
The Boy Who Heard Too Much - acangiano
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/29787673/the_boy_who_heard_too_much/print
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rms
The acts of this individual demonstrated that he was unable to operate within
the bounds of human society. 11 years is about right in relation to other
sentences with the US justice system, but that presupposes that the US justice
system is fair and proper.

I don't believe the purpose of prison is punishment. I think the US system of
prisons is cruel, unusual and close to insane. People are regularly threatened
with rape in prisons and a lot of average US citizens think this is perfectly
acceptable. This unconstitutional system is terrible for our society, as it
churns out repeat offenders.

Look at the Norwegian prison system for something that is sane.
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/14/norway-
prison-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/14/norway-prison-erwin-
james)

~~~
jibiki
According to the article, Norway has a mere three thousand prisoners out of a
population of four million. I really don't think America (which incarcerates
people at about ten times that rate) could afford Norwegian style prisons.

~~~
wheels
I don't think you can decouple the process of incarceration and the number of
people incarcerated. If a functional penal system actually helps to curb
society's fundamental problems rather than simply concentrating the
undesirables, there's a feedback loop that affects the number of people
incarcerated. In other words: fix the problem, don't just push it away.

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DanielBMarkham
This kid has major emotional and behavioral problems, and I don't think
they're going away any time soon.

I didn't buy into the tone of the writing, which had a lot more pity and
sympathy for him than I bet his victims have. And I found his self-image
deeply tied to his "abilities" -- and it probably will be for life. And I also
found this kid to be a cruel tyrant, ready to use whatever abilities he had to
force other people to his will, laughing the entire time.

I'm not optimistic about this kid.

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travisjeffery
11 years is right in my opinion.

He physically abused people dozens of time, in the form of FBI coming to their
house and beating them up as they arrested them.

Not too mention how many threats on people's lives?

The immense number of malicious intended calls definitely leads to a number
like 11 years, at least.

~~~
tybris
Americans and their weird notions of justice. No interest in solving the
problem. Just hide the problem behind bars.

Just give him a year, professional help and a (low-paying) job at the FBI or
AT&T. Saves society pain & money and saves his life.

~~~
gaius
Modern Western penal systems assume that _everyone_ can be rehabilitated. They
are in the state they are now because that isn't actually true. In the old
days people understood this, and that's what penal colonies were for.

~~~
abalashov
The modern US justice system, conversely, assumes that almost noone can be
rehabilitated. At least, nobody that's committed anything resembling a serious
crime.

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newsdog
This guy is a completely vicious puke. He deserves everything he gets and a
whole lot more.

Did you read the bit where he told a woman who wouldn't have phone sex with
him that he would kill her baby by flushing it down a toilet? How do you think
that made her feel?

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gaius
Kid had turned his talent to music, he coulda been the next Biggie. A man who
got the girls, the money and the respect and no-one cared about his immense
girth.

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wglb
I had a blind childhood friend who did a little "work" with the phone system
(in the era of dial phones in a small rural area) and got caught making many
long distance phone calls. A call by the phone company to his parents cleared
the issue up. He had a much better family than Weigman, but the stress of a
blind child eventually led the parents to divorce.

My blind friend used to follow me on his bicyle all over town, and he could
navigate down his own street, up the driveway, using the sound made by the
_trees_ to guide him.

What is interesting about this article is the talents we aren't using that
blindness exposes.

------
Hexstream
"As he listened in on the party lines, Weigman began pressing random numbers
on his phone, just to see what would happen. Once he held down the star button
and was surprised to hear a computerized voice say, "Moderator on." He had no
idea what it meant. But when he hit the pound key, the voice suddenly began
ticking off the private phone number of every person in the chat room."

Security FAIL! Would it have been that hard to require a NIP for access to
that feature?!

\---

"If he heard a supervisor's voice once, he could imitate it with eerie
precision when calling one of the man's underlings."

Why can't computers do that yet? Are we close?

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tigerthink
I wonder how he kept track of all the phone company employees he gained the
trust of, etc. Being blind he probably couldn't write things down easily.

I also wonder if he could have avoided being caught indefinitely by keeping
track of information better and taking more precautions. How long would it
take a superintelligent computer to effectively take over the world with
nothing more than phone access?

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dvvarf
Wired had a writeup of this guy last year. Pretty interesting:
[http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2008/02/blind_hacker?...](http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2008/02/blind_hacker?currentPage=all)

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asdlfj2sd33
_In June, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison_

What is it with the US justice system throwing the book at hackers. Is there
something deep and Freudian that I'm missing?

~~~
jerf
Did you read the article? Obviously, this is a rhetorical question since your
quote is from near the end. But seriously, after doing all that stuff, is your
suggestion that he should... what... get off with a stern verbal warning?
Because that's not just hacking into the local payroll computer, "poking
around", and harmlessly leaving. Those are, like, _crimes_. In fact, if you
fill out the quote you cut off:

"Last January, he pleaded guilty to two felony counts of conspiracy to _commit
fraud and intimidate a federal witness_. In June, he was sentenced to 11 years
in prison."

He didn't even plead guilty to any computer-related change, though perhaps he
plea-bargained them away (article doesn't say). He was warned before he was of
age.

What more do you want, exactly?

"Throwing the book at hackers" was when you could get 400 years for
(essentially) "annoying the phone companies", or get hit with a umpty millions
in "damages" for hacking into a computer vaguely in the vicinity of valuable
data. Or get hit with that for trying to report a vulnerability, or even just
accidentally stumbling onto something. Those days are, if not over, certainly
on the wane. It's not being charged with things you actually did, then
convicted of them, then sentenced in accordance with that just like any other
non-hacker.

~~~
nopassrecover
This is the problem with the US justice system - it's about vengeance rather
than any utilitarian benefit.

~~~
calcnerd256
The threat of vengeance can provide some utilitarian benefit.

~~~
jacquesm
It may. But it may also engender more problems than it solves.

Don't forget that the burden of maintaining the prison system is on the
shoulders of the rest of society.

America has an absolutely amazing number of people in prison at any given
time, also the chances of becoming a prisoner in your lifetime border on the
medieval compared to the rest of the developed world.

~~~
endtime
>also the chances of becoming a prisoner in your lifetime border on the
medieval compared to the rest of the developed world.

That implies that the imprisoning is arbitrary, which it isn't. If you don't
commit major crimes then your chance of being imprisoned is near zero.

~~~
jacquesm
> If you don't commit major crimes then your chance of being imprisoned is
> near zero.

You think so ?

Three strikes law ?

Minor drugs infractions ?

stuff like this:

[http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/topless_woman_poli...](http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/topless_woman_police_entrapment_sting/)

Think again:

<http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1001548>

~~~
jibiki
The second link is very interesting. What crimes against "public order" are
people committing? Wikipedia suggests that prostitution, statutory rape, and
DUI are all in the category. (I would guess that DUI comprises the bulk of
their public order crime number then, but maybe they count that under drug
crime instead?)

