14 ms·

Hacker Claims Feds Hit Him with 44 Felonies When He Refused to Be an FBI Spy

351 points by ghosh 12y ago

tantalor 12y ago
The lead is buried in the last paragraph, > vindictive indictment after a refusal to cooperate... very troubling and very improper How is this different than indicting first and then dropping charges after obtaining cooperation? The threat is the same: work with us or go to jail.
- benbou09 12y ago
  In this case, the charges were clearly bogus, and they were dropped in the end (except for 1). It's not the same as facing a real conviction threat for something you are clearly guilty of.
  - Fuxy 12y ago
    The treat of financial ruin is the same though. Regardless of how bogus the charges may be lawyers are expensive and it's not like if 44 out of 45 charges are bogus they need to pay 44/45 of the defendants attorneys fees. This is just like throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. It should be illegal.
    - benbou09 12y ago
      I agree. The pro bono lawyer is the real good guy, here.
  - rhino369 12y ago
    If he were left to decipher the mess of laws and charges himself, I'd agree that it is improper. But once charged you either get a lawyer or a federal public defender[1]. Even if the attorney didn't know if the stalking charges were going to stick, the lawyer would know the "440 years" isn't accurate. That number is the max for each charge, sentenced back to back to back to .... But the federal sentencing guidelines are very easy to understand. It is essentially a matrix where you look up different factors. Also, the sentences would run at the same time. So 1 charge or 44 wouldn't really make a difference. So he was realistically facing a few years and plead down to 6 months. Not as draconian as 440 years to six months huh? My wife got a speeding ticket on a highway in a federal park. It was a reckless driving misdemeanor charge because she was going 33 over the limit. Max sentencing is like 1 year and 10k dollars. We didn't even bother getting a lawyer because they pled down to regular speeding and a fine of 330 bucks. [1]State public defender quality varies, but the feds are very good.
    - Crito 12y ago
      > "[1]State public defender quality varies, but the feds are very good." Somebody who is in unfamiliar territory in this sort of situation, which would be just about everyone who isn't a lawyer, very likely would not know that. This makes the threat of financial ruination effective, even if financial ruination isn't actually their only option.
- anon4 12y ago
  It's the same and still troubling and improper.
rjaco31 12y ago
Wait, he ended up with 44 charges for just scanning a police website with a vulnerability scanner?
therealunreal 12y ago
All this and the six month sentence just for "repeatedly scanning the local Hidalgo County website for vulnerabilities"? Scanning?
- adventured 12y ago
  It's selective enforcement based on who he is and his associations. That is, they were being opportunistic. Whether that was to send a message or otherwise. It's also possible they were tracking his activity and they chose to pursue it because from early on they wanted to convert him to do work for them.
task_queue 12y ago
The transformation of the already morally culpable role of confidential informant to morally abhorrent confidential provocateur is one that many agencies are forcing upon the useful yet to be convicts.
Qwertious 12y ago
So, "do our dirty work or we'll hit you with all the legal loopholes we can find". Lovely.
- leaveyou 12y ago
  consider that for years before 1989 and after, there was this intense campaign against STASI, KGB, Securitate and other eastern European intelligence services who served the "Evil Empire" and which were using their power to oppress, had millions of informants, were planting microphones in people's houses at the smallest suspicion and were recording any conversations they could. And now you realize the "free world" uses the same methods or worse.
- pixl97 12y ago
  Outside of computers this has been going on for decades in the FBI/ATF's drug and gun business. This is and has been the modus operandi for at least 30 year (that I know of) and probably far longer, and it works well. Get caught with a joint and they'll try to stick distribution on you (with 10+ year sentences) unless you narc someone out. Some with gun violations, they will think of 10s or 100s of very questionable charges and place them against you, threaten jail time in the centuries. Reminds me of the Aaron swartz case.
- buckbova 12y ago
  You know the saying, "If you can't join us, we'll beat you."
Htsthbjig 12y ago
When I was a child I became a member of a cracking group of friends that disassembled and broke protections just for fun(we did not share or sell our cracks although we published info about how to do it). The other day I met them again, now as an adults. It seems like one of the members of the old group took the bait and now is working for secret services or something shady. His life is miserable. You start selling vulnerabilities for easy money and you could end badly. Those entities have so much power and too few scruples.
- driverdan 12y ago
  It doesn't always go bad. I worked for the Secret Service for two years as a CI. At the end they screwed me out of a few hundred dollars but I also didn't have to serve the eight years in prison I was facing. They never asked me to rat on someone, I built up new online identities and trained them.
SpaceInvader 12y ago
It's kinda similar to the post I've submitted yesterday. Shows how us government is playing. It's kinda disturbing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9071148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9071148
jmadsen 12y ago
How stupid are the FBI? Do they really want to bring someone "in the fold" in a coercive manner like this? Someone who's entire ###existence### is about cracking systems and spreading information on what they find? They want to invite him into their own living room, knowing that he hates them and feels they screwed him? The arrogance of these people to think they could actually manage and control someone like him, and not get burned.
- dhimes 12y ago
  Rumor has it that they have some experience turning people. The scary part is that it may not be all that hard to manipulate people. Now excuse me I have to go buy a Lenovo from Best Buy...
  - RemoteWorker 12y ago
    > Now excuse me I have to go buy a Lenovo from Best Buy... What am I missing?
    - CapitalistCartr 12y ago
      Elsewhere on the HN front page is an article about Lenovo putting adware on their computers, and Best Buy is notorious for their shady practices.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        It's not just adware, it's a piece of crapware that defeats SSL on your machine, allowing anyone to pretend that they're e.g. your bank.
    - denisw 12y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072424
- colechristensen 12y ago
  This is fairly naive. Some of the best... ahem... clandestine intelligence work is done by bringing the absolute least trustworthy sort of person into the fold. Namely, the spies of other countries or accomplished persons in some underground or another.
jnardiello 12y ago
Oh, that happened to a friend in Russia as well. Superpowers - they are all the same and never learn.
- hga 12y ago
  My serious start in anti-Communism began with reading in 1971 +- a couple of years a Reader's Digest condensed version of one such "spy's" autobiography. He was entrapped and forced into becoming one, was caught almost immediately upon entering the US. One of the strong and unquestioned implications was this sort of entrapment was wrong, and one of the things that distinguished the US from the USSR. Fast forward to Ruby Ridge, and Randy Weaver's refusal to try to become an undercover agent against a group of white supremacists, which he was not, and they knew that and hated him with a passion, i.e. it would have been suicide, brought the full weight of "the law" on him, resulting in the Feds murdering his wife and son.
lorax108 12y ago
the FBI are honorless cunts.
higherpurpose 12y ago
The American system of piling up charges sucks so hard because it's so easily abused, especially when you live in a country where anyone commits 3 felonies a day [1] due to shitty and complex law. When things have gotten so bad, Americans should take example from other countries and only count the biggest charge when sentencing someone to prison. Minimum sentences + abusive plea bargains don't help the current system either (they do help vengeful government tax-paid employees, though, in destroying the life of anyone they wish). [1] - http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...
- maxerickson 12y ago
  "3 felonies a day" is more of a marketing tagline for a book than it is any sort of meaningful fact. edit: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-average-american-unwittingly-commit-three-felonies-a-day http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-a...
  - pixl97 12y ago
    And yet, if you've ever seen the charges the feds put against people it's not out of line. Lets say you commit one drug felony (transportation for example). Lets say you drive within 1000 feet of 3 schools and pass by a school bus going from point A to point B. Now you have 5 felony charges. What's worse is they will lie to you about the charges, for example if school zone violations are only an enhancement charge, they will put it as a separate charge forcing your lawyer to sift through the paperwork and find faults with them (agents don't get penalized for improper paperwork).
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      I can think the book is awful at the same time I think that sentencing in the US is probably a mess (I say probably because I'm not a careful observer of it). The book claims "How can the average American commit three arguable felonies in the course of a given day?". Yet your example of charge stacking is contingent on carrying a felonious amount of drugs, something the average (mean, median and mode!) American avoids doing. If you click to the website provided above, the first example is of someone "convicted for using plastic bags to transport lobsters". If you look up the case, they were convicted of criminal conspiracy and smuggling, with the horrible plastic bag charge being stacked on: http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/November/647enrd.htm http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/November/647enrd.... And the plastic bag charge isn't about the plastic bags, it's about Honduras having laws designed to protect their lobster fisheries from abusive exports (fisheries are harmed by over harvesting, but someone looking to make near term profits might not care about that, so regulation is sensible).
upofadown 12y ago
It's entirely possible that these "cybercrime" divisions are really desperate to justify their funding. Chances are those sorts of entities are not made up of technical wizards. So coercing someone to do their job for them is pretty much the only hope. If they just hired people then those people would end up running the place.
will_brown 12y ago
This reminds me of a The Florida case of Rachel Hoffman [1]. In short Rachel was arrested for marijuana (and 4 ecstasy pills), and flipped as a CI in a sting requiring here to buy ounces of cocaine, ecstasy and a gun. Rachel disappeared during the sting under watch of LEO and found murdered. It is similar to charging a "hacker" for scanning websites and cyberstalking (I don't know all the charges) then asking that hacker to obtain information on drug cartels and politicians, it is dangerous and unrelated to the underlying crime. At least in Florida as a result of Hoffman we have enacted Rachel's law to protect people in such a situation in the future (but it does not outlaw CIs totally just gives them protection, such as training for officers and right to a lawyer). [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Hoffman http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Hoffman
- orclev 12y ago
  I remember reading about this case around the time the charges were originally filed and those are pretty much the charges. The guy ran nmap (or equivalent) on the website, and submitted some attempts at SQL injections in a few forms. That was pretty much the entirety of his "hacking". Honestly what he got on the plea bargain is at the far end of what I'd consider appropriate for what he did. Something like a small fine, say $500 and a "don't do that again" would probably be more appropriate honestly. Had he actually gotten somewhere with the SQL injection, or actually gained access to something I'd say more might be warrented. FYI the 44 counts were arrived at by charging each form submission individually, so it was really just 1 charge, just counted 44 times.
  - Consultant32452 12y ago
    The 44 counts thing is kind of ludicrous unless he literally made 44 separate attempts at SQL injection at different times rather than 44 separate HTTP requests. Having said that, I think the punishment for "attempted hacking" should be fairly harsh in the way "attempted robbery" is. He was likely attempting to steal copies of information or perhaps even destroy information that could've cost thousands or perhaps even millions to recover depending on who he'd gone after.
pakled_engineer 12y ago
Spying on politicians and cartel members, no thanks. You'd be chained to the FBI forever since they would threaten to dump you in gen pop as a known CI or leverage the safety of your family if you don't do everything they ask.
eloisius 12y ago
Is this legally distinct from blackmail, and if so, how?
- peterwwillis 12y ago
  Blackmail involves not revealing something compromising or injurious. This is legally distinct both because they are not "revealing" anything, and is legal because they're supposedly just enforcing the laws you broke. The government generally works like the mafia, but in reverse: instead of using intimidation tactics to get you to break the law, they use intimidation tactics to get you to put other law breakers in jail. The difference is that the mafia would at least pay you for your efforts. The government just threatens you more.
  - emidln 12y ago
    They are choosing whether or not to reveal evidence at a potential trial. With cooperation, they do not reveal damaging evidence at trial. Without cooperation, they reveal everything. This is exactly how blackmail works in a lot of mafia movies.
    - peterwwillis 12y ago
      If you broke the law, you can, should and will be punished for it; this is not usually negotiable, and they are doing you a favor by not prosecuting you. The moral/ethical grey area here is that forcing someone to work for the government in exchange for not seeking what the law would call 'justice' is the equivalent of indentured servitude, a form of slavery. With blackmail, you might normally have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and a reasonable expectation that someone will not intentionally harm or injure you. The government is not seeking to harm or injure you (well, not theoretically) when it enforces the law. We've all signed the social contract that says that if we break a law, we will suffer the consequences, so it's not unfair for the government to prosecute crimes you have actually committed. It is also fair for them to give you a way out of them, as most cases are pleaded down, prosecutors change offenses to lesser degrees for a good track record, etc. It's also definitely a grey area how prosecutors will often tack on "trumped-up" charges in the expectation that a judge will knock them down to a smaller list but still apply some. Both these practices need to end, or be curtailed greatly.
_pmf_ 12y ago
"And these are only the ones we did not frame you with!"
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- thatsjustcrazy 12y ago
  Yeah, no shit.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  I find it very hard to believe that the three letter agencies have such a shortage of netsec professionals that they offer jobs to untrustworthy computer criminals and script kiddies. Its almost an apocryphal male power fantasy - "You're so awesome, we wont even arrest you, we'll just offer you a job!" I wouldn't put it past law enforcement to use such things to their advantage. It does sound like this was prosecutor... discretion. Probably a ploy to get him to incriminate himself further by having him talk some more or revealing other hacks as a "resume." Sounds like they had a weak case overall. While I'm not happy about such tactics, I think there's a difference between that and forcing people to "work" for the government. Also, this is his word. We don't know how trustworthy he is. While anti-government sentiment is always high, I'd rather not reflexively side with criminals who paint themselves as anti-government. Its possible both sides suck. In fact, its probably the most likely outcome.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Wait, I was with you up til blaming law enforcement for this 'male power fantasy'. Isn't it more likely the guy claiming this is living that fantasy. "Yeah, they caught me, then they offered me a job. And I threw it back in their face! They threatened me, but I stood firm and they caved." Who exactly is living the fantasy in that story? It sounds contrived, I admit, and I think I know who contrived it.
  - 12y ago
finid 12y ago
He's lucky they didn't plant n.u.d.e photos of young boys in his computer and charge him for...
driverdan 12y ago
If this guy gets six months for scanning a website the WebSense execs should be in prison for life. WebSense repeatedly scans websites for security vulnerabilities without permission.
PublicEnemy111 12y ago
Since when is using nmap or its kin illegal?
lectrick 12y ago
Why is probing for weaknesses against the law? If I walk up to a house and jiggle the door handle, and figure out whether it's unlocked or not, and do not actually enter, what crime did I commit? What precedent caused this to be the case? If I am a salesperson who probes for weaknesses in a customer to my own gain, am I also violating the law? What if I am an employee who figured out how to reduce my workload but didn't inform my boss, so I get to surf Hacker News more? I'm a website developer who patched 11 security holes after a security audit in my last contract gig. I think there is nothing wrong with probing. Actually breaking in and taking is another story.

351 points by ghosh 12y ago

The lead is buried in the last paragraph, > vindictive indictment after a refusal to cooperate... very troubling and very improper How is this different than indicting first and then dropping charges after obtaining cooperation? The threat is the same: work with us or go to jail.

benbou09 12y ago
In this case, the charges were clearly bogus, and they were dropped in the end (except for 1). It's not the same as facing a real conviction threat for something you are clearly guilty of.
- Fuxy 12y ago
  The treat of financial ruin is the same though. Regardless of how bogus the charges may be lawyers are expensive and it's not like if 44 out of 45 charges are bogus they need to pay 44/45 of the defendants attorneys fees. This is just like throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. It should be illegal.
  - benbou09 12y ago
    I agree. The pro bono lawyer is the real good guy, here.
- rhino369 12y ago
  If he were left to decipher the mess of laws and charges himself, I'd agree that it is improper. But once charged you either get a lawyer or a federal public defender[1]. Even if the attorney didn't know if the stalking charges were going to stick, the lawyer would know the "440 years" isn't accurate. That number is the max for each charge, sentenced back to back to back to .... But the federal sentencing guidelines are very easy to understand. It is essentially a matrix where you look up different factors. Also, the sentences would run at the same time. So 1 charge or 44 wouldn't really make a difference. So he was realistically facing a few years and plead down to 6 months. Not as draconian as 440 years to six months huh? My wife got a speeding ticket on a highway in a federal park. It was a reckless driving misdemeanor charge because she was going 33 over the limit. Max sentencing is like 1 year and 10k dollars. We didn't even bother getting a lawyer because they pled down to regular speeding and a fine of 330 bucks. [1]State public defender quality varies, but the feds are very good.
  - Crito 12y ago
    > "[1]State public defender quality varies, but the feds are very good." Somebody who is in unfamiliar territory in this sort of situation, which would be just about everyone who isn't a lawyer, very likely would not know that. This makes the threat of financial ruination effective, even if financial ruination isn't actually their only option.
anon4 12y ago
It's the same and still troubling and improper.

rjaco31 12y ago

Wait, he ended up with 44 charges for just scanning a police website with a vulnerability scanner?

therealunreal 12y ago

All this and the six month sentence just for "repeatedly scanning the local Hidalgo County website for vulnerabilities"? Scanning?

adventured 12y ago
It's selective enforcement based on who he is and his associations. That is, they were being opportunistic. Whether that was to send a message or otherwise. It's also possible they were tracking his activity and they chose to pursue it because from early on they wanted to convert him to do work for them.

task_queue 12y ago

The transformation of the already morally culpable role of confidential informant to morally abhorrent confidential provocateur is one that many agencies are forcing upon the useful yet to be convicts.

Qwertious 12y ago

So, "do our dirty work or we'll hit you with all the legal loopholes we can find". Lovely.

leaveyou 12y ago
consider that for years before 1989 and after, there was this intense campaign against STASI, KGB, Securitate and other eastern European intelligence services who served the "Evil Empire" and which were using their power to oppress, had millions of informants, were planting microphones in people's houses at the smallest suspicion and were recording any conversations they could. And now you realize the "free world" uses the same methods or worse.
pixl97 12y ago
Outside of computers this has been going on for decades in the FBI/ATF's drug and gun business. This is and has been the modus operandi for at least 30 year (that I know of) and probably far longer, and it works well. Get caught with a joint and they'll try to stick distribution on you (with 10+ year sentences) unless you narc someone out. Some with gun violations, they will think of 10s or 100s of very questionable charges and place them against you, threaten jail time in the centuries. Reminds me of the Aaron swartz case.
buckbova 12y ago
You know the saying, "If you can't join us, we'll beat you."

Htsthbjig 12y ago

When I was a child I became a member of a cracking group of friends that disassembled and broke protections just for fun(we did not share or sell our cracks although we published info about how to do it). The other day I met them again, now as an adults. It seems like one of the members of the old group took the bait and now is working for secret services or something shady. His life is miserable. You start selling vulnerabilities for easy money and you could end badly. Those entities have so much power and too few scruples.

driverdan 12y ago
It doesn't always go bad. I worked for the Secret Service for two years as a CI. At the end they screwed me out of a few hundred dollars but I also didn't have to serve the eight years in prison I was facing. They never asked me to rat on someone, I built up new online identities and trained them.

SpaceInvader 12y ago

It's kinda similar to the post I've submitted yesterday. Shows how us government is playing. It's kinda disturbing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9071148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9071148

jmadsen 12y ago

How stupid are the FBI? Do they really want to bring someone "in the fold" in a coercive manner like this? Someone who's entire ###existence### is about cracking systems and spreading information on what they find? They want to invite him into their own living room, knowing that he hates them and feels they screwed him? The arrogance of these people to think they could actually manage and control someone like him, and not get burned.

dhimes 12y ago
Rumor has it that they have some experience turning people. The scary part is that it may not be all that hard to manipulate people. Now excuse me I have to go buy a Lenovo from Best Buy...
- RemoteWorker 12y ago
  > Now excuse me I have to go buy a Lenovo from Best Buy... What am I missing?
  - CapitalistCartr 12y ago
    Elsewhere on the HN front page is an article about Lenovo putting adware on their computers, and Best Buy is notorious for their shady practices.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      It's not just adware, it's a piece of crapware that defeats SSL on your machine, allowing anyone to pretend that they're e.g. your bank.
  - denisw 12y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072424
colechristensen 12y ago
This is fairly naive. Some of the best... ahem... clandestine intelligence work is done by bringing the absolute least trustworthy sort of person into the fold. Namely, the spies of other countries or accomplished persons in some underground or another.

jnardiello 12y ago

Oh, that happened to a friend in Russia as well. Superpowers - they are all the same and never learn.

hga 12y ago
My serious start in anti-Communism began with reading in 1971 +- a couple of years a Reader's Digest condensed version of one such "spy's" autobiography. He was entrapped and forced into becoming one, was caught almost immediately upon entering the US. One of the strong and unquestioned implications was this sort of entrapment was wrong, and one of the things that distinguished the US from the USSR. Fast forward to Ruby Ridge, and Randy Weaver's refusal to try to become an undercover agent against a group of white supremacists, which he was not, and they knew that and hated him with a passion, i.e. it would have been suicide, brought the full weight of "the law" on him, resulting in the Feds murdering his wife and son.

lorax108 12y ago

the FBI are honorless cunts.

higherpurpose 12y ago

The American system of piling up charges sucks so hard because it's so easily abused, especially when you live in a country where anyone commits 3 felonies a day [1] due to shitty and complex law. When things have gotten so bad, Americans should take example from other countries and only count the biggest charge when sentencing someone to prison. Minimum sentences + abusive plea bargains don't help the current system either (they do help vengeful government tax-paid employees, though, in destroying the life of anyone they wish). [1] - http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...

maxerickson 12y ago
"3 felonies a day" is more of a marketing tagline for a book than it is any sort of meaningful fact. edit: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-average-american-unwittingly-commit-three-felonies-a-day http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-a...
- pixl97 12y ago
  And yet, if you've ever seen the charges the feds put against people it's not out of line. Lets say you commit one drug felony (transportation for example). Lets say you drive within 1000 feet of 3 schools and pass by a school bus going from point A to point B. Now you have 5 felony charges. What's worse is they will lie to you about the charges, for example if school zone violations are only an enhancement charge, they will put it as a separate charge forcing your lawyer to sift through the paperwork and find faults with them (agents don't get penalized for improper paperwork).
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    I can think the book is awful at the same time I think that sentencing in the US is probably a mess (I say probably because I'm not a careful observer of it). The book claims "How can the average American commit three arguable felonies in the course of a given day?". Yet your example of charge stacking is contingent on carrying a felonious amount of drugs, something the average (mean, median and mode!) American avoids doing. If you click to the website provided above, the first example is of someone "convicted for using plastic bags to transport lobsters". If you look up the case, they were convicted of criminal conspiracy and smuggling, with the horrible plastic bag charge being stacked on: http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/November/647enrd.htm http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/November/647enrd.... And the plastic bag charge isn't about the plastic bags, it's about Honduras having laws designed to protect their lobster fisheries from abusive exports (fisheries are harmed by over harvesting, but someone looking to make near term profits might not care about that, so regulation is sensible).

upofadown 12y ago

It's entirely possible that these "cybercrime" divisions are really desperate to justify their funding. Chances are those sorts of entities are not made up of technical wizards. So coercing someone to do their job for them is pretty much the only hope. If they just hired people then those people would end up running the place.

will_brown 12y ago

This reminds me of a The Florida case of Rachel Hoffman [1]. In short Rachel was arrested for marijuana (and 4 ecstasy pills), and flipped as a CI in a sting requiring here to buy ounces of cocaine, ecstasy and a gun. Rachel disappeared during the sting under watch of LEO and found murdered. It is similar to charging a "hacker" for scanning websites and cyberstalking (I don't know all the charges) then asking that hacker to obtain information on drug cartels and politicians, it is dangerous and unrelated to the underlying crime. At least in Florida as a result of Hoffman we have enacted Rachel's law to protect people in such a situation in the future (but it does not outlaw CIs totally just gives them protection, such as training for officers and right to a lawyer). [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Hoffman http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Hoffman

orclev 12y ago
I remember reading about this case around the time the charges were originally filed and those are pretty much the charges. The guy ran nmap (or equivalent) on the website, and submitted some attempts at SQL injections in a few forms. That was pretty much the entirety of his "hacking". Honestly what he got on the plea bargain is at the far end of what I'd consider appropriate for what he did. Something like a small fine, say $500 and a "don't do that again" would probably be more appropriate honestly. Had he actually gotten somewhere with the SQL injection, or actually gained access to something I'd say more might be warrented. FYI the 44 counts were arrived at by charging each form submission individually, so it was really just 1 charge, just counted 44 times.
- Consultant32452 12y ago
  The 44 counts thing is kind of ludicrous unless he literally made 44 separate attempts at SQL injection at different times rather than 44 separate HTTP requests. Having said that, I think the punishment for "attempted hacking" should be fairly harsh in the way "attempted robbery" is. He was likely attempting to steal copies of information or perhaps even destroy information that could've cost thousands or perhaps even millions to recover depending on who he'd gone after.

pakled_engineer 12y ago

Spying on politicians and cartel members, no thanks. You'd be chained to the FBI forever since they would threaten to dump you in gen pop as a known CI or leverage the safety of your family if you don't do everything they ask.

eloisius 12y ago

Is this legally distinct from blackmail, and if so, how?

peterwwillis 12y ago
Blackmail involves not revealing something compromising or injurious. This is legally distinct both because they are not "revealing" anything, and is legal because they're supposedly just enforcing the laws you broke. The government generally works like the mafia, but in reverse: instead of using intimidation tactics to get you to break the law, they use intimidation tactics to get you to put other law breakers in jail. The difference is that the mafia would at least pay you for your efforts. The government just threatens you more.
- emidln 12y ago
  They are choosing whether or not to reveal evidence at a potential trial. With cooperation, they do not reveal damaging evidence at trial. Without cooperation, they reveal everything. This is exactly how blackmail works in a lot of mafia movies.
  - peterwwillis 12y ago
    If you broke the law, you can, should and will be punished for it; this is not usually negotiable, and they are doing you a favor by not prosecuting you. The moral/ethical grey area here is that forcing someone to work for the government in exchange for not seeking what the law would call 'justice' is the equivalent of indentured servitude, a form of slavery. With blackmail, you might normally have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and a reasonable expectation that someone will not intentionally harm or injure you. The government is not seeking to harm or injure you (well, not theoretically) when it enforces the law. We've all signed the social contract that says that if we break a law, we will suffer the consequences, so it's not unfair for the government to prosecute crimes you have actually committed. It is also fair for them to give you a way out of them, as most cases are pleaded down, prosecutors change offenses to lesser degrees for a good track record, etc. It's also definitely a grey area how prosecutors will often tack on "trumped-up" charges in the expectation that a judge will knock them down to a smaller list but still apply some. Both these practices need to end, or be curtailed greatly.

_pmf_ 12y ago

"And these are only the ones we did not frame you with!"

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[deleted]

thatsjustcrazy 12y ago
Yeah, no shit.
- deleted 12y ago
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drzaiusapelord 12y ago
I find it very hard to believe that the three letter agencies have such a shortage of netsec professionals that they offer jobs to untrustworthy computer criminals and script kiddies. Its almost an apocryphal male power fantasy - "You're so awesome, we wont even arrest you, we'll just offer you a job!" I wouldn't put it past law enforcement to use such things to their advantage. It does sound like this was prosecutor... discretion. Probably a ploy to get him to incriminate himself further by having him talk some more or revealing other hacks as a "resume." Sounds like they had a weak case overall. While I'm not happy about such tactics, I think there's a difference between that and forcing people to "work" for the government. Also, this is his word. We don't know how trustworthy he is. While anti-government sentiment is always high, I'd rather not reflexively side with criminals who paint themselves as anti-government. Its possible both sides suck. In fact, its probably the most likely outcome.
- deleted 12y ago
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- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Wait, I was with you up til blaming law enforcement for this 'male power fantasy'. Isn't it more likely the guy claiming this is living that fantasy. "Yeah, they caught me, then they offered me a job. And I threw it back in their face! They threatened me, but I stood firm and they caved." Who exactly is living the fantasy in that story? It sounds contrived, I admit, and I think I know who contrived it.
- 12y ago

finid 12y ago

He's lucky they didn't plant n.u.d.e photos of young boys in his computer and charge him for...

driverdan 12y ago

If this guy gets six months for scanning a website the WebSense execs should be in prison for life. WebSense repeatedly scans websites for security vulnerabilities without permission.

PublicEnemy111 12y ago

Since when is using nmap or its kin illegal?

lectrick 12y ago

Why is probing for weaknesses against the law? If I walk up to a house and jiggle the door handle, and figure out whether it's unlocked or not, and do not actually enter, what crime did I commit? What precedent caused this to be the case? If I am a salesperson who probes for weaknesses in a customer to my own gain, am I also violating the law? What if I am an employee who figured out how to reduce my workload but didn't inform my boss, so I get to surf Hacker News more? I'm a website developer who patched 11 security holes after a security audit in my last contract gig. I think there is nothing wrong with probing. Actually breaking in and taking is another story.