
When Going Online Will Send You to Prison - nols
http://digg.com/2015/when-going-online-will-send-you-to-prison
======
mratzloff
> "Tits or GTFO."

> Surprisingly, that didn't deter Kylie. In fact, she responded by posting a
> picture of herself in a bikini. "So we started talking," says Higinio. "And
> from there it was just love.

This has to be the first instance in history where that line has resulted in
marriage.

~~~
kazinator
The idea that women never respond positively to that sort of thing, and are
universally offended by it, is only a naive stereotype, reminiscent of "women
hate porn; it is only for men".

~~~
xtrumanx
Possibly true but still shouldn't be encouraged. It's like catcalling; maybe
you've met women that way but you also probably annoyed a whole lot more. The
cons outweigh the pros (unless you don't care how you make other people feel).

------
lost_my_pwd
This comment from Higinio is both telling of his mindset and maddening:

    
    
      "They're not going to give a [...] 13-year-old kid access to a multi-million
      dollar Unix server because he wants to learn to program. They will use shitty
      passwords and let me break into it. But that's on them."

~~~
Raphmedia
Well, if your password is "123456", "password", "root" or "dragon" for your
entire system, you are indeed asking for it.

~~~
pionar
Poor security is not a valid defense for crime.

"Well, you left your shed unlocked, so I guess the guy was allowed to steal
your tools."

~~~
Raphmedia
I see it like this:

"Well, the safe was on the side of the road and the combination was 1234.
Opened it, looked what was in it and closed it afterward after putting a piece
of paper in it saying that I was there. Can't blame a man for being curious."

~~~
rhino369
But that isn't what he was doing. Defacing a website isn't like "putting a
piece of paper" in it. And the crime he got caught for he leaked a bunch of
information and purposely accessed sensitive materials.

Plenty of people don't lock their front door. That doesn't mean you can go
take a dump on their floor and then post their diary online.

~~~
Raphmedia
Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not defending his illegal activities. He
obliviously grew bold and reckless. My exemple is for this part of the
article:

"They're not going to give a [...] 13-year-old kid access to a multi-million
dollar Unix server because he wants to learn to program. They will use shitty
passwords and let me break into it. But that's on them."

------
malka
"Since Higinio's parole officer doesn't want Kylie acting as a middle-man
between Higinio and the Internet, for larger batches of code he is forced to
actually print the code out and mail it to his boss, who then has someone else
type it up."

So stupid.

~~~
dfxm12
Why can't he just mail the USB drive? This part of the story doesn't add up...

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Probably to win over the public by coming up with bizarre scenarios. Look at
how many HN'ers think he shouldn't be punished. If you want to hack, you
should deal with the consequences. I don't see any problem here. Part of
parole is continued punishment and to see if the person is serious about being
a good citizen or not.

~~~
nickysielicki
> If you want to hack, you should deal with the consequences.

w0rmer got caught because he forgot to strip exif data from the bottom of one
of his leaks. He had his girlfriend take her tits out with a sign saying, "You
got pwned by w0rmer" and that was that.

I couldn't disagree more that he deserves to be punished. He doxxed some
police officers because of police brutality. Stop fearing 'hacking', and start
realizing it's one of the few things where citizens are on equal grounding
with our government. He didn't cause any damage, besides making some police
officers feel uncomfortable... Yet probably not as uncomfortable as their
victims.

Each and every one of these idiot hackers willing to risk their livelihood and
families for a little civil disobedience should be celebrated for the martyrs
they are.

~~~
lfowles
> Each and every one of these idiot hackers willing to risk their livelihood
> and families for a little civil disobedience should be celebrated for the
> martyrs they are.

Reading TFA, it seems he's now unwilling to risk his livelihood and family now
that he knows the consequences.

~~~
nickysielicki
Well duh... he's on constant monitoring by the FBI and he can't use the
internet, how do you expect him to continue?

He _did_ risk his family and livelihood, and he was without them for a time.
Now he's not. I see no shame in that.

~~~
lfowles
Do you think that was having considered the consequences and judged his family
and livelihood worth it or because he had the "I'm invincible" mindset?

~~~
nickysielicki
Probably a bit of both. What's your point?

------
kazinator
Convicted hit-and-run drivers should similarly be forbidden from taking a taxi
or bus, or riding as a passenger. They are dangerous if in any contact with a
motor vehicle. And that should probably include escalators and elevators, too.

~~~
pyre
That's a poor analogy. They are forbidden from _operating_ a motor vehicle. In
this case, he's forbidden to operate technology that's connected to the
internet. His wife controlling the Netflix feed is analogous to a drunk driver
taking the bus (someone else is driving).

~~~
kazinator
Well, you are ruining the analogy by carrying over the word "operating" from
one context to another, where it has different nuances. That is a form of
equivocation over word semantics.

Hit-and-run drivers are forbidden from driving, but not from using as
passengers. Passengers also "operate" vehicles through that use, but we don't
use the word that way; when it refers to vehicles, it serves as a synonym for
being behind the wheel, used in puffy legal language. For instance, a taxi
arrives because the user made a telephone call. The user isn't involved in the
details, but is commanding the situation. Just like the user of Firefox
requests a URL, but isn't involved in putting fields into a TCP/IP packet
header, or writing any code.

It is nonsensical to forbid a convicted cracker from consumer activities such
as looking up today's weather, or searching for a used lawn mower on
Craigslist. The concern that these will cause an intrusion is like worrying
that someone taking a taxi might order the driver to run someone over. Or
something like that.

You're not going to break into the Pentagon out of your Netflix remote. For
that matter, if you knew of a way how, you could easily get your wife to push
the buttons. (And she will do it, too, because you had her at "tits or GTFO".)

~~~
betenoire
I think your point is weakened by your analogy, your last two paragraphs stand
on their own.

------
sixQuarks
There's no way this guy is not using the internet from time to time. If his
wife is allowed to use it, how will the parole officer know if it's him or his
wife using it?

~~~
outworlder
There may be surveillance that he doesn't know about.

------
rayiner
You can't make this shit up:

> Like the hacks that had come before it, Higinio released the information in
> a web page which contained some ASCII art, a video, and a picture of Kylie
> from the neck down holding a sign that said "PwNd by wOrmer & CabinCr3w <3 u
> BiTch's!" The picture was taken with Kylie's iPhone and she had location
> services turned on. This meant that location data was embedded in every
> picture she took.

~~~
nickysielicki
The leak itself:
[http://pastehtml.com/view/bn72jbka4.html](http://pastehtml.com/view/bn72jbka4.html)

No nudity but still NSFW.

~~~
_nullandnull_
OPSEC is hard. EXIF GPS from the image.

GPS Latitude Reference {0x01} = south latitude (S) GPS Latitude {0x02} =
37/1,5142/100,0/1 [degrees, minutes, seconds] ===> 37° 51.42′ == 37.857° GPS
Longitude Reference {0x03} = east longitude (E) GPS Longitude {0x04} =
145/1,1502/100,0/1 [degrees, minutes, seconds] ===> 145° 15.02′ == 145.250333°

[https://www.google.com/maps?q=-37.857,145.250333&z=15](https://www.google.com/maps?q=-37.857,145.250333&z=15)

------
christianbryant
This is a great article - I feel like I want to read more, and that it should
be expanded into a feature.

Nothing is stopping him from writing brutally malicious code, by the way. He
is technically still a threat. At any time, he could hand that USB over to his
wife with malicious intent.

That's not a judgement of him, but a simple analysis of how cyber crime and
punishment is still entirely misunderstood by the majority of the legal
system.

------
tzs
I wonder if he could pick up a couple of dial-up modems, and set up a dial in
BBS at work and use that for file transfer?

~~~
pyre
His parole office didn't like the idea of his wife emailing work files for
him... I don't think they would be accepting of this. Ultimately it's up to
his parole officer (and even if he were to fight it, a victory might just mean
dealing with a pissed off parole officer for the rest of his time on parole).

------
jqm
Serious question: do they sometimes ban offenders from using phones or books?

~~~
pluma
It's the US. They sometimes kill offenders with drone strikes or disappear
them into torture camps.

~~~
rhino369
Should the 101st airborne have been comprised of lawyers trying to serve
criminal complaints behind Normandy Beach?

~~~
pluma
It's not a war and you aren't the good guys. Deal with it.

