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Watt once had a lucrative Wall Street career coding software for real-time stock-trading systems until he wrote a packet- sniffing program for a long-t

Watt once had a lucrative Wall Street career coding software for real-time stock-trading systems until he wrote a packet- sniffing program for a long-time friend and found himself embroiled in a multi-million-dollar bank card heist that netted him a two-year prison term. I love how puff-pieces always trivialize the things that would run counter to their narrative. He didn't really do anything wrong - he was just helping his friend[0][1]. People do what they do, and that's cool - but let's not pretend he just accidentally found himself tripped up in some fraud situation, oops don't know how that happened hey look an awesome product in which trust is essential! 0. There's a slightly more complete look here, though not focused on Watt: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/sex-drugs-and-the-biggest-cybercrime-of-all-time-20101111 http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/sex-drugs-and-the-b... 1. Wired did a similar sympathetic piece last year in which they made Watt's past seem like a minor misdeed (some wording is essentially identical to what I quoted above): http://www.wired.com/2013/04/stephen-watt-stalked-by-past/ http://www.wired.com/2013/04/stephen-watt-stalked-by-past/

Mandatum 12y ago
In response to the Rolling Stone article: Patrick's job was to probe corporate networks for vulnerabilities to a malware attack known as a "sequel injection," which overwhelms the victim's system with meaningless commands until the system gives up and defaults to using the malicious code. Sequel injection, huh? :P
- girvo 12y ago
  That... wow. That's exactly what "Sequel injection" is, basically, you overwhelm the target with "v2.0", or the "sequel", if you will, and it just gives up and runs that code, thus "injecting" the "sequel". Holy crap.
  - Mandatum 12y ago
    Yeah aside from that and a small number of other gems, it's a really good article. Read it a long time ago when it was first published, but definitely one I can re-read for the pure enjoyment factor.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  Assuming they mean SQL injection... well, "sequel" is at least recognized as one of two mainstream pronunciations. My mom once pronounced that initialism as "squirrel".
sarciszewski 12y ago
According to Watt, he was convicted for fixing compiler flags for a general purpose tcpdump-esque sniffer program because the TJ Maxx fraudsters (Albert Gonzalez, et al.) were too incompetent to figure it out themselves. This is the sort of innocuous request you might get from someone on a forum "because you look like you know C." http://infiltratecon.com/watt.html http://infiltratecon.com/watt.html
- tptacek 12y ago
  In this case, it wasn't some person on a forum asking him just because he knew C.
  - sarciszewski 12y ago
    True, but that's the sort of situation the rest of us might find ourselves in if we're not careful. I was alluding more to a sort of "lesson to be learned" from his story than the granular facts of it.
bsimpson 12y ago
That Rolling Stone article was both an interesting read and good contrast to the OP re: Watt's character. Thanks for sharing.

Mandatum 12y ago

In response to the Rolling Stone article: Patrick's job was to probe corporate networks for vulnerabilities to a malware attack known as a "sequel injection," which overwhelms the victim's system with meaningless commands until the system gives up and defaults to using the malicious code. Sequel injection, huh? :P

girvo 12y ago
That... wow. That's exactly what "Sequel injection" is, basically, you overwhelm the target with "v2.0", or the "sequel", if you will, and it just gives up and runs that code, thus "injecting" the "sequel". Holy crap.
- Mandatum 12y ago
  Yeah aside from that and a small number of other gems, it's a really good article. Read it a long time ago when it was first published, but definitely one I can re-read for the pure enjoyment factor.
cbd1984 12y ago
Assuming they mean SQL injection... well, "sequel" is at least recognized as one of two mainstream pronunciations. My mom once pronounced that initialism as "squirrel".

sarciszewski 12y ago

According to Watt, he was convicted for fixing compiler flags for a general purpose tcpdump-esque sniffer program because the TJ Maxx fraudsters (Albert Gonzalez, et al.) were too incompetent to figure it out themselves. This is the sort of innocuous request you might get from someone on a forum "because you look like you know C." http://infiltratecon.com/watt.html http://infiltratecon.com/watt.html

tptacek 12y ago
In this case, it wasn't some person on a forum asking him just because he knew C.
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  True, but that's the sort of situation the rest of us might find ourselves in if we're not careful. I was alluding more to a sort of "lesson to be learned" from his story than the granular facts of it.

bsimpson 12y ago

That Rolling Stone article was both an interesting read and good contrast to the OP re: Watt's character. Thanks for sharing.