7 ms·

As much as this guy deserves some kind of punishment for the horrible way he has treated people over the years, he doesn't deserve 4 years for being a class-a a

As much as this guy deserves some kind of punishment for the horrible way he has treated people over the years, he doesn't deserve 4 years for being a class-a asshole to people. What he did wasn't a hack, heck he didn't even write the script that apparently scraped the data from the URL. A 12 year old kid with an introduction to PHP book could even write a PHP script that did what Weev did, it's not a hack it's a cheap exploit (I've done this with sites like Google & Yahoo for scraping search results before). AT&T are somewhat to blame for failing to protect the privacy of their customers in this instance, a company has a duty of responsibility to ensure it takes reasonable measures to protect customer data. If I were the judge, I would have sentenced him to maybe 1 year (for releasing the info publicly), maybe made him serve 6 months of the sentence and given him a 3 year good behaviour bond with some conditions on getting some counselling for his obvious narcissism problem. The justice system really needs to get with the times, because these computer related hacking/cracking/exploiting incidents are only going to continue being a more common occurrence. The justice system is riddled with judges in their mid to late 60's who were raised in a non-Internet world and thus cannot truly understand the depth cases like these have or comprehend the extent as to how these defendants should be prosecuted.

baddox 14y ago
Considering he used absolutely no violence against anyone, I don't think he deserves any violence to be used against him (including, obviously, imprisonment).
- jamesaguilar 14y ago
  Is there a way to enforce laws that doesn't require violence or the threat of it?
  - baddox 14y ago
    No, which is why I don't like laws against non-violent actions.
    - canttestthis 14y ago
      Fraud, blackmail, libel, DUI (without injuring anyone) are all non-violent crimes and you'd rather they be legalized?
      - rayiner 14y ago
        There is no point probing his silly poorly thought out world view.
      - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
        Fraud and blackmail insure people obviously. Libel, I'm not sure, but I'm American so we have no such laws anyways. DUI is interesting: its like randomly shooting into a crowd of people and just missing to hit someone.
        anigbrowl 14y ago
        We do have laws against libel, you just don't know about them. http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/libel http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/libel
        seanmcdirmid 14y ago
        Yes, but its only civil law, not criminal. I had the impression that we were just talking about criminal law.
        jamesaguilar 14y ago
        Why would you have that impression? The threat of violence is also the means of enforcement for civil law. If you don't comply with judicial orders, eventually the sheriff will come by and force you to.
        seanmcdirmid 14y ago
        IANAL but that is not true; they can only seize your property, and even then civil bankruptcy is still an option. You do not go to jail for violating a civil judgement.
  - jrockway 14y ago
    Yes. Garnish his wages. Consider something like $10,000 over 10 years. Enough to notice, but it's not going to make a software engineer homeless. (I think that's too much in this case, but consider non-violent criminals in general.)
    - Cieplak 14y ago
      And in this manner, he could still keep a job and perhaps add value to society. Sending him to prison is a net loss for everyone, because of the cost to society of keeping him locked in a cage, and the difficulty of him finding employment following the prison sentence, in which case he might continue to drain on society. Prisons should serve to prevent violent people from inflicting harm upon others, and not strictly as a method of punishment.
    - jamesaguilar 14y ago
      To be fair, this is a threat of violence against his employer if they do not comply. Also, another way to look at it is forced taking, which is also violent.
      - jrockway 14y ago
        Yes, but most employers err on the side of caution, reducing the likelihood of violence. There will never be no violence until every individual on Earth always acts in society's best interest without any persuasion whatsoever. I think we can all agree that's not going to happen ever, so in order to maintain order, we do need to threaten violence in the right circumstances.
        jamesaguilar 14y ago
        Agreed. Your rationale and mine align, but are in opposition to the person I originally responded to, who suggested a blanked prohibition on violent punishment against non-violent offenders.
    - readme 14y ago
      1000 bucks a year as punishment? Why not just write him a traffic ticket. That's not nearly enough.
- gadders 14y ago
  To be honest, if he'd done these actions to his victim's face, I think violence could have modified his behaviour quite effectively.
sneak 14y ago
He didn't release the info publically. The emails were never distributed except to Gawker, who did not publish them - just a redacted screenshot of a few dozen of the .mil and .gov ones with the username and second level domain part blacked out.

baddox 14y ago

Considering he used absolutely no violence against anyone, I don't think he deserves any violence to be used against him (including, obviously, imprisonment).

jamesaguilar 14y ago
Is there a way to enforce laws that doesn't require violence or the threat of it?
- baddox 14y ago
  No, which is why I don't like laws against non-violent actions.
  - canttestthis 14y ago
    Fraud, blackmail, libel, DUI (without injuring anyone) are all non-violent crimes and you'd rather they be legalized?
    - rayiner 14y ago
      There is no point probing his silly poorly thought out world view.
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      Fraud and blackmail insure people obviously. Libel, I'm not sure, but I'm American so we have no such laws anyways. DUI is interesting: its like randomly shooting into a crowd of people and just missing to hit someone.
      - anigbrowl 14y ago
        We do have laws against libel, you just don't know about them. http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/libel http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/libel
        seanmcdirmid 14y ago
        Yes, but its only civil law, not criminal. I had the impression that we were just talking about criminal law.
        jamesaguilar 14y ago
        Why would you have that impression? The threat of violence is also the means of enforcement for civil law. If you don't comply with judicial orders, eventually the sheriff will come by and force you to.
        seanmcdirmid 14y ago
        IANAL but that is not true; they can only seize your property, and even then civil bankruptcy is still an option. You do not go to jail for violating a civil judgement.
- jrockway 14y ago
  Yes. Garnish his wages. Consider something like $10,000 over 10 years. Enough to notice, but it's not going to make a software engineer homeless. (I think that's too much in this case, but consider non-violent criminals in general.)
  - Cieplak 14y ago
    And in this manner, he could still keep a job and perhaps add value to society. Sending him to prison is a net loss for everyone, because of the cost to society of keeping him locked in a cage, and the difficulty of him finding employment following the prison sentence, in which case he might continue to drain on society. Prisons should serve to prevent violent people from inflicting harm upon others, and not strictly as a method of punishment.
  - jamesaguilar 14y ago
    To be fair, this is a threat of violence against his employer if they do not comply. Also, another way to look at it is forced taking, which is also violent.
    - jrockway 14y ago
      Yes, but most employers err on the side of caution, reducing the likelihood of violence. There will never be no violence until every individual on Earth always acts in society's best interest without any persuasion whatsoever. I think we can all agree that's not going to happen ever, so in order to maintain order, we do need to threaten violence in the right circumstances.
      - jamesaguilar 14y ago
        Agreed. Your rationale and mine align, but are in opposition to the person I originally responded to, who suggested a blanked prohibition on violent punishment against non-violent offenders.
  - readme 14y ago
    1000 bucks a year as punishment? Why not just write him a traffic ticket. That's not nearly enough.
gadders 14y ago
To be honest, if he'd done these actions to his victim's face, I think violence could have modified his behaviour quite effectively.

sneak 14y ago

He didn't release the info publically. The emails were never distributed except to Gawker, who did not publish them - just a redacted screenshot of a few dozen of the .mil and .gov ones with the username and second level domain part blacked out.