6 ms·

When Going Online Will Send You to Prison

62 points by nols 12y ago

malka 12y ago
"Since Higinio's parole officer doesn't want Kylie acting as a middle-man between Higinio and the Internet, for larger batches of code he is forced to actually print the code out and mail it to his boss, who then has someone else type it up." So stupid.
- pascalmemories 12y ago
  Indeed stupid. But in the US, parole officers see their role to add additional punishment through threats and inserting petty and vindictive 'rules' into the lives of released prisoners in order to reinforce their authority and express the displeasure of the authorities. There are countless examples of people being returned to prison for trivial and even made up violations of parole - remember private prison is big business in America with lots of money to be made from returning people to prison (and sending them there in the first place). Other countries see parole officers tasked with helping ex-prisoners return to society and keeping them out of trouble through support and assistance. Often parole officers are social workers or psychologists specializing in dealing with ex-offenders. A return to prison is seen as a failure of the parole officer rather than of the prisoner.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    > remember private prison is big business in America with lots of money to be made from returning people to prison (and sending them there in the first place). Less than 10% of U.S. prisoners are in privately-managed prisons, and it's a very recent phenomenon (the number was negligible in the 1990's). For profit-prisons are an opportunistic reaction to the pettiness and vindictiveness of the prison culture that grew out of the "tough on crime" movements of the 1980's and 1990's. They aren't responsible for the culture.
    - pyre 12y ago
      > They aren't responsible for the culture. While this is true, they have a profit-motive to support it, which means that there is now a contingent of lobbyists throwing money around to keep things the way that they are (or even worse, force them in an even more extreme direction).
    - pascalmemories 12y ago
      > For profit-prisons are an opportunistic reaction Are you sure about that ? 2,000 incarcerated children would disagree. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/07/juvenille-judges-cash-detention-centre http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/07/juvenille-judge...
  - vorg 12y ago
    Not just private prisons but all prisons in the US. There's lots of jobs to be created from sending people to prison. When over 1% of the US adult population is in prison or lockup, this entrenches itself into American society as a "prison-industrial complex".
- dfxm12 12y ago
  Why can't he just mail the USB drive? This part of the story doesn't add up...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    Probably to win over the public by coming up with bizarre scenarios. Look at how many HN'ers think he shouldn't be punished. If you want to hack, you should deal with the consequences. I don't see any problem here. Part of parole is continued punishment and to see if the person is serious about being a good citizen or not.
    - nickysielicki 12y ago
      > If you want to hack, you should deal with the consequences. w0rmer got caught because he forgot to strip exif data from the bottom of one of his leaks. He had his girlfriend take her tits out with a sign saying, "You got pwned by w0rmer" and that was that. I couldn't disagree more that he deserves to be punished. He doxxed some police officers because of police brutality. Stop fearing 'hacking', and start realizing it's one of the few things where citizens are on equal grounding with our government. He didn't cause any damage, besides making some police officers feel uncomfortable... Yet probably not as uncomfortable as their victims. Each and every one of these idiot hackers willing to risk their livelihood and families for a little civil disobedience should be celebrated for the martyrs they are.
      - lfowles 12y ago
        > Each and every one of these idiot hackers willing to risk their livelihood and families for a little civil disobedience should be celebrated for the martyrs they are. Reading TFA, it seems he's now unwilling to risk his livelihood and family now that he knows the consequences.
        12y ago
jqm 12y ago
Serious question: do they sometimes ban offenders from using phones or books?
- pascalmemories 12y ago
  They apparently even stop them using a payphone in prison in case they launch nuclear missiles by whistling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest.2C_conviction.2C_and_incarceration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest.2C_convic...
- pluma 12y ago
  It's the US. They sometimes kill offenders with drone strikes or disappear them into torture camps.
  - bjelkeman-again 12y ago
    Sometimes those targeted aren't even offenders.
  - rhino369 12y ago
    Should the 101st airborne have been comprised of lawyers trying to serve criminal complaints behind Normandy Beach?
    - pluma 11y ago
      It's not a war and you aren't the good guys. Deal with it.
tzs 12y ago
I wonder if he could pick up a couple of dial-up modems, and set up a dial in BBS at work and use that for file transfer?
- rjaco31 12y ago
  I guess you wouldn't try to be a smartass in such a situation. Parole violation means going back to jail.
- pyre 12y ago
  His parole office didn't like the idea of his wife emailing work files for him... I don't think they would be accepting of this. Ultimately it's up to his parole officer (and even if he were to fight it, a victory might just mean dealing with a pissed off parole officer for the rest of his time on parole).
lost_my_pwd 12y ago
This comment from Higinio is both telling of his mindset and maddening: "They're not going to give a [...] 13-year-old kid access to a multi-million dollar Unix server because he wants to learn to program. They will use shitty passwords and let me break into it. But that's on them."
- Raphmedia 12y ago
  Well, if your password is "123456", "password", "root" or "dragon" for your entire system, you are indeed asking for it.
  - pionar 12y ago
    Poor security is not a valid defense for crime. "Well, you left your shed unlocked, so I guess the guy was allowed to steal your tools."
    - pyre 12y ago
      At the same time, if someone steals from your work because you left the door unlocked, you get fired. If someone hacks your work because your password was "password" you don't get fired. Poor computer security comes with little accountability.
    - Raphmedia 12y ago
      I see it like this: "Well, the safe was on the side of the road and the combination was 1234. Opened it, looked what was in it and closed it afterward after putting a piece of paper in it saying that I was there. Can't blame a man for being curious."
      - rhino369 12y ago
        But that isn't what he was doing. Defacing a website isn't like "putting a piece of paper" in it. And the crime he got caught for he leaked a bunch of information and purposely accessed sensitive materials. Plenty of people don't lock their front door. That doesn't mean you can go take a dump on their floor and then post their diary online.
sixQuarks 12y ago
There's no way this guy is not using the internet from time to time. If his wife is allowed to use it, how will the parole officer know if it's him or his wife using it?
- outworlder 12y ago
  There may be surveillance that he doesn't know about.
christianbryant 12y ago
This is a great article - I feel like I want to read more, and that it should be expanded into a feature. Nothing is stopping him from writing brutally malicious code, by the way. He is technically still a threat. At any time, he could hand that USB over to his wife with malicious intent. That's not a judgement of him, but a simple analysis of how cyber crime and punishment is still entirely misunderstood by the majority of the legal system.
rayiner 12y ago
You can't make this shit up: > Like the hacks that had come before it, Higinio released the information in a web page which contained some ASCII art, a video, and a picture of Kylie from the neck down holding a sign that said "PwNd by wOrmer & CabinCr3w <3 u BiTch's!" The picture was taken with Kylie's iPhone and she had location services turned on. This meant that location data was embedded in every picture she took.
- nickysielicki 12y ago
  The leak itself: http://pastehtml.com/view/bn72jbka4.html http://pastehtml.com/view/bn72jbka4.html No nudity but still NSFW.
  - _nullandnull_ 12y ago
    OPSEC is hard. EXIF GPS from the image. GPS Latitude Reference {0x01} = south latitude (S) GPS Latitude {0x02} = 37/1,5142/100,0/1 [degrees, minutes, seconds] ===> 37° 51.42′ == 37.857° GPS Longitude Reference {0x03} = east longitude (E) GPS Longitude {0x04} = 145/1,1502/100,0/1 [degrees, minutes, seconds] ===> 145° 15.02′ == 145.250333° https://www.google.com/maps?q=-37.857,145.250333&z=15 https://www.google.com/maps?q=-37.857,145.250333&z=15
- gknoy 12y ago
  It's interesting to be reminded in little ways of the importance (and all-or-nothing nature) of opsec. It's something most of us don't really think about, since we tend not to consider ourselves as having a reason for it.
  - alextgordon 12y ago
    Funny. I took the opposite conclusion. Opsec is an impossibility. Might as well plaster your real name over everything, if it keeps you honest.
mratzloff 12y ago
> "Tits or GTFO." > Surprisingly, that didn't deter Kylie. In fact, she responded by posting a picture of herself in a bikini. "So we started talking," says Higinio. "And from there it was just love. This has to be the first instance in history where that line has resulted in marriage.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- kazinator 12y ago
  The idea that women never respond positively to that sort of thing, and are universally offended by it, is only a naive stereotype, reminiscent of "women hate porn; it is only for men".
  - xtrumanx 12y ago
    Possibly true but still shouldn't be encouraged. It's like catcalling; maybe you've met women that way but you also probably annoyed a whole lot more. The cons outweigh the pros (unless you don't care how you make other people feel).
  - mratzloff 12y ago
    Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of emotionally unhealthy women who respond well to statements like that from strangers.
kazinator 12y ago
Convicted hit-and-run drivers should similarly be forbidden from taking a taxi or bus, or riding as a passenger. They are dangerous if in any contact with a motor vehicle. And that should probably include escalators and elevators, too.
- pyre 12y ago
  That's a poor analogy. They are forbidden from operating a motor vehicle. In this case, he's forbidden to operate technology that's connected to the internet. His wife controlling the Netflix feed is analogous to a drunk driver taking the bus (someone else is driving).
  - kazinator 12y ago
    Well, you are ruining the analogy by carrying over the word "operating" from one context to another, where it has different nuances. That is a form of equivocation over word semantics. Hit-and-run drivers are forbidden from driving, but not from using as passengers. Passengers also "operate" vehicles through that use, but we don't use the word that way; when it refers to vehicles, it serves as a synonym for being behind the wheel, used in puffy legal language. For instance, a taxi arrives because the user made a telephone call. The user isn't involved in the details, but is commanding the situation. Just like the user of Firefox requests a URL, but isn't involved in putting fields into a TCP/IP packet header, or writing any code. It is nonsensical to forbid a convicted cracker from consumer activities such as looking up today's weather, or searching for a used lawn mower on Craigslist. The concern that these will cause an intrusion is like worrying that someone taking a taxi might order the driver to run someone over. Or something like that. You're not going to break into the Pentagon out of your Netflix remote. For that matter, if you knew of a way how, you could easily get your wife to push the buttons. (And she will do it, too, because you had her at "tits or GTFO".)
    - betenoire 12y ago
      I think your point is weakened by your analogy, your last two paragraphs stand on their own.

62 points by nols 12y ago

malka 12y ago

"Since Higinio's parole officer doesn't want Kylie acting as a middle-man between Higinio and the Internet, for larger batches of code he is forced to actually print the code out and mail it to his boss, who then has someone else type it up." So stupid.

pascalmemories 12y ago
Indeed stupid. But in the US, parole officers see their role to add additional punishment through threats and inserting petty and vindictive 'rules' into the lives of released prisoners in order to reinforce their authority and express the displeasure of the authorities. There are countless examples of people being returned to prison for trivial and even made up violations of parole - remember private prison is big business in America with lots of money to be made from returning people to prison (and sending them there in the first place). Other countries see parole officers tasked with helping ex-prisoners return to society and keeping them out of trouble through support and assistance. Often parole officers are social workers or psychologists specializing in dealing with ex-offenders. A return to prison is seen as a failure of the parole officer rather than of the prisoner.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > remember private prison is big business in America with lots of money to be made from returning people to prison (and sending them there in the first place). Less than 10% of U.S. prisoners are in privately-managed prisons, and it's a very recent phenomenon (the number was negligible in the 1990's). For profit-prisons are an opportunistic reaction to the pettiness and vindictiveness of the prison culture that grew out of the "tough on crime" movements of the 1980's and 1990's. They aren't responsible for the culture.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > They aren't responsible for the culture. While this is true, they have a profit-motive to support it, which means that there is now a contingent of lobbyists throwing money around to keep things the way that they are (or even worse, force them in an even more extreme direction).
  - pascalmemories 12y ago
    > For profit-prisons are an opportunistic reaction Are you sure about that ? 2,000 incarcerated children would disagree. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/07/juvenille-judges-cash-detention-centre http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/07/juvenille-judge...
- vorg 12y ago
  Not just private prisons but all prisons in the US. There's lots of jobs to be created from sending people to prison. When over 1% of the US adult population is in prison or lockup, this entrenches itself into American society as a "prison-industrial complex".
dfxm12 12y ago
Why can't he just mail the USB drive? This part of the story doesn't add up...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  Probably to win over the public by coming up with bizarre scenarios. Look at how many HN'ers think he shouldn't be punished. If you want to hack, you should deal with the consequences. I don't see any problem here. Part of parole is continued punishment and to see if the person is serious about being a good citizen or not.
  - nickysielicki 12y ago
    > If you want to hack, you should deal with the consequences. w0rmer got caught because he forgot to strip exif data from the bottom of one of his leaks. He had his girlfriend take her tits out with a sign saying, "You got pwned by w0rmer" and that was that. I couldn't disagree more that he deserves to be punished. He doxxed some police officers because of police brutality. Stop fearing 'hacking', and start realizing it's one of the few things where citizens are on equal grounding with our government. He didn't cause any damage, besides making some police officers feel uncomfortable... Yet probably not as uncomfortable as their victims. Each and every one of these idiot hackers willing to risk their livelihood and families for a little civil disobedience should be celebrated for the martyrs they are.
    - lfowles 12y ago
      > Each and every one of these idiot hackers willing to risk their livelihood and families for a little civil disobedience should be celebrated for the martyrs they are. Reading TFA, it seems he's now unwilling to risk his livelihood and family now that he knows the consequences.
      - 12y ago

jqm 12y ago

Serious question: do they sometimes ban offenders from using phones or books?

pascalmemories 12y ago
They apparently even stop them using a payphone in prison in case they launch nuclear missiles by whistling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest.2C_conviction.2C_and_incarceration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest.2C_convic...
pluma 12y ago
It's the US. They sometimes kill offenders with drone strikes or disappear them into torture camps.
- bjelkeman-again 12y ago
  Sometimes those targeted aren't even offenders.
- rhino369 12y ago
  Should the 101st airborne have been comprised of lawyers trying to serve criminal complaints behind Normandy Beach?
  - pluma 11y ago
    It's not a war and you aren't the good guys. Deal with it.

tzs 12y ago

I wonder if he could pick up a couple of dial-up modems, and set up a dial in BBS at work and use that for file transfer?

rjaco31 12y ago
I guess you wouldn't try to be a smartass in such a situation. Parole violation means going back to jail.
pyre 12y ago
His parole office didn't like the idea of his wife emailing work files for him... I don't think they would be accepting of this. Ultimately it's up to his parole officer (and even if he were to fight it, a victory might just mean dealing with a pissed off parole officer for the rest of his time on parole).

lost_my_pwd 12y ago

This comment from Higinio is both telling of his mindset and maddening: "They're not going to give a [...] 13-year-old kid access to a multi-million dollar Unix server because he wants to learn to program. They will use shitty passwords and let me break into it. But that's on them."

Raphmedia 12y ago
Well, if your password is "123456", "password", "root" or "dragon" for your entire system, you are indeed asking for it.
- pionar 12y ago
  Poor security is not a valid defense for crime. "Well, you left your shed unlocked, so I guess the guy was allowed to steal your tools."
  - pyre 12y ago
    At the same time, if someone steals from your work because you left the door unlocked, you get fired. If someone hacks your work because your password was "password" you don't get fired. Poor computer security comes with little accountability.
  - Raphmedia 12y ago
    I see it like this: "Well, the safe was on the side of the road and the combination was 1234. Opened it, looked what was in it and closed it afterward after putting a piece of paper in it saying that I was there. Can't blame a man for being curious."
    - rhino369 12y ago
      But that isn't what he was doing. Defacing a website isn't like "putting a piece of paper" in it. And the crime he got caught for he leaked a bunch of information and purposely accessed sensitive materials. Plenty of people don't lock their front door. That doesn't mean you can go take a dump on their floor and then post their diary online.

sixQuarks 12y ago

There's no way this guy is not using the internet from time to time. If his wife is allowed to use it, how will the parole officer know if it's him or his wife using it?

outworlder 12y ago
There may be surveillance that he doesn't know about.

christianbryant 12y ago

This is a great article - I feel like I want to read more, and that it should be expanded into a feature. Nothing is stopping him from writing brutally malicious code, by the way. He is technically still a threat. At any time, he could hand that USB over to his wife with malicious intent. That's not a judgement of him, but a simple analysis of how cyber crime and punishment is still entirely misunderstood by the majority of the legal system.

rayiner 12y ago

You can't make this shit up: > Like the hacks that had come before it, Higinio released the information in a web page which contained some ASCII art, a video, and a picture of Kylie from the neck down holding a sign that said "PwNd by wOrmer & CabinCr3w <3 u BiTch's!" The picture was taken with Kylie's iPhone and she had location services turned on. This meant that location data was embedded in every picture she took.

nickysielicki 12y ago
The leak itself: http://pastehtml.com/view/bn72jbka4.html http://pastehtml.com/view/bn72jbka4.html No nudity but still NSFW.
- _nullandnull_ 12y ago
  OPSEC is hard. EXIF GPS from the image. GPS Latitude Reference {0x01} = south latitude (S) GPS Latitude {0x02} = 37/1,5142/100,0/1 [degrees, minutes, seconds] ===> 37° 51.42′ == 37.857° GPS Longitude Reference {0x03} = east longitude (E) GPS Longitude {0x04} = 145/1,1502/100,0/1 [degrees, minutes, seconds] ===> 145° 15.02′ == 145.250333° https://www.google.com/maps?q=-37.857,145.250333&z=15 https://www.google.com/maps?q=-37.857,145.250333&z=15
gknoy 12y ago
It's interesting to be reminded in little ways of the importance (and all-or-nothing nature) of opsec. It's something most of us don't really think about, since we tend not to consider ourselves as having a reason for it.
- alextgordon 12y ago
  Funny. I took the opposite conclusion. Opsec is an impossibility. Might as well plaster your real name over everything, if it keeps you honest.

mratzloff 12y ago

> "Tits or GTFO." > Surprisingly, that didn't deter Kylie. In fact, she responded by posting a picture of herself in a bikini. "So we started talking," says Higinio. "And from there it was just love. This has to be the first instance in history where that line has resulted in marriage.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 12y ago
The idea that women never respond positively to that sort of thing, and are universally offended by it, is only a naive stereotype, reminiscent of "women hate porn; it is only for men".
- xtrumanx 12y ago
  Possibly true but still shouldn't be encouraged. It's like catcalling; maybe you've met women that way but you also probably annoyed a whole lot more. The cons outweigh the pros (unless you don't care how you make other people feel).
- mratzloff 12y ago
  Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of emotionally unhealthy women who respond well to statements like that from strangers.

kazinator 12y ago

Convicted hit-and-run drivers should similarly be forbidden from taking a taxi or bus, or riding as a passenger. They are dangerous if in any contact with a motor vehicle. And that should probably include escalators and elevators, too.

pyre 12y ago
That's a poor analogy. They are forbidden from operating a motor vehicle. In this case, he's forbidden to operate technology that's connected to the internet. His wife controlling the Netflix feed is analogous to a drunk driver taking the bus (someone else is driving).
- kazinator 12y ago
  Well, you are ruining the analogy by carrying over the word "operating" from one context to another, where it has different nuances. That is a form of equivocation over word semantics. Hit-and-run drivers are forbidden from driving, but not from using as passengers. Passengers also "operate" vehicles through that use, but we don't use the word that way; when it refers to vehicles, it serves as a synonym for being behind the wheel, used in puffy legal language. For instance, a taxi arrives because the user made a telephone call. The user isn't involved in the details, but is commanding the situation. Just like the user of Firefox requests a URL, but isn't involved in putting fields into a TCP/IP packet header, or writing any code. It is nonsensical to forbid a convicted cracker from consumer activities such as looking up today's weather, or searching for a used lawn mower on Craigslist. The concern that these will cause an intrusion is like worrying that someone taking a taxi might order the driver to run someone over. Or something like that. You're not going to break into the Pentagon out of your Netflix remote. For that matter, if you knew of a way how, you could easily get your wife to push the buttons. (And she will do it, too, because you had her at "tits or GTFO".)
  - betenoire 12y ago
    I think your point is weakened by your analogy, your last two paragraphs stand on their own.