 2600 meetings in SF and was a fixture there. In that time, he generally didn't make any friends. While he was gay, he was also stalking a lady at the meetings, and being super creepy about it. Eventually, he left SF and was homeless. He got in trouble for hacking the NYT and making himself some Lexis Nexis accounts. He then reported Chelsea Manning to the authorities when she reached out to him, connected because of their shared LGBTQ background. Lamo screwed Manning big time, but when he did, none of us who knew him were surprised. He was never a happy person, and never friendly to anyone I knew. I think his folks threw him out of the house in his teens. Kind of a tragic figure, but also not really someone you could ever trust or even invite to parties. When anyone dies, it's sad. But with Adrian, he had already basically removed himself from the groups who knew him long ago. He was just seemingly not comfortable being in society and making friends.
- lainga 9y agoThanks for opening up. How much weight do you put in the theories (stated in other comments) that Adrian thought he was under FBI surveillance, and reported Manning's leaks out of fear?
- VonGuard 9y agoHonestly, I can't comment on that. I know Adrian was a SERIOUSLY good social engineer, and a fair to middling hacker. The chat logs show Adrian going very in depth with Chelsea, so if he thought the FBI was watching, he was purposefully giving them a good show.
- CydeWeys 9y agoI only had a couple run-ins with him online, but this doesn't surprise me at all. I've been an administrator on the English Wikipedia for over a decade now, and used to have a bit of a high profile on there. He would privately contact me occasionally trying to get me to make questionable edits to Wikipedia on his behalf. He came off as smarmy, manipulative, and his messages would occasionally veer into oddly sexual, inappropriate territory. I was sort of in awe of his "hacker" status at the time, which was why I put up with it for as long as I did, though I did eventually stop responding to him. This was well before the Manning stuff.
- alafazam 9y agoI have read almost all his answers on quora. And from all that, one thing is there which i know for sure, that he was a good man. Rip.
- FFShhn 9y agodude was renowned for being a snitch, let him die with the dishonour he deserved.
- phusion 9y agohere's a documentary featuring Adrian prominently. This is the best you'll see Adrian, because some time after this film he went on (or off?) his meds, betrayed Chelsea Manning and various other things shitty humans do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYN6JuQGGX0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYN6JuQGGX0 Hackers Wanted.
- fjsolwmv 9y agoTaking medicine and not taking medicine are both things shitty humans do, as is refusing to join a criminal conspiracy?
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoAs an aside: didn't Lamo report Bradley Manning, it's surely rewriting history to report otherwise? I didn't recognise the name at first because of this change.
- tzs 9y agoWhen writing about past well-known events, it is probably best to give both the names people went by at the time and their current names. You need the past names because those will be the names on documents from the time of the event.
- phusion 9y agoChelsea is Bradley, she's trans.
- CiPHPerCoder 9y agoUsing a person's name from before they come out as transgender is called deadnaming and is a tactic favored among abusive people. The polite thing to do, regardless of personal politics, is to simply reassociate the person with the name Chelsea Manning and move on with your life.
- ataturk 9y agoOh what the fuck ever. People can ask to be called whatever they want. That doesn't mean anyone has to abide by that request.
- throwaway9063 9y ago"Hi, I know this is a thread about someone's passing, and I'm gonna let you finish, but unless you adopt my preferred method of reasoning on this tangential, hot-button topic that I haven't even given you a chance to properly discuss, you're an abusive person. The polite thing to do is to think and talk the way I'm telling you to and move on with your life, because otherwise, you're a monster."
- groby_b 9y ago
- eganist 9y agoThere's merit to discussing whether his actions were beneficial or not. But for the love of god, if you've got a problem with him as a person, pocket it unless you know discussion of the specific problem you had with him will with certainty serve the public good. You've got every right to say what you want, but think it through. I didn't know him, but I've known plenty of others with questionable reputations who've died as a result of mental duress. Before you comment, I'll ask as a bystander for you to think about whether everyone benefits from knowing what you wish to share. Otherwise, you'll just out yourself as an asshole. Rest in peace, Adrian. Regardless of what you did, beneficial or otherwise, no one deserves the mind-shackles you had to live with.
- aaron695 9y agoYou might have been correct, except you end with - > Rest in peace, Adrian. Regardless of what you did, beneficial or otherwise, no one deserves the mind-shackles you had to live with. This is the problem. If they were a true friend you should NOT be going to HN to talk about it, it should be amongst friends in person or not quite as good, but for some personally online is is their best... true friends know about these issue. If not a true friend you are playing in current societies toxic environment of - I must prove I'm part of sadness / relying on a unhealthy construct for my personal health. You are just virtue signalling. For some... online communities are the best they have... but this is like giving the homeless a box. Don't piss on it but don't think this is appropriate.
- VectorLock 9y agoInexplicably this post just disappeared off the very top of HN... Edit: appearing now as flagged.
- dang 9y agoUsers explicably flagged it.
- VectorLock 9y agoWasn't showing up as flagged when it disappeared. It is now, though.
- dang 9y agoFlags affect story ranking before the [flagged] tag appears. The tag appears when the effect of the flags exceeds a certain threshold. Since "flagged" isn't a binary state that's the only easy way to do it, but it does mean that a story's rank is sometimes affected by user flags without that being visually displayed yet. Usually it shows up after a while.
- VectorLock 9y agoGood to know.
- tptacek 9y agoReminder: Lamo is a public figure but also a real person with real relationships with people who will read this thread. You are all commenting on a Facebook thread written by Lamo's dad about the death of his son.
- _wmd 9y agoThoroughly agreed. Would love to see the mods taking a much more active role in this thread
- dang 9y agoUsers have flagged the submission and some of the less humane comments in the thread. That's probably the right outcome, given that there's no way to stop the discussion from being about the events of 8 years ago, but probably no good discussion about them to be had in this context.
- _wmd 9y agoI had some of my comments pruned not so long ago (not by you AFAIK) for daring offend the religion of Lisp, it seems a no brainer that half the comments in this thread should be flushed down the toilet with far greater vigour, just as my Lisp comments were. One would hope editorial policy places higher priority on human life than it does Lisp Meanwhile thanks for popping up. I've applied my flags :)
- moyix 9y agoPerhaps the link could be changed to a news article rather than the Facebook page? For example: http://www.zdnet.com/article/adrian-lamo-hacker-dies/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/adrian-lamo-hacker-dies/
- dang 9y agoThat's a good idea. Thanks for pointing it out. Url changed from https://www.facebook.com/groups/majordomo/permalink/10156204603994522/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/majordomo/permalink/10156204.... Edit: We'll try turning off the flags and seeing if the discussion can do better.
- whichwalrus 9y agoSorry, this story isn't very interesting, but it really stuck with me nonetheless, and I wanted to share. Adrian had a passing romance with a friend of mine, and thus ended up traveling through the city I grew up in. This was long before Chelsea Manning, etc. I was a super shy, rather awkward teenage girl. I suppose the teenage part has changed.. but I digress. I loved the idea of mischief, but at the same time, I was a habitual rule-follower. I get nervous walking through the retail store detectors placed at entrances.. even though I've never stolen anything in my life. I remember listening to social engineering phone pranks -- the sort where people would talk their way into being put on the store-wide intercom at Walmart. At the time, I think I really wanted to be so confident that I could do such a thing, versus the reality, which was mild anxiety over something so simple as placing a legit pizza order over the phone. I knew who Adrian was in a peripheral sense. I was a community leader and eventual employee on AOL in years prior, and I had an interest in how to break things as an inverse of being curious how they're built. I had a car, while my friend did not, and Adrian had traveled via transit, so I spent the day with them hopping around town. At one point, we were downtown grabbing food in one of the larger complexes -- Adrian breaks off for a second and asks a retail store employee a bunch of questions about working there, saying he was just hired at the cafe. We then ended up going into what was clearly an employee-only area -- GUYS WE AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE WHAT IF WE GET IN TROUBLE OH GOD -- we duck into a fire escape, hike up to the upper level where he picks the lock to the door with roof access, and there we are, highest point in the city. After a few minutes of me suggesting that MAYBE we go back down since this was cool BUT REALLY WE SHOULD GO, Adrian told me I'd miss the sunset if I kept worrying. It was dumb. I'm sure I could've been arrested. But watching the sunset with the two of them from the top of that building remains one of my favorite memories. It was the first time I'd taken a step out of my shell, I suppose. Adrian was a troubled guy, and I don't forgive what he did to Manning, but I appreciated him for that moment in time.
- VectorLock 9y agoThis is a good description of the kind of hacker Adrian was. He wasn't a write finely crafted shell code to exploit a buffer overflow in an application or deep knowledge of the esoterica of how CPUs function Spectre Meltdown kind of hacker. He'd just try the knob on a door he wasn't supposed to go through and surprise it was open.
- free2beme66 9y agoI know that there has been controversy dealing with Adrian Lamo for a long, long time, however; my sister was married to him for a short time and I know he had many mental health issues and demons that he's been dealing with his entire life. I know she loved him very much at one point and time and she is sad today because she knows how hard his life was dealing with his issues. I feel terrible for his parents, family, and friends. This is not the time to talk badly about him.
- havetocharge 9y agoWell said. Many don't have any class or manners. De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
- watersb 9y agoThanks for this insight, and blessings to your sister.
- dang 9y agoAt a user's suggestion, we changed the URL from https://www.facebook.com/groups/majordomo/permalink/10156204603994522/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/majordomo/permalink/10156204... to avoid the painful contrast between an internet forum controversy and a father's grief over the death of his son. I've turned off flags on this story because if we don't, the story will be reposted until we do. In return, here's a request: if you comment here, try to bring your heart with you a bit more than you usually would. If we don't do that, a sort of tragedy of the commons kicks in where we each add a piece that's defensible in itself, but the picture of us that the pieces add up to is ugly.
- Kip9000 9y agolama of winamp?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ryanlol 9y agoLamo was an asshole who ruined many lives and accomplished little else.
- engi_nerd 9y agoI hope that he found peace, somehow.
- burner5692 9y agoThis thread is evidence that death absolves any crime. Lamo was a terrible person and the world is better without him.
- burner5692 9y agoLamo ruined another person's life for no reason. Consider that before you offer sympathies.
- coldtea 9y agoIf we only offered sympathies to those who deserved them somehow, it would be a very sad world.
- burner5692 9y agoSociety doesn't get better by venerating assholes.
- dang 9y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16602351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16602351 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bby 9y agoadriana lima.
- jasmemphis 9y agoRest In Peace: you lived your life the way you believed it mattered ~ and you had to wade through difficulties with an illnesses. I admire your ability and your talent . Rest easy .
- laurilove 9y agofuck him. sic semper proditores. i feel bad for anyone who'll miss him. i won't.
- azinman2 9y agoThis is somewhat a shock to me, and I’m curious to know what happened. Adrian and I became friends when we were both about 12. We met at 2600 meetings in the embarcadero in SF. We soon were buddies, going “trashing” downtown finding all kinds of crazy things corporate SF left out for trash: working DAT backup drives, 17” view sonics (prized at the time), blueprints for a bank (!), entire trash bags full of credit card receipts with nothing redacted, etc. He was always a mysterious one, and beat to his own drum. I admired his spirit, and our paths crossed many times including when we both volunteered at the same queer youth center in SF. Years later he stayed with me in grad school in Cambridge looking not the healthiest. I tried to provide food and shelter, not able to figure out why a guy so talented refused to do anything conventional that would make him good money. But he didn’t care about such things. He had his own sense of right and wrong, and was principaled within his own philosophy — but I never fully understood what philosophy that was. When I recently was chatting with him, I asked why did was doing something currently to which he said “why do I ever do anything?” I’ll deeply miss Adrian.. he was a kind and unique spirit. Some may disagree with me on that only because they only know him through Manning, but that was a small sliver of his life (and one I happen to agree with him on, with additional perspectives I can’t share publicly).
- kevinelliott 9y agoI too use to go to the 2600 meets at the Embarcadero in SF and go trashing.
- VectorLock 9y agoThanks for sharing your connection with Adrian. It was nice hearing some positive memories about him. I know he did what he did with Manning with much consternation but out of a moral necessity. It really did weigh on him. I met Adrian in about 98 in SF and shared many of the same kinds of adventures with him. He shared a lot of his physical and electronic intrusions with me and he never did any harm or anything malicious. It was all simple exploration in the best hacker ethos. He'd usually inform the 'victim' taking nothing for his services except a Coke while he told them his story. I'm also curious what happened, morbidly. I haven't heard from him at all in a few years. An unfortunate addition to the list of young, talented but troubled hackers I've known who've left us too soon. :(
- Grue3 9y agoSad. He did the right thing reporting Manning and I'd do the same thing if I was him.
- dfsegoat 9y agoAdrian and I met back in '97. He always struck me as ahead of his time, and was someone who opened my eyes to what "information security" actually was: The man's natural ability to find his way into places he shouldn't be - physical or electronic, was simply uncanny and I have never before spoken with or known of anyone like him.
- dmix 9y agoThe directors cut of his documentary voiced by Kevin Spacey, and featuring Woz and Kevin Rose is available on public Bittorrent sites: https://thepiratebay.org/search/Hackers%20Wanted https://thepiratebay.org/search/Hackers%20Wanted https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hackers_Wanted https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hackers_Wanted
- originalsimba 9y agoI'm betting murder.
- Gereema 9y agoRip a true hero. Anyone who stands up to Russian puppets like manning and assange is a hero in my book. Period.