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The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

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Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#61

Post by paulhauggis »

garric wrote: post #23
pekk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we not start with black guys instead of making special exceptions for white kids committing "white collar" crimes? Why does the involvement of computers make some criminals better than others?

He's not saying that we shouldn't. But the U.S. is overwhelmingly focused on punishment, retribution, and incapacitation rather than rehabilitation. Essentially victim blaming, if you want to look at it like that. Opinion: It's going to take system-wide reform to accomplish anything meaningful.

so..a person that murders an innocent person is now a victim?

some people are past the point of rehabilitation and should be in prison.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#62

Post by ekianjo »

benihana wrote: post #57

"Have you any idea how lucky you are that we got to you before you got on that plane?" The difference in the way he was treated by police and the justice system (and how different it is than what we've come to expect in America) is what struck me the most about this story.

> The difference in the way he was treated by police and the justice system (and how different it is than what we've come to expect in America) is what struck me the most about this story.

The fact that they were setting a trap for him was also relatively shocking. Don't they have to follow due process?

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#63

Post by phaus »

Interesting story, terrible article. Valve has always followed the "when its ready" release model. The article makes it sound like there was a huge conspiracy to keep valve's ineptness a secret, else Gabe would have no alternative than to commit ritual suicide.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#64

Post by sliverstorm »

jberryman wrote: post #35
jabagawee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject the argument that Valve had it coming since they didn't take the time to secure their network beforehand. There are almost always going to be holes in the security of any system, especially digital ones (since they have a larger surface area to consider), so blaming the victim of a break-in implies that everyone should just resign themselves to being hacked sooner or later. Valve surely made at least some ef…

> I reject the argument that Valve had it coming since they didn't take the time to secure their network beforehand. I think the suggestion was that the time taken to secure their networks shouldn't be counted as "damages", just something that needed to be done regardless.

Scrubing all the machines for new backdoors isn't something that needed to be done beforehand.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#65

Post by lotsofmangos »

deftnerd wrote: post #2

It's stories like these that's inspired me to start up a new project at oppressed.me. I'm trying to compile a list of hackers and hacktivists that have been imprisoned in order to let the internet easily send them correspondence. I'm also going to ask publishers for donations of older copies of technical books to send them. A lot of hackers are just kids that make a stupid mistake. During their time in jail, their sk…

I'm also going to ask publishers for donations of older copies of technical books to send them.

Not allowed to send books for UK prisoners as it contravenes their new "incentives and earned privileges scheme". Books are a luxury to be earned, apparently. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/ban-books-pri...

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#66

Post by macspoofing »

codexon wrote: post #6
deftnerd wrote: post #2

It's stories like these that's inspired me to start up a new project at oppressed.me. I'm trying to compile a list of hackers and hacktivists that have been imprisoned in order to let the internet easily send them correspondence. I'm also going to ask publishers for donations of older copies of technical books to send them. A lot of hackers are just kids that make a stupid mistake. During their time in jail, their sk…

I don't feel sorry for malware writers. They are not oppressed and deserve what they got. And this guy also stole people's software keys. If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route.

>They are not oppressed and deserve what they got.

Depends what you mean by that. In this guy's case, had he boarded the plane he would have gotten two decades in an American jail, versus two years of probation in Germany. I think he should be held accountable, but somehow, given the nature of the crime and the surrounding context, I think Germany got it right.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#67

Post by macspoofing »

benihana wrote: post #57

"Have you any idea how lucky you are that we got to you before you got on that plane?" The difference in the way he was treated by police and the justice system (and how different it is than what we've come to expect in America) is what struck me the most about this story.

Same. They let him grab something to eat and even smoke a cigarette before they brought him in. Then he gets two years of probation. It all feels very reasonable to me. Compare that to the $1 million fine, 35 years in prison (followed by 3 years of supervised release) Aaron Swartz was facing by downloading documents anyone can access just by virtue of connecting to the campus Wifi. There is definitely something really off here.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#68

Post by NamTaf »

garric wrote: post #23
pekk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we not start with black guys instead of making special exceptions for white kids committing "white collar" crimes? Why does the involvement of computers make some criminals better than others?

He's not saying that we shouldn't. But the U.S. is overwhelmingly focused on punishment, retribution, and incapacitation rather than rehabilitation. Essentially victim blaming, if you want to look at it like that. Opinion: It's going to take system-wide reform to accomplish anything meaningful.

I was specifically trying to avoid making a judgement on particular nations' systems because I didn't particularly want to bring that in to it. You are right however and that's touched on in the article, where the German federal police say that he was lucky they got to him before their US equivalents did. The US system is far more punitive than many European equivalents.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#69

Post by Jtsummers »

paulhauggis wrote: post #61
garric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not saying that we shouldn't. But the U.S. is overwhelmingly focused on punishment, retribution, and incapacitation rather than rehabilitation. Essentially victim blaming, if you want to look at it like that. Opinion: It's going to take system-wide reform to accomplish anything meaningful.

so..a person that murders an innocent person is now a victim? some people are past the point of rehabilitation and should be in prison.

> some people are past the point of rehabilitation and should be in prison.

If we made a serious effort of rehabilitation in the US penal system, then this might be fair. We don't. Prisoners, especially those who commit the crimes in their youth, are screwed under our current system. The younger criminals, like their non-criminal youth counterparts, just don't know or don't appreciate the options available to them regarding education and learning trade skills. We put them into an environment with other people we've given up on and somehow expect that when they get out a year or a decade later they'll be ready to reintegrate into society. They didn't have the skill set going in, and they won't have it coming out. Many of them will continue to live on the fringes of our society, perhaps making a meager living as unskilled laborers. Others will fall into a crowd that keeps them involved in crime or other "antisocial", or however you want to describe it, behavior.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#70

Post by im3w1l »

pekk wrote: post #17
NamTaf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we not treat people who make mistakes like humans if they show genuine remose and a desire to reform, such as this guy or e.g.: Kevin Mitnick? The justice system is supposed to be (in most countries, at least) to be a method of both punishment and rehibilitation. Why not find ways to assist them in completing the latter? I don't think it's particularly farfetched to expect relatively socially ostracised te…

Why should we not start with black guys instead of making special exceptions for white kids committing "white collar" crimes? Why does the involvement of computers make some criminals better than others?

Let me cite another comment.

"I felt for this guy, because it could easily have happened to me,"

This doesn't explain why we ought treat these crimes as different. But it does explain why we do treat them different. I think.

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