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What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison
- adaml_623 14y agoInteresting but is it only me who can't find the author's name or a link to his blog?
- adaml_623 14y agoProbably this is a more appropriate article as it hasn't just stolen someone's content. http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/santos-getting-online-after-25-years-prison/ http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/santos-getting-online-after-... His name is Michael Santos and he did 25 years for running drugs.
- notimetorelax 14y agoCan we ask the mods to change the link to the one you provided?
- mattsfrey 14y agoThat's tragic, I assumed to get 25 years he must have killed somebody
- lostlogin 14y agoThere are those out there that would likely say he killed many. The war on drugs etc. I personally wonder what he would have achieved if unconstrained, if he can do as much as he has while in prison.
- jbrooksuk 14y agoIt'd be interesting to see where he takes his career after coming out of the halfway house thing he's in.
- DigitalJack 14y agoIt's all speculation, but my guess is he wouldn't have achieved much and would probably be dead.
- jacquesm 14y agoWhat difference would 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 years make? In other words do you think that he will achieve something today that he would not have been able to achieve 5 years ago?
- DigitalJack 14y agoI was thinking more along the lines of, "if he hadn't gone to prison, what would he have achieved." I haven't read much about him, but if he was a dealer and trafficker in cocaine, I think there is a high probability that he would either be dead or not have accomplished much.
- EliRivers 14y agoYou can get 25 years for stealing a pair of socks in parts of the US. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-the-shame-of-three-strikes-laws-20130327 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-...
- jbrooksuk 14y agoI've read about this guy before and what continues to puzzle me is how well versed his Internet terminology is. Things like "amazed me to see how the search engine indexed so much" just doesn't make sense, this guy was already aware of what indexing is and yet never used a computer inside prison? It also seems that he built up an entire online presence before he'd stepped out of prison, the way it reads.
- dasil003 14y agoI imagine he did it the way we all did in the 70s and 80s: by digesting every shred of information from available print publications.
- legitsource 14y agoThat phrasing makes me think someone explained internet search engines like a card catalog at a library.
- vacri 14y agoHe also has access to TV and movies.
- jacquesm 14y agoPresumably the reason why inmates don't have unfettered access to the internet is to make sure they're not running some empire from behind bars but at the same time in this day and age this sounds like exceptionally cruel punishment. If there is one thing that would help an ex-convict to re-integrate into society it would be to be able to read about what is going on in the outside world and to be able to self-educate so they can hit the ground running. After all if you leave jail without marketable skills chances of falling back into crime are higher which eventually serves nobody, least of all society.
- davidiach 14y agoMost workplaces block certain websites anyway so I don't see why they could not do the same thing for inmates. Maybe they shouldn't be using Tor, but I don't see why Wikipedia is a problem.
- MichaelApproved 14y agoIt is ridiculous how some dangerous inmates manage to communicate with the outside world and continue to commit crimes through their network. By allowing them to use Wikipedia, they can leave coded messages as orders for fellow gang members. This happens with traditional mail and you can bet it'll be more wide spread with Internet access. I believe prisoners need the ability to learn and improve themselves while in prison but the problem is much more complicated than ban tor and allow Wikipedia.
- friendly_chap 14y agoI have utmost respect for this guy, after spending 25 years in prison he still has such a positive outlook, thinking about how he can utilize the internet to his advantage. It teaches us something about not giving up our future even if the present is less than stellar. Startups are hard, but imagine if you would have to wait 25 years to realize your ideas... As cliché as it is, never give up!
- jacquesm 14y ago25 years is an enormous amount of time. Think of the cost to society to lock up people for the bigger part of their productive life.
- davidw 14y agoAs a purely hypothetical argument, there's a net benefit to society if someone's productive efforts go into stealing from or otherwise harming other people. How many people fall into that category versus how many can be reformed or otherwise kept from causing harm is something I don't have facts about and is probably another debate for another site.
- obviouslygreen 14y agoWhether there is a "net benefit" depends on how much time they're in prison for, how much harm they caused before going in, and what kind of good they do/value they contribute once they're out. Even after the time it would take to establish an effective metric, that's something that would vary very widely by individual.
- TomAnthony 14y agoAuthor is Michael Santos: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_G._Santos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_G._Santos Website: http://michaelsantos.com/ http://michaelsantos.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelgsantos https://twitter.com/michaelgsantos More: http://about.me/michael.santos http://about.me/michael.santos He did a degree, began a doctorate and wrote 7 books whilst in prison, and seems he hit the ground running when he got out. Good for him.
- D9u 14y agoArguably, the internet did exist in 1987, although not the same as the net we know today. http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/origins.html http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/ori... Kudos to Mr Santos for his efforts at turning a new leaf in life, and I've also noticed that attention spans have decreased over the past few decades.
- marquis 14y agoCache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kE6JIjZLWUAJ:www.olwiki.com/archives/619.html+http://www.olwiki.com/archives/619.html&hl=en&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kE6JIjZ...
- coldtea 14y agotelnet eee.fwed.dww 25 mail from: your_worst_nightmare@hell.com rcpt to: claris@isp.com I'm coming for you bitch. You know who. .
- coldtea 14y agoIf you're keeping score, I got from +3 to -4 (current) for this one. It's supposed to be a telnet SMTP session, using a fake email, and to mimic the standard cliche plot of Hollywood movies, with the convict returning to seek his revenge. Not meant as misogynistic or anything (the "bitch" is written "in character").
- raldi 14y agoWhy did you post a link to a site which stole the content, stripped the author's name, mangled the text by repeating some of it twice, and omitted an extremely interesting video? Moderators, please update the link so it points to the original source: http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/santos-getting-online-after-25-years-prison/ http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/santos-getting-online-after-...
- jschuur 14y agoPresumably the duplication of the pull quotes and lack of the video comes from copy & pasting from the original web page (for whatever reason). If you're curious (and not that it matters for his story), the author, Michael G. Santos, initially received a 45 year sentence for 'a scheme to distribute cocaine': http://www.quora.com/Michael-Santos-4 http://www.quora.com/Michael-Santos-4 http://about.me/michael.santos http://about.me/michael.santos
- Lifescape 14y agoThank you, came here to ask who the author was and why their name wasn't included.
- jrochkind1 14y agoWhy is the author's name not attached to the article? Anyone know who wrote this?
- josephb 14y agoOriginal article here: http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/santos-getting-online-after-25-years-prison/ http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/santos-getting-online-after-...
- cheez 14y ago> On the day (of my release) that my wife, Carole Wow
- richardlblair 14y agoBecause you were locked up for so long I'll go easy on you. Use a font size bigger than 13px... seriously. You're lucky I wanted to know what you had to say. Normally I'd just close the tab and never look back.
- treerock 14y agoHe says on hackerNews with it's 9pt text and 8pt headings.
- richardlblair 14y agoYou clearly missed the fact that i said px, and not pt. I also find it hilarious that I get down voted on this of all things. Too funny.