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AT&T has a very important role in national defense to fill. This criminal is luckily he didn't get lined up and shot for treason. Sure, we can say that AT&T i

AT&T has a very important role in national defense to fill. This criminal is luckily he didn't get lined up and shot for treason. Sure, we can say that AT&T is a telecommunications company that should try to protect the customers that pay for their service, but we all know that AT&T is actually a government intelligence agency with all the expected bureaucracy of a military sect. Protecting their customers is #1, and their customer is US Gov.

phaus 14y ago
>Protecting their customers is #1 If AT&T gave a single fuck about its customers, Weev wouldn't have been able to access another user's account by incrementing a number in the URL. If AT&T gave a fuck about its customers, they wouldn't have destroyed any chance of having a white hat point out security flaws to them in the future, before the black hats find them. If AT&T gave a fuck about its customers, they wouldn't charge customers $20 a month for texting capabilities that cost them a nickel to provide, or $40 a month for $2 worth of bandwidth. Should I continue? There are a million other reasons why your statement makes no sense whatsoever. If they cared about customers, they would be open to criticism when security experts are ready to offer it behind closed doors.
- unimpressive 14y ago
  While I may not necessarily agree with it, you're missing his point. Kind of like "if you're not paying for it you're not the customer", his argument is that because telecos handle communications from every organization and entity in the US, it's inevitable that they become a de facto intelligence agency for the federal government. (That is, their number one customer is their government interests.) It's sort of a corollary to the idea that all of these convictions are intended to set the precedent that all Internet users are criminals.[0] If the primary purpose of telecos is to serve the US government, and the US government wants to criminalize Internet use, then it would make sense for them to serve "hackers" with hefty sentences in cooperation with the department of justice. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5393561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5393561
- efdee 14y ago
  While I don't necessarely disagree with most of your content, a) it was not simply "incrementing a number in the URL" and b) you can hardly say someone is a whitehat if his goal is "to harass rich people".
beedogs 14y ago
I think a lot of people aren't picking up on the biting satire and cynicism of your comment. Either that, or you're serious and also an idiot.
- dreamdu5t 14y ago
  While I can't speak for the rest of the parent comment, military personal do actively patrol the ATT longlines and other communications sites in the Bay Area. They have a bunker setup near the longlines station here. ATT is very much overseen by the US military/CIA.
  - yolesaber 14y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
    - wyck 14y ago
      That room is just the tip of the iceberg, fiber splitters are everywhere (literally) and guess what happens to oversea ISP's that think they are protected, they also get routed to the proper sniff boxes, or get covert ones installed. That big data warehouse in Utah should be nicknamed the funnel. http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Factory-NSA-Eavesdropping-America/dp/0307279391 http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Factory-NSA-Eavesdropping-Ameri... This book details some of the backroom agreements big telecoms have had for decades that "relieve" them of legal responsibility.
  - beedogs 14y ago
    they're not so much "overseen" as they are "bent over".
- IheartApplesDix 14y ago
  I'm not sure whether you are a literal ostrich with your head in the sand scratching on a keyboard, or if you're overpaid astroturfer who hasn't figured out how to use a chatbot yet.

phaus 14y ago

>Protecting their customers is #1 If AT&T gave a single fuck about its customers, Weev wouldn't have been able to access another user's account by incrementing a number in the URL. If AT&T gave a fuck about its customers, they wouldn't have destroyed any chance of having a white hat point out security flaws to them in the future, before the black hats find them. If AT&T gave a fuck about its customers, they wouldn't charge customers $20 a month for texting capabilities that cost them a nickel to provide, or $40 a month for $2 worth of bandwidth. Should I continue? There are a million other reasons why your statement makes no sense whatsoever. If they cared about customers, they would be open to criticism when security experts are ready to offer it behind closed doors.

unimpressive 14y ago
While I may not necessarily agree with it, you're missing his point. Kind of like "if you're not paying for it you're not the customer", his argument is that because telecos handle communications from every organization and entity in the US, it's inevitable that they become a de facto intelligence agency for the federal government. (That is, their number one customer is their government interests.) It's sort of a corollary to the idea that all of these convictions are intended to set the precedent that all Internet users are criminals.[0] If the primary purpose of telecos is to serve the US government, and the US government wants to criminalize Internet use, then it would make sense for them to serve "hackers" with hefty sentences in cooperation with the department of justice. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5393561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5393561
efdee 14y ago
While I don't necessarely disagree with most of your content, a) it was not simply "incrementing a number in the URL" and b) you can hardly say someone is a whitehat if his goal is "to harass rich people".

beedogs 14y ago

I think a lot of people aren't picking up on the biting satire and cynicism of your comment. Either that, or you're serious and also an idiot.

dreamdu5t 14y ago
While I can't speak for the rest of the parent comment, military personal do actively patrol the ATT longlines and other communications sites in the Bay Area. They have a bunker setup near the longlines station here. ATT is very much overseen by the US military/CIA.
- yolesaber 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
  - wyck 14y ago
    That room is just the tip of the iceberg, fiber splitters are everywhere (literally) and guess what happens to oversea ISP's that think they are protected, they also get routed to the proper sniff boxes, or get covert ones installed. That big data warehouse in Utah should be nicknamed the funnel. http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Factory-NSA-Eavesdropping-America/dp/0307279391 http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Factory-NSA-Eavesdropping-Ameri... This book details some of the backroom agreements big telecoms have had for decades that "relieve" them of legal responsibility.
- beedogs 14y ago
  they're not so much "overseen" as they are "bent over".
IheartApplesDix 14y ago
I'm not sure whether you are a literal ostrich with your head in the sand scratching on a keyboard, or if you're overpaid astroturfer who hasn't figured out how to use a chatbot yet.