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"White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

bbc.co.uk

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Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#51

Post by Retric »

newhouseb wrote: post #39
JonnieCache wrote: post #13

"You accessed the very heart of the system of an international business of massive size, so this was not just fiddling about in the business records of some tiny business of no great importance," he said. This is the kind of thing that makes my blood boil.

While "importance" is a pretty subjective (read: bullshit) metric in legal terms, using the dollar value of theft to threshold criminal charges is used around the world. In the U.S. you can press charges for any amount, but depending on the state they have different thresholds between misdemeanor and a felony (grand theft) usually around $500-$1000. Interestingly enough, in some places such as China (where I original…

I don't think China does a more prudent job of enforcing responsibility. Rather China occasionally makes an example of the most blatant cases of corruption.

Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#52

Post by ck2 »

I'm not saying he deserved this sentence but if you have that much talent and energy BUILD SOMETHING OF YOUR OWN.

We all understand the tinkering nature of taking something apart to see how it works.

But if you are that clever and deep into hacking apart facebook, stop and make your own project with that kind of energy.

Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#53

Post by JonnieCache »

newhouseb wrote: post #39
JonnieCache wrote: post #13

"You accessed the very heart of the system of an international business of massive size, so this was not just fiddling about in the business records of some tiny business of no great importance," he said. This is the kind of thing that makes my blood boil.

While "importance" is a pretty subjective (read: bullshit) metric in legal terms, using the dollar value of theft to threshold criminal charges is used around the world. In the U.S. you can press charges for any amount, but depending on the state they have different thresholds between misdemeanor and a felony (grand theft) usually around $500-$1000. Interestingly enough, in some places such as China (where I original…

Yes, I hadn't considered the possible "street value" of what he'd taken.

Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#54

Post by mmaunder »

wyclif wrote: post #26
bryanh wrote: post #22

> "He added that when Mangham was arrested he made "copious" admissions to police about what he had done." Given the chance, I always bang the "don't talk to authorities" drum. So now you have to wonder, how did his "copious admissions" help him? Seriously, if you are suspected of anything , no matter how innocuous or momentous: Shut. The. Hell. Up. Get a damned attorney. Of course the classic video needs to be linke…

Upvoted. Never, ever, talk to the cops.

Upvoted too because I preach this to friends/family regularly for serious issues/offenses. However I've talked my way out of around 9 out of 12 speeding fines in various states by being nice and kissing a bit of ass during the last decade.

Cops are people too and when they walk up to your window after pulling you over, they may actually be scared. And you know fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to your suffering in traffic court.

So the next cop who pulls you over, wind down your window before he gets there, get your drivers license out so you don't have to fish your pockets, put your hands on the wheel so he can see you're not going to blow his brains out and if it's not more than 20 miles over the limit, try admitting guilt and being nice. You might be surprised.

Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#55

Post by ars »

unreal37 wrote: post #44
koenigdavidmj wrote: post #3

https://www.facebook.com/whitehat Facebook themselves have a policy of tolerance toward white hat hackery (basically `give us a reasonable amount of time before releasing to the public' and `do what you can to protect other users' privacy). I want to hear their side of this.

I agree, dubious use of the term white-hat. He hacked into their systems, stole the code, and kept a copy on an external hard drive. Didn't do anything malicious, but didn't contact Facebook about it either. They discovered the intrusion by accident, and it took them months to track him down. So "keeping the data to himself and doing nothing with it" is considered white hat?

I think they are trying to distinguish it from those who actually cause harm.

I think he should be called gray hat. (Black: Harm. Gray: Does nothing. White: Helps company.)

Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#56

Post by loup-vaillant »

From this article, I take that judge McCreath acknowledged that Mangham did not intended to use the data he downloaded. Yet, he talks of "stealing" and "creating a risk" (a huge one, given Facebook's size). But really, how risky is it to keep data in an external hard drive at home? There is a risk, but I'd say not much. Also, there were no theft, since Facebook did not lose any data. And since this "intellectual property" has not been used, Facebook didn't lose a penny over this unwanted duplication.

From there, I see only 3 possibilities: (i) judge McCreath did not actually trust Mangham's alleged intentions (I'm not sure I do either), or (ii) he doesn't know enough about computer security, or (iii) other actual damages warrants the sentence (like wasted effort at Facebook's and by the law enforcement).

I bet judge McCreath wanted to punish Mangham over (i) and (iii), but it was easier to use (ii) to do so. Or, he doesn't really understand computer security, though that's less likely by the year.

Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#57

Post by da5e »

icebraining wrote: post #42
JonnieCache wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't compare this to $10 vs. $100000K because the actual damage done here versus him doing the same thing to the servers of a small company is not x10000 the size, if that makes sense. The harm caused in both cases is negligible. I suppose you could count the large amount of time facebook probably had to spend going through their systems to make sure they were clean. Surely the money for their security team was…

Surely the money for their security team was already spent though? I doubt Facebook's security team is just sitting idly waiting for an attacker to give them something to do. Each hour devoted to this is an hour they can't use for other tasks, besides the possibility of having to pay overtime.

True but it seems this intrusion gave the team an excellent problem to focus on. The system is better for having solved it.

If considered in relation to scale, what per cent of its wealth did Facebook have to spend on this? Not much.

Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#58

Post by d2vid »

bryanh wrote: post #22

> "He added that when Mangham was arrested he made "copious" admissions to police about what he had done." Given the chance, I always bang the "don't talk to authorities" drum. So now you have to wonder, how did his "copious admissions" help him? Seriously, if you are suspected of anything , no matter how innocuous or momentous: Shut. The. Hell. Up. Get a damned attorney. Of course the classic video needs to be linke…

In Britain (where this case was tried), the law is different. If you don't mention facts that you will rely upon in court, it can harm your defense. Shutting up is not as much of an option:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#England_and_Wal...

Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#59

Post by ErrantX »

mmaunder wrote: post #54
wyclif wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted. Never, ever, talk to the cops.

Upvoted too because I preach this to friends/family regularly for serious issues/offenses. However I've talked my way out of around 9 out of 12 speeding fines in various states by being nice and kissing a bit of ass during the last decade. Cops are people too and when they walk up to your window after pulling you over, they may actually be scared. And you know fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to y…

This is excellent advice. The cop that arrests you and pulls you in for questioning is confident and in a position of control. The cop that stops you on the street or in your car is dealing with an unknown potentially dangerous situation.

Both are cops. But they are entirely different people.

Re: "White hat" Facebook hacker gets 8 months in jail

#60

Post by ErrantX »

skolor wrote: post #33
nik_0_0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found myself wondering if perhaps the 'white-hat' reference is a blunder in the headline. This article woefully lacks any actual details regarding what he did or how he approached communication with Facebook, only stating that he was a white-hat hacker for Yahoo once (which obviously proves nothing).

I searched around a little bit, since I found the lack of details somewhat disturbing. This is the best I found: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Facebook-hack-lands-UK... . From the sounds of it, he broke into an employees account (likely their work computer, possibly further access). I'm speculating, but that makes it sound like he stole some portion of the Facebook source code, coupling that with the "intelle…

Sounds like the classic "but what I would have done..." defence (unless they have backed it up with clear evidence, of course, I didn't check).
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