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The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

wired.com

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Re: The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

#61

Post by tptacek »

dobbsbob wrote: post #59
sliverstorm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does what they were "looking at" matter one bit? I don't understand why the 70 years he was "looking at" matters at all, if he wasn't sentenced to 70 years.

Because nobody goes to trial for computer fraud, not if the prosecutor is seeking 70 years so you are forced to bargain for 12-20yrs and yes there is a real possibility you will get all that time if you don't plea

Since there has never been a trial in US history where a prosecutor sought anything like 70 years for computer fraud, nor has there (I believe) been a CFAA case that plead out to 20 years, I don't think these are real possibilities.

Google: Popehat Whale Sushi.

Re: The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

#62

Post by tptacek »

dobbsbob wrote: post #51
sliverstorm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Examples?

This guy got 5yrs for 2 rapes http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/21/ex-marine-serving-rape... Gary McKinnon was looking at 70yrs. The guy who made credit card fraud sites and was busted in the carder.su op got 7yrs after pleading but was looking at life. Rape and hacking are impossible to compare though because usually a rape happens once, whereas charges are stacked a mile high for computer fraud because nobody stea…

Gary McKinnon was not "looking at 70 years". If you are charged with 7 counts of the same offense, each carrying a possible 10 year sentence on the outside, you are absent other circumstances "looking at" 10 years. Like offenses often "group" under sentencing guidelines.† Under grouping rules, the damages for each charge might be summed to produce a single sentence.

But the 10 year claim is also suspect. These are federal CFAA charges. They have a base level for first-time offenders of 6 (0-6 months). The damage claims for each charge in the indictment were "more than $5,000", the lowest damage accelerator, which adds 2 points. (If all the charges were grouped for sentencing and the damages summed, they'd instead add 6 points) The fact that his targets were military adds another two; he's now somewhere between 10-14.

For a first-time offender, that's a possible probation-eligible sentence of 6-12 months, and no longer than 15-21 months, if his lawyers were able to do nothing else to secure leniency.

70 years is horseshit.

† Here's a slide deck on the grouping guidelines: http://www.ussc.gov/Education_and_Training/Annual_National_T...

Re: The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

#63

Post by dnautics »

tomphoolery wrote: post #56
tptacek wrote: post #7

This article makes an important point about the brokenness of CFAA sentencing, but it (or Wired's editors) do the point a disservice by making an absolutely hyperbolic claim. The "War On Drugs" has imprisoned literally millions of people, and done so in a fashion that is both racist (minorities are far more likely to be imprisoned for a drug offense) and classist (wealthy defendants are unlikely to be imprisoned for…

Yeah I would say once the "War on Hackers" begins to ruin people's lives on the order of 100,000s of people, now we're actually getting CLOSER to being similar to the War on Drugs. But suggesting otherwise is analogous to stepping on an ant colony and calling that genocide.

Well, the point of the article is that prosecutors who prosecute 'hackers' are 'learning' from the drug war prosecutors and a culture of overpunishment is spreading. In that sense it is a 'new' war on drugs, but I wouldn't call it "the" new war on drugs; the only real problem with the article is the title.

Re: The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

#64

Post by dnautics »

ihsw wrote: post #12

The comparison is fairly skin deep: * mandatory minimum sentences * lopsided plea bargains (you can go to jail for anywhere between 18 months to 30 years, depending on whether you take the bargain) * prosecutors pushing for convictions as a means of adding to their professional scorecard * rampant fear and paranoia (marijuana is a gateway drug! command line interfaces are scary!) * using that fear and paranoia to pas…

so, you mean the comparison is apt in all the points of contact where it's an issue of law. There are fewer hackers than there are drug users, so the impact of the trend is going to be limited; but the point is that the drug war culture is fueling an expansion of legal abuse by prosecutors in other domains. I think this is an important point; and the only problem with the article, is the title.

Re: The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

#66

Post by tptacek »

dnautics wrote: post #63
tomphoolery wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I would say once the "War on Hackers" begins to ruin people's lives on the order of 100,000s of people, now we're actually getting CLOSER to being similar to the War on Drugs. But suggesting otherwise is analogous to stepping on an ant colony and calling that genocide.

Well, the point of the article is that prosecutors who prosecute 'hackers' are 'learning' from the drug war prosecutors and a culture of overpunishment is spreading. In that sense it is a 'new' war on drugs, but I wouldn't call it "the" new war on drugs; the only real problem with the article is the title.

The article does not make a good case for overpunishment for Keys.

Re: The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

#67

Post by dnautics »

tptacek wrote: post #66
dnautics wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the point of the article is that prosecutors who prosecute 'hackers' are 'learning' from the drug war prosecutors and a culture of overpunishment is spreading. In that sense it is a 'new' war on drugs, but I wouldn't call it "the" new war on drugs; the only real problem with the article is the title.

The article does not make a good case for overpunishment for Keys.

point taken.

Re: The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

#68

Post by Zigurd »

tptacek wrote: post #37
klez wrote: post #34

Could someone please help me understand how can changing a headline on some websites cause five-figures damages? Honest question, really. Every time I see articles about computer vandalism or hacking I see these big numbers and don't understand how they are calculated.

Straightforward. * Employees of the company spend X number of days responding to the incident, and you take their fully loaded cost and divide it out by the number of days they spent having to deal with the incident, and that's a big number. Plus: * If the site is disabled or degraded, you can often easily calculate outage costs based on the average volume of revenue the site generates during the outage period. Plus:…

> "Employees of the company spend X number of days responding to the incident, and you take their fully loaded cost and divide it out by the number of days they spent having to deal with the incident, and that's a big number."

That should be discounted by the amount of time they spent getting their site up to basic good practices, if any. Otherwise it makes hacking the incompetent a greater crime than cracking in to a high-value hard target.

Re: The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

#69

Post by aaron695 »

> The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs

No it's not.

Drug use is a personal choice where all actors are voluntary. (The 'war' bit then causes the damage we currently see to everyone)

Hacking has victims that don't want to be involved.

It might be a heavy handed approach currently but relating it to the war on drugs is insulting, millions die and are incarcerated because of that war.

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