4 ms·

Life in prison for non-violent crime clearly sounds like revenge and sour grapes. The big guys clearly don't appreciate having their insecurity being exposed th

Life in prison for non-violent crime clearly sounds like revenge and sour grapes. The big guys clearly don't appreciate having their insecurity being exposed this way (keep in mind none of these hacks required any significant technical skills), and too many people would lose face. Something had to be done, so here it is. The disparity of this punishment compared to what is usually given out for similar crimes (in the vast majority nothing as it doesn't even get investigated) suggests there is definitely some "saving face" motivation behind this sentence.

m3kw9 3y ago
Conditional life sentence, he can be freed if docs clear him
- lemmetaste 3y ago
  [dead]
qeternity 3y ago
It’s not life in prison. He’s being confined to a mental institution due to severe autism. It’s unlikely that he can be rehabilitated and would remain a cyber security threat to society if released in the future. This is hardly revenge.
- lemmetaste 3y ago
  [dead]
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  This guy is as much of a "cyber security threat" as your typical socially-awkward gamer teenager, of which we have plenty of. Every internet-connected server out there constantly gets probed by bots/tools often operated by similar people and nothing is ever done about it. This guy's crime wasn't that he was hacking/phishing/stalking or the general obnoxious behavior that often comes with this kind of person - this is effectively decriminalized in the UK anyway, as long as the victim isn't a big, culturally-relevant company. Financially-motivated scammers and crime rings take advantage of this. This guy's crime is that he embarrassed the establishment, so he has to be painted a much scarier monster than he really is and made an example of, since the truth that most technically-inclined, socially-awkward teenagers would be equally capable of such hacking would be hard to accept and put into question the competence of the affected companies.
  - CaptainOfCoit 3y ago
    > This guy is as much of a "cyber security threat" as your typical socially-awkward gamer teenager, of which we have plenty of The following quote seems to indicate that the skills of this individual is much sharper than "typical socially-awkward gamer teenager": > Kurtaj managed to breach Rockstar, the company behind GTA, using an Amazon Firestick, his hotel TV and a mobile phone
    - Nextgrid 3y ago
      It doesn't take any skill to install a chrooted Linux environment or RDP/SSH client on a Fire Stick or Android phone, and said skill is orthogonal to hacking skills that could be deemed dangerous to society at large. The fact that this is explicitly brought up smells like they're trying to make this guy sound much more dangerous & evil than he really is. After all, had he discovered/used zero-days or developed exploits, that would be a real talking point, but if the only thing they've got is "he managed to get a shell on an android device" this smells of clutching at straws.
    - sensanaty 3y ago
      All that means is that he used his phone and another android device (the fire stick) + the TV as a monitor, to access whatever remote machine he has via SSH, not exactly rocket science And that's the point, the propaganda machine is working overtime to paint the kid as some horrifically dangerous criminal because he exposed the clowns in power that easily could've pdevented all this.
  - macNchz 3y ago
    I don't see how the grand-scale theft and extortion run by Lapsus$ is remotely comparable to the behavior of a "typical socially awkward gamer teenager", even a particularly unethical one.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  It's not just unlikely. It's unexpected. To me, that presents an issue with the system, not its participants.
neilkk 3y ago
I don't think this is fair. Another underage person found guilty of the same hacks got an 18-month rehabilitation order. This basically means severe restrictions on going out and computer use together with involvement and monitoring by social workers. This seems perfectly appropriate. They're not having decades of their life taken away from them, and they're not locked up with hardened criminals who would either victimise them or teach them to be much worse. The indefinite order is because the kid committed multiple assaults and other violent acts while under observation in a mental hospital. Doctors don't believe he can be released in the foreseeable future. If you were arrested for unpaid parking tickets and then demonstrated threatening, violent and out-of-control behaviour while in police custody, then in a secure unit, you might get a similar indefinite order.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  In what world do you live in where getting too many parking tickets and causing violence gets you life in prison until an unknown paid state employee decides you took all non-necessary meds and drank the kool-aid? If someone was killed they would get out a certain date. The judge should have to suffer the same fate before he can order this.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    If someone openly and repeatedly said they plan to kill more as soon as they are released, they would be in a similar situation. It is pretty rare that the convinced don't at least lie about intentions to commit more crime
  - neilkk 3y ago
    > If someone was killed they would get out a certain date. No, there are lots of people (in the United States) doing life without the possibility of parole. There are many people who will never be released from solitary confinement. Some of these people were incarcerated for fairly trivial crimes and all subsequent punishment was for acts committed while in prison. What do you think happens to people who repeatedly cause injury to corrections officers, attempt to sexually assault them or infect them with HIV, etc? They are eventually put in solitary for life. Some people will never be released from prison because of single acts which they have never repeated, but also are not willing to ever show (real or simulated) remorse for. The system for people with severe mental health problems who commit repeated acts of violence works differently but is similar in its effects. Some of those people never get out, and they knew with decades of life left that they would never get out. In the UK, there are many quite high bars before a criminal convict can be incarcerated forever without chance of release. But it's much easier to block release forever from someone who is insane and considered dangerous. The system for sex offenders works in a very similar way in some places. Some sex offenders, not the worst offenders, can be in a situation where they will never be allowed out, or being allowed out is so unlikely that it will never be worth it to them to spend years complying in order to attempt to be released. Most jurisdictions have some method by which a person who a) did something to get them within the system, b) committed repeated assaults or threats while within the system and c) did not show that they had radically changed their attitude, will never get out. The details vary but they always exist. My suspicion is that in most places, people in this situation vary from almost harmless: suffered bad luck and a lack of comprehension from decision makers to extremely dangerous: very hard to imagine how they could ever not be an extreme threat to innocent people outside of incarceration.
dharmab 3y ago
Did you read the article? > The court heard that Kurtaj had been violent while in custody with dozens of reports of injury or property damage.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  How much would that get someone on the street committing the same crimes? Maybe probation or a couple years of jail at most? That's what I'm comparing it to. If we were routinely jailing people that had trouble controlling their emotions and had propensity for violent outbursts we'd have a lot more people in jail, so I don't believe this alleged violence was really what got him this sentence. Similarly, how much would someone get for scamming/hacking/social engineering a small company or individual? Well that one is easy to answer: nothing - this behavior has effectively been decriminalized in the UK. So neither his crimes add up to such a sentence.
- throwaway743 3y ago
  How they define "violent", "injury", and "property damage" is very much important though. It could be as light as knocking a mug off a desk and breaking it or them accidentally tripping someone and causing them to get a minor bruise, or it could be to the extreme of assaulting someone or arson. Curious to know what their definitions and their examples of this behavior are regarding this person.
hackerlight 3y ago
I don't see violent crimes as necessarily the worst. Crimes that steal from large numbers of people are arguably worse than many types of violent crime due to the sheer magnitude of lives that got destroyed. If you destroy 10,000 regular lives through fraud you deserve the worst punishment in line with murderers. Although this guy's long sentence isn't only because of what he stole from Rockstar, my commentary is not only about him, it's more of a broader point.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Murdering 10 is okay compared to shutting down a video game company for a few hours?
  - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    Straw man argument; the person you replied to did not say this.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    Definitely not. But I would say scamming thousands of poor people out of their life savings (e.g. FTX) is worse than violently assaulting someone. Violence isn't a necessary condition for a crime to be among the most damaging to victims.

m3kw9 3y ago

Conditional life sentence, he can be freed if docs clear him

lemmetaste 3y ago
[dead]

qeternity 3y ago

It’s not life in prison. He’s being confined to a mental institution due to severe autism. It’s unlikely that he can be rehabilitated and would remain a cyber security threat to society if released in the future. This is hardly revenge.

lemmetaste 3y ago
[dead]
Nextgrid 3y ago
This guy is as much of a "cyber security threat" as your typical socially-awkward gamer teenager, of which we have plenty of. Every internet-connected server out there constantly gets probed by bots/tools often operated by similar people and nothing is ever done about it. This guy's crime wasn't that he was hacking/phishing/stalking or the general obnoxious behavior that often comes with this kind of person - this is effectively decriminalized in the UK anyway, as long as the victim isn't a big, culturally-relevant company. Financially-motivated scammers and crime rings take advantage of this. This guy's crime is that he embarrassed the establishment, so he has to be painted a much scarier monster than he really is and made an example of, since the truth that most technically-inclined, socially-awkward teenagers would be equally capable of such hacking would be hard to accept and put into question the competence of the affected companies.
- CaptainOfCoit 3y ago
  > This guy is as much of a "cyber security threat" as your typical socially-awkward gamer teenager, of which we have plenty of The following quote seems to indicate that the skills of this individual is much sharper than "typical socially-awkward gamer teenager": > Kurtaj managed to breach Rockstar, the company behind GTA, using an Amazon Firestick, his hotel TV and a mobile phone
  - Nextgrid 3y ago
    It doesn't take any skill to install a chrooted Linux environment or RDP/SSH client on a Fire Stick or Android phone, and said skill is orthogonal to hacking skills that could be deemed dangerous to society at large. The fact that this is explicitly brought up smells like they're trying to make this guy sound much more dangerous & evil than he really is. After all, had he discovered/used zero-days or developed exploits, that would be a real talking point, but if the only thing they've got is "he managed to get a shell on an android device" this smells of clutching at straws.
  - sensanaty 3y ago
    All that means is that he used his phone and another android device (the fire stick) + the TV as a monitor, to access whatever remote machine he has via SSH, not exactly rocket science And that's the point, the propaganda machine is working overtime to paint the kid as some horrifically dangerous criminal because he exposed the clowns in power that easily could've pdevented all this.
- macNchz 3y ago
  I don't see how the grand-scale theft and extortion run by Lapsus$ is remotely comparable to the behavior of a "typical socially awkward gamer teenager", even a particularly unethical one.
thomastjeffery 3y ago
It's not just unlikely. It's unexpected. To me, that presents an issue with the system, not its participants.

neilkk 3y ago

I don't think this is fair. Another underage person found guilty of the same hacks got an 18-month rehabilitation order. This basically means severe restrictions on going out and computer use together with involvement and monitoring by social workers. This seems perfectly appropriate. They're not having decades of their life taken away from them, and they're not locked up with hardened criminals who would either victimise them or teach them to be much worse. The indefinite order is because the kid committed multiple assaults and other violent acts while under observation in a mental hospital. Doctors don't believe he can be released in the foreseeable future. If you were arrested for unpaid parking tickets and then demonstrated threatening, violent and out-of-control behaviour while in police custody, then in a secure unit, you might get a similar indefinite order.

ipaddr 3y ago
In what world do you live in where getting too many parking tickets and causing violence gets you life in prison until an unknown paid state employee decides you took all non-necessary meds and drank the kool-aid? If someone was killed they would get out a certain date. The judge should have to suffer the same fate before he can order this.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  If someone openly and repeatedly said they plan to kill more as soon as they are released, they would be in a similar situation. It is pretty rare that the convinced don't at least lie about intentions to commit more crime
- neilkk 3y ago
  > If someone was killed they would get out a certain date. No, there are lots of people (in the United States) doing life without the possibility of parole. There are many people who will never be released from solitary confinement. Some of these people were incarcerated for fairly trivial crimes and all subsequent punishment was for acts committed while in prison. What do you think happens to people who repeatedly cause injury to corrections officers, attempt to sexually assault them or infect them with HIV, etc? They are eventually put in solitary for life. Some people will never be released from prison because of single acts which they have never repeated, but also are not willing to ever show (real or simulated) remorse for. The system for people with severe mental health problems who commit repeated acts of violence works differently but is similar in its effects. Some of those people never get out, and they knew with decades of life left that they would never get out. In the UK, there are many quite high bars before a criminal convict can be incarcerated forever without chance of release. But it's much easier to block release forever from someone who is insane and considered dangerous. The system for sex offenders works in a very similar way in some places. Some sex offenders, not the worst offenders, can be in a situation where they will never be allowed out, or being allowed out is so unlikely that it will never be worth it to them to spend years complying in order to attempt to be released. Most jurisdictions have some method by which a person who a) did something to get them within the system, b) committed repeated assaults or threats while within the system and c) did not show that they had radically changed their attitude, will never get out. The details vary but they always exist. My suspicion is that in most places, people in this situation vary from almost harmless: suffered bad luck and a lack of comprehension from decision makers to extremely dangerous: very hard to imagine how they could ever not be an extreme threat to innocent people outside of incarceration.

dharmab 3y ago

Did you read the article? > The court heard that Kurtaj had been violent while in custody with dozens of reports of injury or property damage.

Nextgrid 3y ago
How much would that get someone on the street committing the same crimes? Maybe probation or a couple years of jail at most? That's what I'm comparing it to. If we were routinely jailing people that had trouble controlling their emotions and had propensity for violent outbursts we'd have a lot more people in jail, so I don't believe this alleged violence was really what got him this sentence. Similarly, how much would someone get for scamming/hacking/social engineering a small company or individual? Well that one is easy to answer: nothing - this behavior has effectively been decriminalized in the UK. So neither his crimes add up to such a sentence.
throwaway743 3y ago
How they define "violent", "injury", and "property damage" is very much important though. It could be as light as knocking a mug off a desk and breaking it or them accidentally tripping someone and causing them to get a minor bruise, or it could be to the extreme of assaulting someone or arson. Curious to know what their definitions and their examples of this behavior are regarding this person.

hackerlight 3y ago

I don't see violent crimes as necessarily the worst. Crimes that steal from large numbers of people are arguably worse than many types of violent crime due to the sheer magnitude of lives that got destroyed. If you destroy 10,000 regular lives through fraud you deserve the worst punishment in line with murderers. Although this guy's long sentence isn't only because of what he stole from Rockstar, my commentary is not only about him, it's more of a broader point.

ipaddr 3y ago
Murdering 10 is okay compared to shutting down a video game company for a few hours?
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Straw man argument; the person you replied to did not say this.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  Definitely not. But I would say scamming thousands of poor people out of their life savings (e.g. FTX) is worse than violently assaulting someone. Violence isn't a necessary condition for a crime to be among the most damaging to victims.