Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

newschannel9.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 202 posts

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#111

Post by sametmax »

i336_ wrote: post #73
sametmax wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything dev. People in computing don't care that much about your background if you are skilled. You can even work remotely for/from companies in another country. And the good news is, good devs are rare, but the demand for them keep increasing. So if you become productive and reliable with a pinch of people skills, you are pretty much guarantied to have a job in the next 20 years. And probably a good one.

I disagree based on this interesting story of an incident that reportedly happened at Google approx 3 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6750805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6245316 This is all the data I've got on the state of industry; genuinely interested to hear tidbits from anybody that things aren't this ugly nowadays. I'm not in the demographic of people dealing with problematic pasts (and…

The GAFAs are terrible example of what happens in the industry. They have challenges and behaviors the vast majority of companies don't have.

But the world is still running because of millions of not-so-big companies. They have IT needs too.

Actually the majority of IT jobs are NOT at IT companies, but in regular companies that need IT like anybody.

I've been working in porn during my first 5 years and nobody cared. Actually most companies didn't even checked.

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#112

Post by sametmax »

metafunctor wrote: post #77
omnimus wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope it does.

Why? We already have one Reddit.

Because people here are taking themselves too seriously. A bit of humor and subculture could ease them on. You can be an expert/millionaire/famouswhatever and enjoy something else than endless debates where people are trying to be technically correct and pessimistic to the bones.

Maybe it's just me ?

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#113

Post by jacquesm »

scoobydoo123 wrote: post #110
jacquesm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because ordinary people are just as much a part of society as the criminals that society has decided to lock away. By forcing criminals to work for free society is paying in another way: that work would have been done by someone on the outside, but you can't compete with slave labor. So this is bad both for the inmates and for society from an economic point of view, and then we're side-stepping the moral issue.

Not really. The basic rule of economics is that you have to give something in order to get something. Inmates should be given a choice of working and making money so they can pay for their living or do nothing and starve to death - just like any other member of the society outside of prison. What you're talking about is really a disproportion between amount of work they make (and value they produce) and the total amo…

> Inmates should be given a choice of working and making money so they can pay for their living or do nothing and starve to death - just like any other member of the society outside of prison.

Their freedom to negotiate has been taken away, therefore they do not have any choices.

> What you're talking about is really a disproportion between amount of work they make (and value they produce) and the total amount of pay they receive for delivering that value.

That depends on the situation but is ultimately un-important.

"Basic rules of economics" have no place inside prison walls.

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#114

Post by nebabyte »

metafunctor wrote: post #75
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it was meant to be humour, I guess it's wasted here.

Humour is appreciated. I usually don't upvote humorous posts, unless they are exceedingly funny, because I don't want this site to turn into Reddit. But hey, go ahead and try to turn HN into Reddit if you guys feel that's where it needs to go. I feel we've already seen how useful a Reddit is to the world.

> please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a common semi-noob illusion

Either this thread (every time it comes up) needs to be curbed or the FAQ needs to be edited

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#115

Post by iplaw »

sspiff wrote: post #20

So they were able to connect to the prison network, look through the state prison database using these computers and issue security passes to gain access to restricted areas. I think the prison needs to get someone to look at the security of their network and applications.

I bet the only security measure was that it was a local machine accessing the database, or a machine within a specific IP block allocated to the prison network.

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#116

Post by rayiner »

jacquesm wrote: post #109
rayiner wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think using inmate labor for money should be illegal, but I'm not sure prison would be workable at all without the 13th amendment. What counts as "forced labor?" Does that include forcing inmates to clean up after themselves in their cells or in cafeterias? Note that e.g. the German constitution has a similar carve out for prisoners.

Forced labor is labor that goes outside of the normal housekeeping routine for prisoners. It's really not that hard to make that distinction, you could even do it through the bookkeeping department: any time the prison or its operators are compensated directly or indirectly by outside parties for work done by prisoners that's forced labor too. Keeping their cell and spaces they use voluntarily clean: not forced labor…

> Forced labor is labor that goes outside of the normal housekeeping routine for prisoners.

Obviously you couldn't apply a similar definition of "forced labor" to non-prisoners. So you and I are in agreement that you need some special case handling of prisoners in constitutional prohibitions against slavery, as the US and German constitutions recognize. My point simply is that the Constitution is fine as written and these sorts of distinctions should be made in statutory law where stuff like the meaning of "normal housekeeping routine" can be litigated and refined in ordinary rather than constitutional litigation.

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#117

Post by Retric »

scoobydoo123 wrote: post #110
jacquesm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because ordinary people are just as much a part of society as the criminals that society has decided to lock away. By forcing criminals to work for free society is paying in another way: that work would have been done by someone on the outside, but you can't compete with slave labor. So this is bad both for the inmates and for society from an economic point of view, and then we're side-stepping the moral issue.

Not really. The basic rule of economics is that you have to give something in order to get something. Inmates should be given a choice of working and making money so they can pay for their living or do nothing and starve to death - just like any other member of the society outside of prison. What you're talking about is really a disproportion between amount of work they make (and value they produce) and the total amo…

No that's not a basic rule of economics. Monopoly Rents for example are well understood to be paid for the economic position not work done.

Remember Economics studies human behavior and humans have long used slavery for example.

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#118

Post by ant6n »

narag wrote: post #95
jacquesm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so terribly out-dated. The fact that a prisoner loses their freedom for a specified period of time should be the total of their debt to society. Some reform on this front would be good but I think it will be many decades before the US is ready to confront these things, if it doesn't fall apart beforehand due to the ever increasing divide, both geographically and ideologically.

...freedom for a specified period of time should be the total of their debt to society. I always find the retributionist theory unconfortable. I'd rather understand incarceration as a protection for potential new victims and a warning to others. Also it should be a way to "fix" the inmates, but unfortunately that's often wishful thinking.

Rehabilitation is probably much more likely if your society believes that this is the main purpose of incarceration.

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#119

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #103
scoobydoo123 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should be the total of their debt to society I call it BS. Why should ordinary people work and pay for criminals?

Because ordinary people are just as much a part of society as the criminals that society has decided to lock away. By forcing criminals to work for free society is paying in another way: that work would have been done by someone on the outside, but you can't compete with slave labor. So this is bad both for the inmates and for society from an economic point of view, and then we're side-stepping the moral issue.

[deleted]

Re: Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

#120

Post by [deleted] »

scoobydoo123 wrote: post #110
jacquesm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because ordinary people are just as much a part of society as the criminals that society has decided to lock away. By forcing criminals to work for free society is paying in another way: that work would have been done by someone on the outside, but you can't compete with slave labor. So this is bad both for the inmates and for society from an economic point of view, and then we're side-stepping the moral issue.

Not really. The basic rule of economics is that you have to give something in order to get something. Inmates should be given a choice of working and making money so they can pay for their living or do nothing and starve to death - just like any other member of the society outside of prison. What you're talking about is really a disproportion between amount of work they make (and value they produce) and the total amo…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN