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After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

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Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#361

Post by annoyingnoob »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #334
jimbokun wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere in the article does he ask for empathy, just describes what he is experiencing.

Exactly but I knew when reading it that your average American would complain. It is an ugly American trait that as soon as somebody commit a crime they become subhuman. All their actions must from then on be viewed as being deceptive or villainous in some way. I just read the article as an interesting description of the US prison system and technological development.

The thing that stuck me is that this person never seems to admit that his acts were wrong. He gets internet access taken away in prison and then figures out a scheme to work around it, then he blames the work-around for additional punishment. I will say that the punishments did not fit the crime, but this person sort of doubled down by working around the system. Did this person do anything to help or improve himself? That is where I find a lack of empathy. And that isn't a 'complaint', just saying how I feel.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#362

Post by mikewhy »

toyg wrote: post #31
Nursie wrote: post #10

Well, that Dell Inspiron ought to have a BIOS/EFI switch to allow you to deactivate the secure boot features, and there are ways to install ubuntu on secure-boot systems using a shim. Failing that, there's now WSL... But I guess 10 years is a lot of catching up to do!

If you don't know about UEFI, you are not going to look for a switch to turn it off...

Secure Boot was introduced in 2006, approximately 3 years before this person was incarcerated.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#363

Post by 2squirrels »

cc-d wrote: post #231
KSteffensen wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the idea behind convicted felons not being allowed to vote?

>What's the idea behind convicted felons not being allowed to vote? Disenfranchisement, and the 13th amendment. The "justice" system in the United States, especially enabled by laws surrounding drug prohibition (created for the purpose of suppressing Nixon's political opposition, hence why cannabis is schedule 1 federally), is the modern embodiment of the Jim Crow system that was supposedly abolished. Prisoners are s…

I find it crazy (among the other things mentioned too) that taxpayers are subsidizing cheap prison labor for major corporations. Also crazy to me is the cost to house inmates in many states being more than the national average in terms of income[0] considering the poor conditions of these institutions.

[0] https://www.vera.org/publications/price-of-prisons-2015-stat...

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#365

Post by derangedHorse »

fsloth wrote: post #271
wpietri wrote: post #65

This is a decent account of how much has changed, and he conveys the sense of alienation well. But what strikes me is that he talks about the whole thing like something that unaccountably happened to him. He didn't install botnets; he was arrested for installing botnets. Botnets that he somehow sees as part of the "true spirit of hacking", from the long-lost innocent age of 2009, when pure curiosity was the only moti…

All of his hacker ethos feels very superficial to me. I.e. get this or that gizmo under control etc. There does not seem to be a deep curiosity for CS or maths as such, rather a childish joy in opening other peoples locks and taking other peoples hardware under control. That was cool in the 70's when telecoms infrastructure wasn't commoditized. I understand how enticing it is to hack big co telephone networks, for ex…

“There does not seem to be a deep curiosity for CS or maths as such, rather a childish joy in opening other peoples locks and taking other peoples hardware under control.”

Not all technical problems have to be framed in a mathematical context to be seen as rewarding and something if interest

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#366

Post by gdy »

metabagel wrote: post #191
ImprobableTruth wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A desire for punishments generally isn't for 'enjoyment', but motivated by someone's sense of justice. "Being punished for bad deeds" is a very common notion of 'fairness'. If your notion of justice doesn't include retribution, that's completely legitimate, but to insinuate that your sense of justice is somehow less of a emotional response than someone else's is ridiculous.

It probably starts with corporal punishment of children. That gives society a baseline predisposition towards violence and doled our suffering in order to enforce conduct. Adults who were beaten as children or felt that they suffered for their transgressions may feel that it’s unfair for someone to avoid suffering for transgressions, when they had to suffer in the past for theirs.

It probably doesn't.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#367

Post by gdy »

Arubis wrote: post #43
gdy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until someone you love gets murdered or maimed.

This is illustrative of how having a bias pointed out can be perceived as a threat, and responded to in kind.

That wasn't pointing a bias out, that was just an unsubstantiated statement. The rest in your comment is just your perception and projection of your perception.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#368

Post by rungekuttarob »

"Big advertisers are using metadata to collect and map any given users’ Internet behaviors for content marketing purposes. I, too, used to steal users’ data. But it was a crime when I did it. Perhaps if I had sent them an ad or two it would have been less illegal?"

I kinda laughed and cringed with fear reading this section and the sections describing life as an inmate.

IMO it worries me thinking about the world he joined full of rights abuse in prison and mass commercial surveillance of our data.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#370

Post by floor2 »

seisvelas wrote: post #300
austincheney wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sentencing is decided by a judge not by a prison warden. Beyond vague conspiracy theories I don’t see the connection.

>Beyond vague conspiracy theories I don’t see the connection. It's not vague at all. Private prisons lobby for mandatory minimums. Mandatory minimums remove sentencing power from the judge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_sentencing The older system you describe is called discretionary sentencing, it is a dissipating vestige of the era before private prisons.

Important correction - the significant political power in the US comes from the prison guards union, not a "private prisons lobby".

The prison guards union is an incredibly powerful lobbying force, which has successfully increased prison sentences for many crimes, blocked efforts to decriminalize marijuana, made more mandatory sentences, etc. Whether those guards work in the 92% of prisons which are government run or the 8% which are privately run makes no difference.

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