Hitting a 17yo with 30 felony charges feels a bit steep to me. Also should any repercussions be considered against Twitter that a 17yo was able to gain access to the private messages of potentially some of the most important individuals in the world? If a 17yo could do it, I'm sure a nation state could do it.
I agree this bothers me to my core. Even the 22 year old hasn't developed a fully functional neocortex. I know it seems a little hypocritical of me for getting sad when this happens to a young programmer and not an inner city gang member, but it does. To pull off a hack like this is indicative of these kids being intelligent, risky and bold. Yeah, they went where they shouldn't, but I personally think these are the t…
They engaged in straight up fraud! It's not like they just pranked some folks, they tried to fool the world into sending them money. It's true the fraud didn't work that well (or rather, not in relation to the severity of the Twitter hack), but they still stole some $100kUS or whatever.
You want those people LEADING us "into the future of science"?