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"I have no faith in the 'justice' system. Perhaps my actions today, and this letter, will send a stronger message to the public. Either way, I have lost control

• w1ntermute 14y ago
  It is a testament to how control of this country has been completely wrested from the hands of the middle class since the 60s and 70s and taken over by megacorporations, the military-industrial complex, and the ultrawealthy. I recently read about this phenomenon in the book Who Stole the American Dream?, by Hedrick Smith[0]. I highly recommend it. The first signs of change appeared in the 2012 election, as the young people voted for marijuana legalization (and gay marriage) in two states and the hundreds of millions spent by the wealthy on campaign ads (enabled by the Citizens United ruling) failed to produce material results. Unfortunately, it appears that the older generations' viewpoints are largely stagnant, so this change will probably have to occur one funeral at a time. 0: http://www.amazon.com/Who-Stole-American-Dream-ebook/dp/B007MEWAX2 http://www.amazon.com/Who-Stole-American-Dream-ebook/dp/B007...
  • testimoney2 14y ago
    Well I mean the guy commited crimes and entered private systems. Its not like he is innocent. Are you saying you want it to be legal to hack into any random system in the world ? (that would remove all the fun of hacking) PS: And I have done some hacking, stolen some files, financial information a long time ago, but I agree that it is highly illegal and should be punished and I do regret my actions. Thankfully I stopped before it was too late
    • w1ntermute 14y ago
      Did you read the Wiki article? He claimed he wasn't responsible for the TJX hack, yet they were going to scapegoat him.
      • tkahn6 14y ago
        Yes, he claimed that. It doesn't make it true. His own father believed that he was involved.
        • cantankerous 14y ago
          It doesn't matter what's true. It matters what's provable. Otherwise he's innocent until shown to be guilty...regardless of what his father or anybody else thinks.
          • deleted 14y ago
            [deleted]
        • nitrogen 14y ago
          I can't speak to this specific case, but I'm sure lots of fathers have been completely wrong about their sons.
    • monsterix 14y ago
      How is it a crime to access (force access) content that belongs to the public? It was created using tax payers money and should have been available to the public without the hurdles in the first place. Note the same content is now available over the Internet for free legally. So what has changed, and what was lost?
    • caf 14y ago
      It certainly shouldn't attract a sentence considerably worse than violent crimes do. There's a persuasive argument that no nonviolent crime should be punished by prison time at all.
    • AnthonyMouse 14y ago
      >highly illegal This is the problem. It should be "illegal" but not "highly illegal" -- the penalties should be along the lines of trespass, e.g. 30 days in jail or a $1000 fine, not 30 years in prison and a million dollar fine. More than that, the crimes need to be defined with actual specificity. Read the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act sometime if you want to scare yourself. It's preposterously vague. How about we repeal that in its entirety and defer to the laws that prohibit the actual bad stuff, like fraud, identity theft, misappropriation of trade secrets, etc. If all you do is get root on a server and then leave, the penalty should be a $5 fine and a stern warning, and the same penalty for the "victim" who put an insecure server on the internet.
      • ghshephard 14y ago
        Not to go too far off track here - but should I get a penalty for not locking my door at home?
        • AnthonyMouse 14y ago
          OK, forget the fine then, we'll just go with the stern warning. The point is that they should both get the proverbial slap on the wrist -- the person who breaks in should be chastised but hasn't caused any real harm and the person who allowed it to happen should endeavor to be more careful and not redirect responsibility for something trivially harmful that they could have themselves prevented if they deemed it worthy of the required effort.
          • ghshephard 14y ago
            So, what your are saying, is that I shouldn't be penalized if I don't lock my door at home, but I have no basis to complain if someone comes into my house, snoops around, looks in drawers, and then leaves without damaging anything. I'm actually ambivalent about this, but I'm always intrigued as to whether people's sense of "Protect yourself on the internet or you deserve what you get" translates to "Protect yourself at home, or you deserve to be burgled". Indeed - one could take it so far as, "Protect yourself with a weapon late at night/in your home, or you deserve to be beaten/mugged/etc..." - but, in general, we recognize the black and white line somewhere between "ssh server" and "put in hospital with contusions" - I think the "snooping around my house with unlocked door" is the gray area.
  • philwelch 14y ago
    > Unfortunately, it appears that the older generations' viewpoints are largely stagnant, so this change will probably have to occur one funeral at a time. Well, that's nothing new.
    • greghinch 14y ago
      I have hope. The generations born since the early to mid 80s have been raised in a world where change has become at least constant if not accelerated. These generations, as they age and take over the roles of the higher echelons of business and government, may prove more adaptable to an ever changing world. But this may just be a dream
      • w1ntermute 14y ago
        One problem is that the elderly are living longer than ever, and continuing to vote. At the same time, the birth rate is not too high. However, the internet has proven to be a very effective way of getting people to go to the polls, and you can target your campaigns much more specifically, so as to include young people and exclude the elderly (who don't use the internet much anyway). This is an important thing to keep in mind in a country like America, which has relatively low voter turnout. Election engineering can make all the difference in the results, as we saw with the success of Obama's reelection campaign machine.
        • jlgreco 14y ago
          You know, I honestly think we should hack a few years off one side of the voting population and slap it onto the other. Let people start voting 5 years earlier, and forbid people from voting once they are five years younger than the current average life expectancy. A vote in our system is a vote for what should be. The concept of a vote is inherently tied to the future; the young have the most to win or lose because the vote is for something in their comparably massive future, while for the elderly it represents little more than an opportunity to influence a world they will (again, comparatively) soon have zero stake in. Of course that is more of a pipe-dream than owning my own bartending unicorn.
  • drzaiusapelord 14y ago
    >viewpoints are largely stagnant, so this change will probably have to occur one funeral at a time. There's a good argument out there that a lot of the recent social change has nothing to do with Obama, the internet, education, awareness, etc but the fact that so many of the old guard are dying out and that what we Americans call "liberal" or "progressive" is the new norm. It just too many conservatives had too much sway in politics. I mean, look at the desperate Texas and other red state gerrymandering. These guys are certainly scared of something. If you look at recent progressive victories, they're often of a slight majority. Votes that come in real close like 48-52 or 47% vs 48%, and losses are pretty narrow too. I guess until a lot of the boomers start dying out, this stuff will continue. Heh, by the time I'm old and gray I won't have to worry about no-knock raids on harmless potheads and computer nerds being roughed up by the DOJ. Oh well, maybe I'll feel better about my country when I'm retired.
  • intended 14y ago
    I've seen the one funeral at a time solution play out, (it's still playing out where i live, inter country conflict). It is something of a solution, but not much. Those older folk have a long time to poison a new generation, and the ideas which they hold are easy to believe and propagate. It's only through real leadership and setting exampls which run counter to the narrative, that our hope lies now. While the old grudges are being laid to rest, the effect is more like reduced signal propagation.
    • w1ntermute 14y ago
      > Those older folk have a long time to poison a new generation, and the ideas which they hold are easy to believe and propagate. This is definitely possible. But my hope is that the internet has started to change these things. Even someone living in a small rural town can now see what other young people are thinking and be exposed to a more diverse set of ideas. For example, if you go on Reddit, you can see how people have become atheists after reading about how religion is bunk. Someone who is forced by their parents to go to church every Sunday can find solace in the fact that there are others going through the same thing, and that there are others who have successfully escaped from such situations. I think such communities have the ability to accelerate change among the youth.
  • afterburner 14y ago
    Not to minimize what you wrote: wanting to regain control is a part of having suicidal thoughts, regardless of the political situation. Often the only relief to people who are suicidal is the thought that they can control when to end their life (which sometimes brings slight relief without having to go through with it).
  • smsm42 14y ago
    It has nothing to do with fashionable fable about ultraweathy ruining everything. The numbers of ultrawealthy are vanishingly small. They are not those who vote current political class into power and keep them there. They are not those who, knowing about politicians instituting mandatory minimum sentences of tens of years for victimless crimes, did not come to these politicians with tar and feathers but instead gave them their wholehearted support and their money to continue their campaigns. Blaming the vague alien group - being it the wealthy, Jews, Catholics, Christians, Muslims, black, white, whatever - for all problems, being behing the scenes and pulling all the ropes - is bullshit. It is your beloved middle class who has overwhelming voting power in this country. Those are the people who elect those politicians and enact those laws. Nobody is doing it to the innocent nation, the nation is doing it to itself and it is nowhere near innocent. The nation allows the current prosecutorial system where you either plead out or get a chance to fight 200 years in prison sentence with overworked public defendant that would have couple of hours to review your case if she'd sleep 4 hours a day. The nation allows the Congress to create 56 new federal crimes every year. US now has about 5000 different federal crimes, and who knows how many local too. Ultrawealthy have nothing to do with it - I'm sure if you ask random people on the street, overwhelming majority would support it with gusto. No ultrawealthy can prevent the middle class to vote all these guys out. If they keep instead voting them in - it's time to stop blaming the aliens and start realizing who the real guilty party is.
    • w1ntermute 14y ago
      Things are far from being as simple as you make them sound. In a two-party system with extreme gerrymandering and extensive lobbying by the rich, politicians are no longer beholden to the people. People don't blindly support new laws like you say they do. In fact, Congress's approval rating has been in the shitter for a long time. People nowadays vote by figuring out who they dislike the least. But when it comes to referendums, we're seeing real change - marijuana was legalized in 2 states this time around. And you say voters want more people in jail? The book I mentioned debunks your theory of the ultrawealthy not being responsible for these problems. The statistics are quite clear regarding the increase in lobbying efforts by the wealthy and by large corporations during the 70s.