111–120 of 130 posts
Automatic weapons were pointing at his head and the words "Get out of bed. Do not touch the keyboard" were ringing in his ears. Would they really have shot him in the head if he touched the keyboard? My guess is no.
My guess is he'd receive a sharp blow from the butt of the weapon to the back of the head had he shown any attempt to deviate from their instructions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the German police clearly thought he was not going to get justice from the US (hence the remarks about how lucky he was that they got him before he got on the plane) and saved him from falling into the FBI's trap.
Please. Do we need any more anti-US rhetoric here? I see no reason to believe that he would have been treated differently by the FBI, and besides, he would probably have been extradited right back to Germany.
I'm impressed by the shear amount of knowledge the kid had. Especially at the age that he did it.
I also found it hard to not sympathize with him after statements like this: "My bot used the same vulnerability in the LSASS service that his did, except it didn't crash the host system, so I guess they thought I gave him the exploit code. Of course I denied this and told them that I never write such shoddy code." He doesn't come across like a criminal mind to me. Don't blame an 18yr old kid for naively crossing line…
Am I the only one who thinks what he did was not only criminal but morally wrong, and that he deserved to go to prison for a long time? I realize that everybody likes to call themselves a "hacker" because they can program a computer, but this is an actual black-hat hacker. There are bad guys in the world and he's one of them. He wrote malware. He stole source code and gave it to the world. And this wasn't some evil c…
Go to prison? Prison should be reserved for violent offenders. IMO, putting non-violent offenders in a pen with violent offenders is very clearly "cruel and unusual punishment".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was criminal and morally wrong. But the law allows for intent as well. From the article, it seems that his acts were committed as a result of maximal fanboyism rather than any real intent to do harm. So, in this case, it's about whether the sentencing is punishment or deterrent. Sentencing as deterrent is only useful a small part of the time (if it was more effective, then the death penalty would be an excellent d…
Any toddler knows it's wrong to steal a candy bar. I'm pretty sure every teenager smart enough to do so knows it's wrong to hack into a company's network, download their corporate secrets and distribute them to the internet. Deterrance is absolutely the point of punishment. What he did was a white-collar crime. There's a perception in society that you can get away with certain extremely harmful things, like hacking o…
I'm happy to see that, while he did something wrong, because he was honest and openly remorseful throughout, he ended up not going to prison. The cops even seemed cordial, they let him get breakfast and a smoke. I wonder how differently things would have played out if he lived in the US.
The cops were "cordial" after rousting him out of bed while pointing automatic weapons at him. In other words, they armed up and stormed the residence of a suspect of a non-violent crime. That sounds pretty standard for the US, and for the same reason indicated by the instruction, "Get out of bed. Do not touch the keyboard". SWAT-style tactics are rarely about any actual belief that the suspect has weapons and is lik…
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_st...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you broke into a safe in a factory office and stole 1) 20 dollars of cash and 2) documented trade-secrets which you later made public, I'd say you were guilty of both crimes, both the insignificant one and the catastrophic one (and also the crime of breaking-in/trespassing). This is essentially the same, except the safe was a computer drive and both 1) and 2) revolve around the same object (the source code).
You are still not understanding what I'm trying to say. We are talking about intentions here. Not actions. I'm not saying he's not guilty of those crimes. I'm just saying he did not exhibit the undesirable character of intentionally hurting others for self gain. When he committed the crimes he might not have thought about how much Valve would suffer as a result. This is a very different mentality than breaking into s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point is it would encourage more people to apply by trying to hack into the company's networks instead of just creating impressive mods, Valve is a game dev/platform company after all not a network security one.
Ahh, I see. Point taken. I would still hire this passionate kid and put him on the network security team. I would then make a public announcement about how the job you get depends on what skill you demonstrate. Which should be the way it works anyways. If you want to join us as a game developer then you need to demonstrate your game developing passion and skills. Either through creating mods with our SDK/platform or…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also found it hard to not sympathize with him after statements like this: "My bot used the same vulnerability in the LSASS service that his did, except it didn't crash the host system, so I guess they thought I gave him the exploit code. Of course I denied this and told them that I never write such shoddy code." He doesn't come across like a criminal mind to me. Don't blame an 18yr old kid for naively crossing line…
Yet another know-it-all blaming the victim. There is no magic immunity which accrues from being 18, the kid knew what he was doing and wilfully committed criminal acts.
It would have been more plausible if you didn't claim to know better than the know-it-all in the next sentence ("willfully").
If you really want this discussion then perhaps take into consideration the nature of the crime and try to recall your own youth (you've once been 18, too, right?).
I'm not saying he doesn't deserve a slap on the wrist. It's however beyond ridiculous to try and charge him with virtual 9 figure damages - potentially sending him to jail and ruining the rest of his life.
The more interesting question is who was charged for criminal negligence - or at least fired - at Valve over this?
This is the more interesting question because curious and slightly naive 18yr olds are a natural law. They will always be around, and there's strong evidence that deterrence does not work very well against them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
$0. I doubt their competitors will learn awesome secrets from their code-base and I doubt the pirates will compile their own binary instead of just using the standard DVD-Rip. Yes, they embarrassed themselves. But they have nobody but themselves to blame for not investing in security. And, as ramidarigaz points out, it was even free PR for them.
> But they have nobody but themselves to blame for not investing in security. Ah, the classic rape defense. It was her fault for walking down that alley.