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Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#91

Post by thomastjeffery »

crazygringo wrote: post #64
thomastjeffery wrote: post #49

There is an expectation here that this person will react to being arrested and imprisoned with patience ; yet patience is not expected from literally anyone else involved . It's abundantly clear that he is not being punished for harming people . He is being punished for not playing along . "Refusing to play along" is one of the most well known symptoms of Autism. This person is being punished for neurodivergence. I'm…

> yet patience is not expected from literally anyone else involved. Can you explain? The whole process has seemed pretty patient on all sides. This wasn't some overnight decision. I truly don't understand what you're trying to say, or how "patience" is relevant here at all.

Patience isn't just about time.

Sure they were willing to wait, but what were they waiting for? The result was pretty clear from the beginning.

Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#92

Post by Nextgrid »

CaptainOfCoit wrote: post #71
Nextgrid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy is as much of a "cyber security threat" as your typical socially-awkward gamer teenager, of which we have plenty of. Every internet-connected server out there constantly gets probed by bots/tools often operated by similar people and nothing is ever done about it. This guy's crime wasn't that he was hacking/phishing/stalking or the general obnoxious behavior that often comes with this kind of person - this is…

> This guy is as much of a "cyber security threat" as your typical socially-awkward gamer teenager, of which we have plenty of The following quote seems to indicate that the skills of this individual is much sharper than "typical socially-awkward gamer teenager": > Kurtaj managed to breach Rockstar, the company behind GTA, using an Amazon Firestick, his hotel TV and a mobile phone

It doesn't take any skill to install a chrooted Linux environment or RDP/SSH client on a Fire Stick or Android phone, and said skill is orthogonal to hacking skills that could be deemed dangerous to society at large.

The fact that this is explicitly brought up smells like they're trying to make this guy sound much more dangerous & evil than he really is. After all, had he discovered/used zero-days or developed exploits, that would be a real talking point, but if the only thing they've got is "he managed to get a shell on an android device" this smells of clutching at straws.

Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#93

Post by dghlsakjg »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #33
dghlsakjg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part about assaulting staff and property destruction. What about the part where he continued hacking after being busted the first time and released on bail. Its pretty clear that the kid poses a danger and doesn't understand that he needs to stop. This isn't a youthful prank/indiscretion that went too far. This kid was on trial for causing millions in damages, and then did it again while on trial. Ye…

Just because a company chooses to spend millions of dollars to "repair" damage does not mean that the damage itself should be valued the same. We are talking about companies with tens or hundreds of billions of dollars at their disposal. An executive could choose to spend $5 million on anything: that doesn't make the thing that valuable.

Ok. Ignore the dollar amount.

His actions have physically injured people, destroyed property, and caused hundreds or thousands of people to spend otherwise productive time on fixing things.

This wasn’t some hacker poking around because he could. He was stealing assets and then trying to ransom them back. He also just straight up stole crypto.

Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#94

Post by evilduck »

hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #40

NSA should pick him up, or maybe GCHQ.

Technical brilliance doesn't mean they're worth the risk and danger. Someone who's documented as physically violent is simply a liability to all other employees they're around. Even without the physical danger he presents intelligence orgs don't want people with broken moral compasses, they want people with unwavering moral compasses that align with their missions. If someone's just in it for fame or money some adversary is always going to be able to offer more of both.

Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#95

Post by kvathupo »

jvanderbot wrote: post #30

Did anyone here read TFA? He was apparently shown to be a member of a cyber "gang", and expressed zero remorse. In this case, a judge basically has to do something. > A mental health assessment used as part of the sentencing hearing said he "continued to express the intent to return to cybercrime as soon as possible. He is highly motivated." The guy was already on bail for another hack: > The jury was told that while…

I would be inclined to agree, but I'm reminded of passages from Edwin Black's book [1] depicting the capriciousness of medical providers. E.g. a board of doctors was typically responsible for sterilization decisions in America when eugenics was mainstream during the early 1900s. It seems reasonable that doctors should be final arbiters of medical decisions, as in releasing this aforementioned hacker from a mental hospital. But the book revealed how these doctors would often inconsistently apply their sterilization standards to favor prominent local families whilst punishing the usual victims, i.e. minorities and poor whites.

In this regard, I find this case deeply disturbing, and would prefer if he simply got a definite sentence.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Against_the_Weak

Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#96

Post by s1artibartfast »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #49

There is an expectation here that this person will react to being arrested and imprisoned with patience ; yet patience is not expected from literally anyone else involved . It's abundantly clear that he is not being punished for harming people . He is being punished for not playing along . "Refusing to play along" is one of the most well known symptoms of Autism. This person is being punished for neurodivergence. I'm…

Neurodivergence isn't a free pass to commit all the crimes you want. Lots of shooters are neurodivergent. That doesn't mean that society has to let them kill all they want.

Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#97

Post by crazygringo »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #91
crazygringo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet patience is not expected from literally anyone else involved. Can you explain? The whole process has seemed pretty patient on all sides. This wasn't some overnight decision. I truly don't understand what you're trying to say, or how "patience" is relevant here at all.

Patience isn't just about time. Sure they were willing to wait, but what were they waiting for ? The result was pretty clear from the beginning.

I still don't know what any of that means. Then what is patience about? Who is "they"? What does it matter if people can guess at an outcome based on prior experience?

I still don't know what you mean by "patience" and I still don't know what relevance it has here.

Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#98

Post by Nextgrid »

kreddor wrote: post #8

> Kurtaj managed to breach Rockstar, the company behind GTA, using an Amazon Firestick, his hotel TV and a mobile phone. That's quite a feat. > Rockstar Games alone told the court that the hack cost it $5m to recover from plus thousands of hours of staff time. Either the kid is a genius or Rockstar really don't value their security much. Or maybe a bit of both?

> That's quite a feat.

Is it? I don't see what the big deal is in installing a chrooted Linux environment (or SSH/RDP client to remote into an external machine) in an Android device?

The fact this is even mentioned really smells like they're trying to make this guy sound more skilled and evil than he really is, potentially also to cover up for the fact that the police made an oversight in letting him be around internet-connected devices even though their instructions was to not provide him internet/computer access.

I'm not downplaying the GTA hack (although I would still bet good money it was typical phishing/social engineering rather than anything more advanced), but I'm disagreeing that him doing so from a rooted TV stick or phone makes him any more of a monster than doing so from a typical computer.

Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#99

Post by funshed »

mk_stjames wrote: post #83

I'd really like to hear more about the type of exploits here. Like, what level- Are we saying this kid is so brilliant he is writing zero-days for getting into corporate networks or if this a case of a guy in a good script-kiddie type group running phishing deals where they fire off 100000 emails a day and wait for someone to give up their logic credentials. Because if it is the former it's really hard for me to unde…

It says does it not, social engineering. Getting access to there discord, etc..

A skill in itself but not 0day or anything.

Re: Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

#100

Post by dghlsakjg »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #76
jvanderbot wrote: post #30

Did anyone here read TFA? He was apparently shown to be a member of a cyber "gang", and expressed zero remorse. In this case, a judge basically has to do something. > A mental health assessment used as part of the sentencing hearing said he "continued to express the intent to return to cybercrime as soon as possible. He is highly motivated." The guy was already on bail for another hack: > The jury was told that while…

Yes, I read the article. It's full of expectations . There is the expectation that someone should be punished severely for hacking a multi-billion dollar corporation. There is the expectation that that punishment will result in them just never hacking again. There is the expectation that a person who is arrested and threatened will respond with patience, and not with their own violence. There is the expectation that…

He is being met with treatment instead of punishment.

He stole and extorted, assaulted people, and destroyed property and was convicted of actual crimes. They did try to meet him at his level. They released him pending bail and he committed more crimes. He told the court that if they released him he would continue committing crimes. They aren’t sending him to prison though, because he isn’t mentally fit. They are sending him for medical treatment, at no cost to him, until he is determined to no longer be a threat to himself or others.

This seems far more humane than sending a mentally unwell teenager to prison where he certainly wouldn’t get the level of care that he will now.

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