Live data from Hacker News

Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

wfla.com

441–450 of 702 posts

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#441

Obviously what they did is wrong but the kid is 17. To me this is a prime example of where a short sentence or community service should be used. Don't ruin his life - he could be a useful employee for a tech company.

American justice is rarely about rehabilitating the perpetrator. It’s about ensanguinating the bloodthirsty and making the fearful feel safe.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#442
Yeah no surprise there. The second Discord logs of the scam being planned started circulating around Twitter I knew it'd be a matter of weeks before these guys were caught. Absolutely unreal that one of them was dumb enough to not only post chatlog screenshots on Twitter with their usernames uncensored, but to use something like Discord to plan this in the first place.

Since the crimes were financially-motivated all of them get upgraded to felonies. I have sympathy for people who get fucked by the US' dumb CJ system, but uh... touching a Presidential candidate's Twitter account was whose idea, exactly? What did they expect would happen? I have a hard time believing the "for the lulz" defense some people are making for these people when the whole thing was clearly financially motivated.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#443

Obviously what they did is wrong but the kid is 17. To me this is a prime example of where a short sentence or community service should be used. Don't ruin his life - he could be a useful employee for a tech company.

IIRC in the past, cyber criminals in similar situations were made to help federal cyber crime investigations, not sure whether through community service or a form of prison labor. The price tag for talented people is high so it's a win-win situation compared to wasting their talent by making them do low skilled labor.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#444

Obviously what they did is wrong but the kid is 17. To me this is a prime example of where a short sentence or community service should be used. Don't ruin his life - he could be a useful employee for a tech company.

If he had gotten into twitter to make some funny status's then sure, community service makes sense. But this kid scammed a lot of money from a lot of people, severe criminal charges are appropriate.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, tbh I'm still surprised. The Discord connection was known early on. I was really surprised anyone would do something like this and communicate over Discord about it. The fact that no VPN/Tor were involved, the fact that Gmail was involved... that's really crazy. It's hard to tell when being dumb ends and being self destructive begins? Is it possible to be this ignorant about the Internet while perpetrat…

Yes, many people consider facebook and Twitter "The Internet." and while they are just two giant tech companies publishing web apps. Networking Layer is invisible to 99% of users nowadays. "it just works."

> Networking Layer is invisible to 99% of users nowadays. "it just works."

Yes, but the problem is that it didn't take someone who knows better to hack what is (used as) an official government communication platform. Or one of the largest social networks, or a company with thousands of engineers - take your pick; it's hard to put this in a good light.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#446

Obviously what they did is wrong but the kid is 17. To me this is a prime example of where a short sentence or community service should be used. Don't ruin his life - he could be a useful employee for a tech company.

Agreed that he should not face prison time for this. I would agree with a fine on the order that he is estimated to have scammed from people.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#447

Obviously what they did is wrong but the kid is 17. To me this is a prime example of where a short sentence or community service should be used. Don't ruin his life - he could be a useful employee for a tech company.

And this is where the distinction between minor and adult breaks down. He's 17, he's going to be an adult within 365 days.

I dunno what you do here. The book would absolutely be thrown at him if he were 18. He might get off "lightly" at 17, but should he? He should know better right?

I think he gets tried as an adult. He just yeeted his life.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#448

Obviously what they did is wrong but the kid is 17. To me this is a prime example of where a short sentence or community service should be used. Don't ruin his life - he could be a useful employee for a tech company.

And this is where the distinction between minor and adult breaks down. He's 17, he's going to be an adult within 365 days. I dunno what you do here. The book would absolutely be thrown at him if he were 18. He might get off "lightly" at 17, but should he? He should know better right? I think he gets tried as an adult. He just yeeted his life.

Honestly the fact that an adult would get such a harsh sentence seems pretty dumb too.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#449
post #443

Obviously what they did is wrong but the kid is 17. To me this is a prime example of where a short sentence or community service should be used. Don't ruin his life - he could be a useful employee for a tech company.

IIRC in the past, cyber criminals in similar situations were made to help federal cyber crime investigations, not sure whether through community service or a form of prison labor. The price tag for talented people is high so it's a win-win situation compared to wasting their talent by making them do low skilled labor.

he socially engineered his way into twitter... that's not exactly what those units are looking for.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the verge is reporting that he's being tried as an adult, so maybe that's the reasoning. https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/31/21349920/twitter-hack-arr... >He’s being charged as an adult, and the press conference made clear that law enforcement is considering how bad consequences of the hack could have been — not just the $100,000-plus in bitcoin that the teen is alleged to have scammed out of unsuspecting Twitter user…

What's the point of having different sentencing for minors if you can just try them as an adult if they're "bad enough"?

I always thought that was exactly the point, an acknowledgment that children and teenagers sometimes do stupid things, but there’s a big difference between doing some graffiti vs raping and murdering someone when you’re 15.
Post reply on HN