Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

eurogamer.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 130 posts

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#61

Post by ugh »

bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #35

Am I the only one who thinks what he did was not only criminal but morally wrong, and that he deserved to go to prison for a long time? I realize that everybody likes to call themselves a "hacker" because they can program a computer, but this is an actual black-hat hacker. There are bad guys in the world and he's one of them. He wrote malware. He stole source code and gave it to the world. And this wasn't some evil c…

He himself admits that what he did was criminally and morally wrong.

I don’t know why he should go to prison for a long time for what he did, though. He was punished harshly (two years probation are no joke) and the judge made abundantly clear that the only reason for not punishing him harsher was his behavior after being caught.

I have no desire to destroy other people’s lives just out of spite and I find this desire to be quite baffling. The only question I care about is whether the punishment is sufficient to prevent future similar crimes from him or other people. I have no doubt that allowing him to keep his stable job and leaving it at a strong slap on the wrist is pretty much the optimal thing to do in this case, in terms of deterrence. (I would think that hackers who lose everything and go to prison for a few years are more likely to become criminals than hackers who get two years of probation but get to keep their job.)

The only quarrel I have is that it took apparently three years to bring this case to court. Swift trials matter a lot more than the harshness of the punishment when it comes to deterrence. (In this particular case it was probably for the best that it played out like this but as a German citizen I would like to see a faster judiciary in general.)

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#62

Post by kd0amg »

true_religion wrote: post #49
kd0amg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that all for a single crime, or did each trial cover separate instances?

They were treated as seperate instances since the crimes were committed against people in X jurisdiction. That's applicable in this case as well since the Valve folk are in the US jurisdiction.

If the instances were partitioned between those three jurisdictions, then it isn't really an example of avoiding double jeopardy limitations by changing jurisdiction.

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#63

Post by tptacek »

bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #35

Am I the only one who thinks what he did was not only criminal but morally wrong, and that he deserved to go to prison for a long time? I realize that everybody likes to call themselves a "hacker" because they can program a computer, but this is an actual black-hat hacker. There are bad guys in the world and he's one of them. He wrote malware. He stole source code and gave it to the world. And this wasn't some evil c…

You are not the only one. At this point, most of the people who agree with your point of view have accepted the futility of making that point in a venue where the comment immediately preceding yours, modded 5 times higher, claims that the the guy who leaked Valve's source code is the victim and Valve the villain.

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#64

Post by _delirium »

bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #54
drivingmenuts wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was criminal and morally wrong. But the law allows for intent as well. From the article, it seems that his acts were committed as a result of maximal fanboyism rather than any real intent to do harm. So, in this case, it's about whether the sentencing is punishment or deterrent. Sentencing as deterrent is only useful a small part of the time (if it was more effective, then the death penalty would be an excellent d…

Any toddler knows it's wrong to steal a candy bar. I'm pretty sure every teenager smart enough to do so knows it's wrong to hack into a company's network, download their corporate secrets and distribute them to the internet. Deterrance is absolutely the point of punishment. What he did was a white-collar crime. There's a perception in society that you can get away with certain extremely harmful things, like hacking o…

I don't think jail terms are based mainly on financial damage caused. Mugging someone for $50 is punished relatively severely because people are afraid of violence, not really because of the $50 loss. Shoplifting $50, which scares people less, will rarely get you any jail time at all (unless it's a repeat offense).

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#65

Post by psykotic »

ars wrote: post #50
burgerbrain wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between Germany and the US? Those types incidents are uncommon enough that you can remember individual occurrences.

Oh come on, they are quite rare in the US as well, and the US is a LOT larger than Germany.

> Oh come on, they are quite rare in the US as well, and the US is a LOT larger than Germany.

Yes, if "a LOT larger" means 3.5x larger. Germany has 82 million inhabitants and is the most populous country in Europe.

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#66

Post by jessedhillon »

ars wrote: post #52
jcw wrote: post #2

I'm happy to see that, while he did something wrong, because he was honest and openly remorseful throughout, he ended up not going to prison. The cops even seemed cordial, they let him get breakfast and a smoke. I wonder how differently things would have played out if he lived in the US.

Things would have been exactly the same in the US. The stories that get all the publicity are the bad ones which of course leads you to think that's all there is. But by far most cases end up exactly like this one. Judges LOVE honesty, and so do cops. If you are honest and open with them you get a far milder punishment than someone who won't talk. I've seen it in so many case reports. Judges are trying to figure out…

> Judges LOVE honesty, and so do cops.

Traffic tickets are not even in the same league as the kind of offenses that we're talking about here, but if they are any indication then I have to agree. I've gotten out of my last three traffic stops by simply telling the cop exactly what I did: driving in the HOV lane without a passenger, rolling through a stop sign, and doing 40 in a 25.

These people -- law enforcement and the court -- get jerked around all day by people who insult their intelligence with bullshit stories. It must be refreshing to hear someone clearly admit what they did with no attempt to evade responsibility.

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#67

Post by Tichy »

What I don't get is why the police had to wake them up with a gun pointed to his head. Is this standard procedure for hackers, or criminals in general? Is it because some time ago it was decided that hackers are terrorists?

Suppose I cheated on my taxes (which I would of course never do, but I think many people consider that fair game), would the police also wake me with a gun pointed at my head?

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#68

Post by bluesnowmonkey »

moe wrote: post #56
bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any toddler knows it's wrong to steal a candy bar. I'm pretty sure every teenager smart enough to do so knows it's wrong to hack into a company's network, download their corporate secrets and distribute them to the internet. Deterrance is absolutely the point of punishment. What he did was a white-collar crime. There's a perception in society that you can get away with certain extremely harmful things, like hacking o…

Hacking Valve. Damage: $250,000,000 Bullshit.

What's the correct figure, then?

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#69

Post by barry-cotter »

barrkel wrote: post #43
bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #35

Am I the only one who thinks what he did was not only criminal but morally wrong, and that he deserved to go to prison for a long time? I realize that everybody likes to call themselves a "hacker" because they can program a computer, but this is an actual black-hat hacker. There are bad guys in the world and he's one of them. He wrote malware. He stole source code and gave it to the world. And this wasn't some evil c…

I don't fully buy this concept of "morally wrong". You ask what kind of person could do X considering consequences Y for victim, but that presumes the person knows and understands Y, which in this case, they didn't. So no, they are not necessarily an asshole because of this. I also think it's deeply immature to divide the world into black and white, good and bad, and put curious kids on the bad side of the line with…

I don't fully buy this concept of "morally wrong".

So you're totally okay with me beating your [underspecified relative] so badly they're in chronic pain for the rest of their lives then?

Re: The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

#70

Post by mey »

sukuriant wrote: post #38
mey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve maintains systems that contain sensitive financial information, sensitive internal IP, and a whole library of external IP from other publishers. This wasn't a script kiddie pulling things off bit-torrent, this was an elaborate penetration into a corporate network. If I was in Valve's position, I would blackball him from working there because he couldn't be trusted, and the damage he caused. Damage caused was at…

I haven't the faintest clue about how accurate the sort of story I'm about to use as a counter-point is, but what about capable hackers that succeed in breaking into government servers then being given a choice to either work for said government organization, or go to jail for a very long time? Assuming those sorts of cases actually happen, how is this any different?

Probably thinking of something like http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/01/7251...

and if memory serves me correctly, he was eventually caught shuffling credit cards that they captured back out for a tidy profit.

Post reply on HN