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Keep in mind that Hutchins had no idea what registering the domain would do at the time of registration. It was pure dumb luck that it turned out for the best,

Keep in mind that Hutchins had no idea what registering the domain would do at the time of registration. It was pure dumb luck that it turned out for the best, it could very well have been a disaster. In fact he even admits that he went through a panic phase after domain registration where he thought he'd triggered the malware [1]. Which makes all the "He's a hero" articles bogus if not amusing to say the least. "After about 5 minutes the employee came back with the news that the registration of the domain had triggered the ransomware meaning we’d encrypted everyone’s files (don’t worry, this was later proven to not be the case), but it still caused quite a bit of panic." This nytimes article is just terrible. Absolutely terrible. Sarah Jeong should be ashamed. After this and the way she treated Naomi Wu [2], I don't think I'm going to be giving her any journalistic credence. [1] https://www.malwaretech.com/2017/05/how-to-accidentally-stop-a-global-cyber-attacks.html https://www.malwaretech.com/2017/05/how-to-accidentally-stop... [2] https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5 https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-nao...

WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
> registering the domain What if the malware had bound to www.google.com or www.fbi.gov? Would we hold these companies accountable for registering a domain?
cjbprime 8y ago
> Hutchins had no idea what registering the domain would do This doesn't seem like a good faith reading of the situation. The blog post you link to as a source for this claim describes how he was doing something he'd done thousands of times before in the service of tracking and disabling botnets, and that he considered it to be his job. But you make it sound like he was a total amateur who saw a domain name string and registered it on a whim with no intuition as to whether it would be more likely to do something helpful or harmful. It sounds like he did in fact know a lot about what he was doing, such that he could make sensible inferences under uncertainty in the middle of a time-sensitive crisis. That's the best we ever get to expect from someone.
- armitron 8y ago
  That's exactly what he did, registered the domain on a whim with no actual facts to back his decision. I think that much is obvious. My reading of the situation is also based on additional data that's public if you care to look. His skill level and intuition can be extrapolated if you watch a few of his youtube videos. Or if you happened to talk with him on IRC. You'd realize he's little more than a script kiddie. Hutchins is not what he has been portrayed as by the media.
  - cjbprime 8y ago
    It seems weird to simultaneously argue that he shouldn't get a pardon because he's a dangerous hacker, and also that when he was being a dangerous hacker he was just a skill-less script kiddie kid.
    - armitron 8y ago
      There are lot of script kiddies in the malware-for-profit business, it doesn't take a lot of skill really. He's not at the bottom of the barrel but he's definitely not very far from it.
rasz 8y ago
>"After about 5 minutes the employee came back with the news that the registration of the domain had triggered the ransomware meaning we’d encrypted everyone’s files (don’t worry, this was later proven to not be the case), but it still caused quite a bit of panic." this is insane, why not try localhost/local dns server first?

WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago

> registering the domain What if the malware had bound to www.google.com or www.fbi.gov? Would we hold these companies accountable for registering a domain?

cjbprime 8y ago

> Hutchins had no idea what registering the domain would do This doesn't seem like a good faith reading of the situation. The blog post you link to as a source for this claim describes how he was doing something he'd done thousands of times before in the service of tracking and disabling botnets, and that he considered it to be his job. But you make it sound like he was a total amateur who saw a domain name string and registered it on a whim with no intuition as to whether it would be more likely to do something helpful or harmful. It sounds like he did in fact know a lot about what he was doing, such that he could make sensible inferences under uncertainty in the middle of a time-sensitive crisis. That's the best we ever get to expect from someone.

armitron 8y ago
That's exactly what he did, registered the domain on a whim with no actual facts to back his decision. I think that much is obvious. My reading of the situation is also based on additional data that's public if you care to look. His skill level and intuition can be extrapolated if you watch a few of his youtube videos. Or if you happened to talk with him on IRC. You'd realize he's little more than a script kiddie. Hutchins is not what he has been portrayed as by the media.
- cjbprime 8y ago
  It seems weird to simultaneously argue that he shouldn't get a pardon because he's a dangerous hacker, and also that when he was being a dangerous hacker he was just a skill-less script kiddie kid.
  - armitron 8y ago
    There are lot of script kiddies in the malware-for-profit business, it doesn't take a lot of skill really. He's not at the bottom of the barrel but he's definitely not very far from it.

rasz 8y ago

>"After about 5 minutes the employee came back with the news that the registration of the domain had triggered the ransomware meaning we’d encrypted everyone’s files (don’t worry, this was later proven to not be the case), but it still caused quite a bit of panic." this is insane, why not try localhost/local dns server first?