7 ms·

Alarm raised on teenage hackers

8 points by razorburn 18y ago

Dilpil 18y ago
Any company that disqualifies you from a job for something you did when you were 13 years old needs to seriously examine its HR processes.
- hugh 18y ago
  OK, I'll be the jerk with the extreme example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger Happy to hire those guys?
  - tptacek 18y ago
    The problem isn't that it's an extreme example, it's that it's an irrelevant example.
    - hugh 18y ago
      It's irrelevant to the real question here, but it's relevant to the assertion that what you did at thirteen (or in this case, eleven) shouldn't be held against you by employers.
- tptacek 18y ago
  I guess that's true, but I don't think you've rebutted the article; companies will certainly disqualify you for things you do when you're 18. The article also isn't making the value judgement you're arguing with. It's just saying, "acquiring a criminal record is a bad move for a kid". Of course they're right.
- alecco 18y ago
  That's nothing. Now joining many large corporations involves an incredible amount of snooping in your life. From drug tests to reading your social network posts. What's considered normal is insane. This includes some young high profile "do-no-evil" corporations.
alecco 18y ago
This article is the typical scare-mongering from fascist mindset. This article lacks a social expert and gets just a shallow analysis by an unqualified person who (to me) clearly has no clue for the reasons why a kid would turn into vandalism or scamming (not necessarily hacking.) Those kids probably feel excluded and most likely have parents who don't dedicate any time to them. Be it by indifference or because of modern times work schedules. TV is the worst possible option for a tutor/nanny.
- tptacek 18y ago
  And I think yours is a knee-jerk immature response to an issue you haven't thought carefully about, all the more irritating because you're closer to the issue than the reporter who wrote this article. Whether or not the reporter is making a value judgement on "hacking" --- and I didn't read one --- it's bringing up a real issue. Idiot teenagers are in fact a few clicks away from a felony conviction, and the Internet does in fact facilitate, encourage, and amplify behavior that is far more likely to get you in legal trouble online than offline. Believing that doesn't mean one needs to support substantive policy changes for how we "regulate the Internet"; it just means we're attentive to a new risk faced by modern stupid teenagers. Exemplars/evidence: * The stupid kid who hacked Palin's Yahoo mail account * The stupid kids who are getting themselves sued by the RIAA * The stupid kids who break into DoD computers for IRC bragging rights I was 17-18 not long ago, and it was nowhere nearly as easy for an 17 year old then to commit theft and fraud as it is today. It does bug me that the Internet is so "unreal" that a careless person could easily fuck things up in the real world by accident on it.
  - alecco 18y ago
    I'm surprised you say that. More significant crime than hacking an email account or "pwning" a government computer is committed everyday by teenagers in at least an order of magnitude more. From drug dealing to happy slapping. And the later even though is related to Internet (filming and uploading the video), it is just an amplification of a very old tradition, bullying. Nothing new. Instead of increasing the sentences and applying broken-window policies (a new form of fascism), the social problem needs first understanding and then defining good policies (from family level to national level.)
markbao 18y ago
... and that's why I'm a t. entrepreneur instead.

8 points by razorburn 18y ago

Any company that disqualifies you from a job for something you did when you were 13 years old needs to seriously examine its HR processes.

hugh 18y ago
OK, I'll be the jerk with the extreme example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger Happy to hire those guys?
- tptacek 18y ago
  The problem isn't that it's an extreme example, it's that it's an irrelevant example.
  - hugh 18y ago
    It's irrelevant to the real question here, but it's relevant to the assertion that what you did at thirteen (or in this case, eleven) shouldn't be held against you by employers.
tptacek 18y ago
I guess that's true, but I don't think you've rebutted the article; companies will certainly disqualify you for things you do when you're 18. The article also isn't making the value judgement you're arguing with. It's just saying, "acquiring a criminal record is a bad move for a kid". Of course they're right.
alecco 18y ago
That's nothing. Now joining many large corporations involves an incredible amount of snooping in your life. From drug tests to reading your social network posts. What's considered normal is insane. This includes some young high profile "do-no-evil" corporations.

alecco 18y ago

This article is the typical scare-mongering from fascist mindset. This article lacks a social expert and gets just a shallow analysis by an unqualified person who (to me) clearly has no clue for the reasons why a kid would turn into vandalism or scamming (not necessarily hacking.) Those kids probably feel excluded and most likely have parents who don't dedicate any time to them. Be it by indifference or because of modern times work schedules. TV is the worst possible option for a tutor/nanny.

tptacek 18y ago
And I think yours is a knee-jerk immature response to an issue you haven't thought carefully about, all the more irritating because you're closer to the issue than the reporter who wrote this article. Whether or not the reporter is making a value judgement on "hacking" --- and I didn't read one --- it's bringing up a real issue. Idiot teenagers are in fact a few clicks away from a felony conviction, and the Internet does in fact facilitate, encourage, and amplify behavior that is far more likely to get you in legal trouble online than offline. Believing that doesn't mean one needs to support substantive policy changes for how we "regulate the Internet"; it just means we're attentive to a new risk faced by modern stupid teenagers. Exemplars/evidence: * The stupid kid who hacked Palin's Yahoo mail account * The stupid kids who are getting themselves sued by the RIAA * The stupid kids who break into DoD computers for IRC bragging rights I was 17-18 not long ago, and it was nowhere nearly as easy for an 17 year old then to commit theft and fraud as it is today. It does bug me that the Internet is so "unreal" that a careless person could easily fuck things up in the real world by accident on it.
- alecco 18y ago
  I'm surprised you say that. More significant crime than hacking an email account or "pwning" a government computer is committed everyday by teenagers in at least an order of magnitude more. From drug dealing to happy slapping. And the later even though is related to Internet (filming and uploading the video), it is just an amplification of a very old tradition, bullying. Nothing new. Instead of increasing the sentences and applying broken-window policies (a new form of fascism), the social problem needs first understanding and then defining good policies (from family level to national level.)

markbao 18y ago

... and that's why I'm a t. entrepreneur instead.