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It's unfortunate that a possibly productive member of society has to go to jail for this. At the same time, I wonder at what seems like a tone of surprise abou

It's unfortunate that a possibly productive member of society has to go to jail for this. At the same time, I wonder at what seems like a tone of surprise about the outcome. What he did is not materially different from breaking into secure offices and stealing copies of private documents. Apparently he or others working with him also made donations in the order of millions of dollars using stolen credit card numbers from this hack. His punishment should be of the same order as someone who did those things. Political motivation is not a get out of jail free card. Presumably he knows this and the emphasis in this direction is the work of the article's author. Or maybe I'm picking up on something that's not there.

gcb1 13y ago
but in the past revealing crimes in those secret documents often lead to trials. now, watergate would have not have ended with 43 incarcerations from nixon admin and his resignation, but probably with journalists from the post being sent to Guantanamo for reporting on national security matters.
- mpyne 13y ago
  Just like 'The Guardian's journalists working out of their New York office reporting on the NSA have all been sent to Gitmo, amirite?
  - gcb1 13y ago
    one of them just crashed a car that burst up in flames, like every car that crashes, amirite?
    - mpyne 13y ago
      I dunno, ask Tesla about cars and flames, to hear Elon Musk describe gas-powered vehicles it's a wonder they don't spontaneously combust more often. :) Hastings is a wonderful teaching case though, but more along the lines of being the example of you don't recklessly speed down city streets while intoxicated.
GuiA 13y ago
So if someone does nasty things, but getting access to evidence for these nasty things is impossible without breaking a law, how do you suggest that one should go about proving that the aforementioned nasty things were committed?
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Not sure. You might have to take one for the team like with other acts of civil disobedience. That said, in this case, were nasty things uncovered? I can't find anything about that. Also, mixing investigative journalism with theft and use of other people's credit card numbers is probably not the best way to maintain an appearance of innocence.
- andrewfong 13y ago
  Pedophiles do nasty things on the Internet. Uncovering pedophiles on the Internet is impossible without mass surveillance of the Internet. How do you suggest that one should go about proving that someone is a pedophile? In both the case of pedophiles and state actors who are breaking the law, the answer is the same. Wait for them to slip up. It's hard to keep something secret forever.
  - moloch 13y ago
    > "Uncovering pedophiles on the Internet is impossible without mass surveillance of the Internet" Didn't realize the TV show "To Catch a Predator" did mass surveillance of the internet, NBC is taking investigative journalism to an extreme.
    - andrewfong 13y ago
      That's sort of the point. When someone justifies an action because it's "impossible" to stop bad thing X without doing morally questionable thing Y, be skeptical.
  - GuiA 13y ago
    I'm not on top of my criminal law, but it seems to me that the nasty, illegal things pedophiles do, they do in real life and not the internet, no?
jebus989 13y ago
> His punishment should be of the same order as someone who did those things. Sure, it should be. I haven't done the research but 10 years is above and beyond what I'd expect, any comparable cases out there?
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  To me, it's not surprising that stealing a bunch of credit cards and secret documents gets you ten years (maximum, of which he'll probably serve three to five if this is anything like other crimes that are eligible for parole). But I'd welcome evidence that I'm miscalibrated.
  - koenigdavidmj 13y ago
    There is no parole in the federal system.
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      Ah, I misread. I thought it said, "He was sentenced to serve a maximum of ...", but actually it says, "He was sentenced to the maximum of ...". Ten years, then. Still not terribly surprising to me given what he did.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      No, but there are good time credits which will reduce it to a little over 8.5 years.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  Max Butler got 13 years for his role in Carders Market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Butler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Butler "Arrested in 2007, Butler was accused of operating Carders Market, a forum where cyber criminals bought and sold sensitive data such as credit card numbers. After pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud from stealing nearly 2 million credit card numbers and spending $86 million in fraudulent purchases, Butler was sentenced to 13 years in prison, which is the longest sentence ever given for hacking charges. After prison, he will also face 5 years of supervised release and is ordered to pay $27.5 million in restitution to his victims.[5][22]" Also Albert Gonzales the leader of Shadowcrew actually plea bargained DOWN to a 20 year sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gonzalez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gonzalez "On March 25, 2010, U.S. District Judge Patti Saris sentenced Gonzalez to 20 years in prison for hacking into and stealing information from TJX, Office Max, the Dave & Busters restaurant chain, Barnes & Noble and a string of other companies.[27] The next day, U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock sentenced him to 20 years in connection with the Heartland Payment Systems case. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently, meaning that Gonzalez will serve a total of 20 years for both cases.[28] Gonzalez was also ordered to forfeit more than $1.65 million, a condominium in Miami, a blue 2006 BMW 330i automobile, IBM and Toshiba laptop computers, a Glock 27 firearm, a Nokia cell phone, a Tiffany diamond ring and three Rolex watches.[29]" Hector “Sabu” Monsegur is facing 124 years if he's convicted on all charges, but with the current string of 10+ year sentences, chances are, his will be in that range as well I would assume. His sentencing was delayed for a third time until January 2014. Previous to those, I think the longest sentence was to Mitnick who got 5 years. Even Kevin Poulsen got a 3 year sentence. Even the Lulsec hackers all got sentences under 3 years. Clearly, the feds are uping the ante on computer crime and using long sentences as deterrents for future hackers who think they will get light sentences.
ry0ohki 13y ago
I'm surprised he got the maximum sentence after pleading guilty. Isn't the whole point of pleading guilty to get a lesser sentence?
- andrewfong 13y ago
  Being repentant helps if you're trying to get a lesser sentence. Pleading guilty and being proud of it ... probably less so.
- gknoy 13y ago
  You __hope__ to get one. If there's no plea bargain on the table, you're likely screwed. I'd say it's probably accurate to say that you're almost-completely screwed if you are even in a scenario where you have to consider a plea bargain, of course.
  - ry0ohki 13y ago
    Why not roll the dice and go not guilty then?
    - steveklabnik 13y ago
      Guilty: 5-10 years Not Guilty: 0 - 100 years (These numbers totally made up, just to illustrate a point)
      - ry0ohki 13y ago
        But it said he got the maximum sentence? It doesn't say in the article, but maybe there were other charges dropped in exchange for him pleading guilty to the one?
        steveklabnik 13y ago
        He got the maximum with his plea bargain, without a bargain it could have been higher.
doug1001 13y ago
"[n]ot materially different from breaking into secure offices and stealing copies of private documents" Jeremy Hammond caused the release of information collected by a private security firm, which Barron's referred to "The Shadow CIA" JS's purpose, by all accounts i have read, was to (i) call attention to the volume, and scope of data collected by a private company whose customers include foreign governments; and (ii) call attention to the additional risks arising from Stratfor's insecure storage of this data. it's difficult to effectively "blow the whistle" without revealing this information. Sure he had no authorization to do so, but the moral claim that seems to have motivated his effort--whether you agree with it or not--was that a private company has no business collecting this type of data and selling it to foreign governments and worse they storing it while not adequately protecting it against unauthorized access.
- andrewfong 13y ago
  I don't really buy that. If you think that the collection and insecure storage of confidential information is a problem, you don't "fix" the problem by releasing all of that confidential information to WikiLeaks. And you certainly don't make over a million dollars in fraudulent credit card transactions. The moral justification is really just: (1) Stratfor does work for the powers that be; (2) the powers that be are bad; therefore (3) hacking Stratfor hurts bad people.
  - ThrowFarAway 13y ago
    I know you're just clarifying it and not necessarily advocating it, but just want to state that it's a pretty lousy justification. For example: (1) Mike Smith pays taxes to the powers that be, and therefore works 3-4 months out of the year for the powers that be; (2) The powers that be are bad; Therefore (3) murdering Mike hurts bad people.
- dandelany 13y ago
  I still don't understand the hatred for Stratfor. Here's the Barron's article you refer to: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=13032 http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=13032 The term "shadow CIA" seems to imply that they're a worse, shadier version of the CIA. In fact IMHO they're doing what the CIA should be doing (actually collecting intelligence rather than trying to actively influence foreign politics), they're doing a much better job of it than the CIA, and the information, rather than being a state secret, is available to anyone who's willing to pay their (fairly pricey but not unreasonable for the information you get) annual membership fee. I know these things because I was a subscriber, and my credit card was leaked as a part of this hack (hmm I guess I must be part of the shadowy cabal). Have any of the people who claim it's a shady organization actually read any of their reports? They read like I wish CNN articles would - 1 paragraph of "what happened" followed by dozens of paragraphs of historical context. The fact that they had government clients is completely irrelevant. You know who else has government clients? The Starbucks next to the Capitol building. Unless they were exclusively providing information to governments (which they weren't), I don't see why it's an issue that governments found their intelligence valuable enough to pay for it. Of course it is a problem that their data was stored insecurely, but like other commenters I don't think releasing/charging the credit card numbers was a particularly productive way to call attention to this fact.
peterwwillis 13y ago
> possibly productive member of society Let me stop you right there. Hammond was not a productive member of society. He stole water and power and food, even though he could pay for it (his web design side-job paid for the trinkets he didn't deem capitalist waste). He attacked old people in restaurants. He tried to insight people in public settings to go out and vandalize and attack public infrastructure. He threatened many, many people with bodily harm. He's been in and out of prison and probation for years. This fuck had it coming. And let me quote the last part of the article: He says he plans to use his time in prison “reading, writing, working out and playing sports – training myself to become more disciplined so I can be more effective on my release”. Does this sound like a stable, productive member of society to you?
- mcantelon 13y ago
  >He threatened many, many people with bodily harm. Who has he threatened? Hadn't heard of that.
  - peterwwillis 13y ago
    Most or all of my friends on the IRC channels we all used to frequent, for one. IIRC I was on his shit-list too; I seem to recall some threats about going to the HOPE conference I was going to just to find me. Most of his defenders never really knew him, or saw the shit that would fall out when somebody disagreed with him. Those of us who talked to him on a daily basis know he's a dangerous asshat.
    - ejfox 13y ago
      As someone who talked to him on a daily basis, I truly have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. This sort of libel is really poor taste at a time like this.
      - peterwwillis 13y ago
        https://afreak.ca/share/jeremy.txt https://afreak.ca/share/jeremy.txt edit: I can probably get the full logs for context if somebody really really wants them. This was a public channel, so probably a hundred people have these logs.
pera 13y ago
Justice is complicated. Usually it's very difficult to quantify damages, specially when those damages depends on a POV. What I think we all can agree is that sentences times are disproportionated: committing a crime to a corporation is one of the most dangerous things you can do, even more than killing or raping someone. For example: "Causing or encouraging prostitution of, intercourse with or indecent assault on girl under 16" gets you a max sentence of 2 years. So, a guy use his computer to show us some nasty things the government is doing with our money: 10 years A pimp manipulates a 13-years-old girl to have sex with pedophiles: 2 years EDIT: Another example is Chelsea Manning, who now have a criminal sentence of 35 years, and on the other side the guys of Collateral Murder video from the Air Force who killed innocents persons have no charges and are free...
- darkarmani 13y ago
  > So, a guy use his computer to show us some nasty things the government is doing with our money: 10 years Including stealing people's CCs.
drzaiusapelord 13y ago
This guy was an off-the-grid thief and conman who justified his hacking by "sticking it to the man" which, unfortunately, a lot of HN readers apparently agree relieves him of any moral or personal responsibility for his actions.
baddox 13y ago
> I wonder at what seems like a tone of surprise about the outcome Where are you seeing a tone of surprise? The caption on the main image is his quote: 'I knew when I started out with Anonymous that being put in jail and having a lengthy sentence was a possibility,' and the article goes on to make it quite clear that he was aware of the likely consequences of his actions. He's disgusted, not surprised.

gcb1 13y ago

but in the past revealing crimes in those secret documents often lead to trials. now, watergate would have not have ended with 43 incarcerations from nixon admin and his resignation, but probably with journalists from the post being sent to Guantanamo for reporting on national security matters.

mpyne 13y ago
Just like 'The Guardian's journalists working out of their New York office reporting on the NSA have all been sent to Gitmo, amirite?
- gcb1 13y ago
  one of them just crashed a car that burst up in flames, like every car that crashes, amirite?
  - mpyne 13y ago
    I dunno, ask Tesla about cars and flames, to hear Elon Musk describe gas-powered vehicles it's a wonder they don't spontaneously combust more often. :) Hastings is a wonderful teaching case though, but more along the lines of being the example of you don't recklessly speed down city streets while intoxicated.

GuiA 13y ago

So if someone does nasty things, but getting access to evidence for these nasty things is impossible without breaking a law, how do you suggest that one should go about proving that the aforementioned nasty things were committed?

jamesaguilar 13y ago
Not sure. You might have to take one for the team like with other acts of civil disobedience. That said, in this case, were nasty things uncovered? I can't find anything about that. Also, mixing investigative journalism with theft and use of other people's credit card numbers is probably not the best way to maintain an appearance of innocence.
andrewfong 13y ago
Pedophiles do nasty things on the Internet. Uncovering pedophiles on the Internet is impossible without mass surveillance of the Internet. How do you suggest that one should go about proving that someone is a pedophile? In both the case of pedophiles and state actors who are breaking the law, the answer is the same. Wait for them to slip up. It's hard to keep something secret forever.
- moloch 13y ago
  > "Uncovering pedophiles on the Internet is impossible without mass surveillance of the Internet" Didn't realize the TV show "To Catch a Predator" did mass surveillance of the internet, NBC is taking investigative journalism to an extreme.
  - andrewfong 13y ago
    That's sort of the point. When someone justifies an action because it's "impossible" to stop bad thing X without doing morally questionable thing Y, be skeptical.
- GuiA 13y ago
  I'm not on top of my criminal law, but it seems to me that the nasty, illegal things pedophiles do, they do in real life and not the internet, no?

jebus989 13y ago

> His punishment should be of the same order as someone who did those things. Sure, it should be. I haven't done the research but 10 years is above and beyond what I'd expect, any comparable cases out there?

jamesaguilar 13y ago
To me, it's not surprising that stealing a bunch of credit cards and secret documents gets you ten years (maximum, of which he'll probably serve three to five if this is anything like other crimes that are eligible for parole). But I'd welcome evidence that I'm miscalibrated.
- koenigdavidmj 13y ago
  There is no parole in the federal system.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Ah, I misread. I thought it said, "He was sentenced to serve a maximum of ...", but actually it says, "He was sentenced to the maximum of ...". Ten years, then. Still not terribly surprising to me given what he did.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    No, but there are good time credits which will reduce it to a little over 8.5 years.
at-fates-hands 13y ago
Max Butler got 13 years for his role in Carders Market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Butler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Butler "Arrested in 2007, Butler was accused of operating Carders Market, a forum where cyber criminals bought and sold sensitive data such as credit card numbers. After pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud from stealing nearly 2 million credit card numbers and spending $86 million in fraudulent purchases, Butler was sentenced to 13 years in prison, which is the longest sentence ever given for hacking charges. After prison, he will also face 5 years of supervised release and is ordered to pay $27.5 million in restitution to his victims.[5][22]" Also Albert Gonzales the leader of Shadowcrew actually plea bargained DOWN to a 20 year sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gonzalez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gonzalez "On March 25, 2010, U.S. District Judge Patti Saris sentenced Gonzalez to 20 years in prison for hacking into and stealing information from TJX, Office Max, the Dave & Busters restaurant chain, Barnes & Noble and a string of other companies.[27] The next day, U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock sentenced him to 20 years in connection with the Heartland Payment Systems case. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently, meaning that Gonzalez will serve a total of 20 years for both cases.[28] Gonzalez was also ordered to forfeit more than $1.65 million, a condominium in Miami, a blue 2006 BMW 330i automobile, IBM and Toshiba laptop computers, a Glock 27 firearm, a Nokia cell phone, a Tiffany diamond ring and three Rolex watches.[29]" Hector “Sabu” Monsegur is facing 124 years if he's convicted on all charges, but with the current string of 10+ year sentences, chances are, his will be in that range as well I would assume. His sentencing was delayed for a third time until January 2014. Previous to those, I think the longest sentence was to Mitnick who got 5 years. Even Kevin Poulsen got a 3 year sentence. Even the Lulsec hackers all got sentences under 3 years. Clearly, the feds are uping the ante on computer crime and using long sentences as deterrents for future hackers who think they will get light sentences.

ry0ohki 13y ago

I'm surprised he got the maximum sentence after pleading guilty. Isn't the whole point of pleading guilty to get a lesser sentence?

andrewfong 13y ago
Being repentant helps if you're trying to get a lesser sentence. Pleading guilty and being proud of it ... probably less so.
gknoy 13y ago
You __hope__ to get one. If there's no plea bargain on the table, you're likely screwed. I'd say it's probably accurate to say that you're almost-completely screwed if you are even in a scenario where you have to consider a plea bargain, of course.
- ry0ohki 13y ago
  Why not roll the dice and go not guilty then?
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    Guilty: 5-10 years Not Guilty: 0 - 100 years (These numbers totally made up, just to illustrate a point)
    - ry0ohki 13y ago
      But it said he got the maximum sentence? It doesn't say in the article, but maybe there were other charges dropped in exchange for him pleading guilty to the one?
      - steveklabnik 13y ago
        He got the maximum with his plea bargain, without a bargain it could have been higher.

doug1001 13y ago

"[n]ot materially different from breaking into secure offices and stealing copies of private documents" Jeremy Hammond caused the release of information collected by a private security firm, which Barron's referred to "The Shadow CIA" JS's purpose, by all accounts i have read, was to (i) call attention to the volume, and scope of data collected by a private company whose customers include foreign governments; and (ii) call attention to the additional risks arising from Stratfor's insecure storage of this data. it's difficult to effectively "blow the whistle" without revealing this information. Sure he had no authorization to do so, but the moral claim that seems to have motivated his effort--whether you agree with it or not--was that a private company has no business collecting this type of data and selling it to foreign governments and worse they storing it while not adequately protecting it against unauthorized access.

andrewfong 13y ago
I don't really buy that. If you think that the collection and insecure storage of confidential information is a problem, you don't "fix" the problem by releasing all of that confidential information to WikiLeaks. And you certainly don't make over a million dollars in fraudulent credit card transactions. The moral justification is really just: (1) Stratfor does work for the powers that be; (2) the powers that be are bad; therefore (3) hacking Stratfor hurts bad people.
- ThrowFarAway 13y ago
  I know you're just clarifying it and not necessarily advocating it, but just want to state that it's a pretty lousy justification. For example: (1) Mike Smith pays taxes to the powers that be, and therefore works 3-4 months out of the year for the powers that be; (2) The powers that be are bad; Therefore (3) murdering Mike hurts bad people.
dandelany 13y ago
I still don't understand the hatred for Stratfor. Here's the Barron's article you refer to: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=13032 http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=13032 The term "shadow CIA" seems to imply that they're a worse, shadier version of the CIA. In fact IMHO they're doing what the CIA should be doing (actually collecting intelligence rather than trying to actively influence foreign politics), they're doing a much better job of it than the CIA, and the information, rather than being a state secret, is available to anyone who's willing to pay their (fairly pricey but not unreasonable for the information you get) annual membership fee. I know these things because I was a subscriber, and my credit card was leaked as a part of this hack (hmm I guess I must be part of the shadowy cabal). Have any of the people who claim it's a shady organization actually read any of their reports? They read like I wish CNN articles would - 1 paragraph of "what happened" followed by dozens of paragraphs of historical context. The fact that they had government clients is completely irrelevant. You know who else has government clients? The Starbucks next to the Capitol building. Unless they were exclusively providing information to governments (which they weren't), I don't see why it's an issue that governments found their intelligence valuable enough to pay for it. Of course it is a problem that their data was stored insecurely, but like other commenters I don't think releasing/charging the credit card numbers was a particularly productive way to call attention to this fact.

peterwwillis 13y ago

> possibly productive member of society Let me stop you right there. Hammond was not a productive member of society. He stole water and power and food, even though he could pay for it (his web design side-job paid for the trinkets he didn't deem capitalist waste). He attacked old people in restaurants. He tried to insight people in public settings to go out and vandalize and attack public infrastructure. He threatened many, many people with bodily harm. He's been in and out of prison and probation for years. This fuck had it coming. And let me quote the last part of the article: He says he plans to use his time in prison “reading, writing, working out and playing sports – training myself to become more disciplined so I can be more effective on my release”. Does this sound like a stable, productive member of society to you?

mcantelon 13y ago
>He threatened many, many people with bodily harm. Who has he threatened? Hadn't heard of that.
- peterwwillis 13y ago
  Most or all of my friends on the IRC channels we all used to frequent, for one. IIRC I was on his shit-list too; I seem to recall some threats about going to the HOPE conference I was going to just to find me. Most of his defenders never really knew him, or saw the shit that would fall out when somebody disagreed with him. Those of us who talked to him on a daily basis know he's a dangerous asshat.
  - ejfox 13y ago
    As someone who talked to him on a daily basis, I truly have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. This sort of libel is really poor taste at a time like this.
    - peterwwillis 13y ago
      https://afreak.ca/share/jeremy.txt https://afreak.ca/share/jeremy.txt edit: I can probably get the full logs for context if somebody really really wants them. This was a public channel, so probably a hundred people have these logs.

pera 13y ago

Justice is complicated. Usually it's very difficult to quantify damages, specially when those damages depends on a POV. What I think we all can agree is that sentences times are disproportionated: committing a crime to a corporation is one of the most dangerous things you can do, even more than killing or raping someone. For example: "Causing or encouraging prostitution of, intercourse with or indecent assault on girl under 16" gets you a max sentence of 2 years. So, a guy use his computer to show us some nasty things the government is doing with our money: 10 years A pimp manipulates a 13-years-old girl to have sex with pedophiles: 2 years EDIT: Another example is Chelsea Manning, who now have a criminal sentence of 35 years, and on the other side the guys of Collateral Murder video from the Air Force who killed innocents persons have no charges and are free...

darkarmani 13y ago
> So, a guy use his computer to show us some nasty things the government is doing with our money: 10 years Including stealing people's CCs.

drzaiusapelord 13y ago

This guy was an off-the-grid thief and conman who justified his hacking by "sticking it to the man" which, unfortunately, a lot of HN readers apparently agree relieves him of any moral or personal responsibility for his actions.

baddox 13y ago

> I wonder at what seems like a tone of surprise about the outcome Where are you seeing a tone of surprise? The caption on the main image is his quote: 'I knew when I started out with Anonymous that being put in jail and having a lengthy sentence was a possibility,' and the article goes on to make it quite clear that he was aware of the likely consequences of his actions. He's disgusted, not surprised.