

Moscow hacker who put porn on billboard gets jail term - marcog1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12847869

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pavel_lishin
> He was earlier sentenced to four and a half years' hard labour for trying to
> sell 13 grams of marijuana.

And people say that American drug policy is draconian.

Which it is. But damn. Russia's views on drugs are kind of, uh... well:

> Asked had he taken drugs before the hacking, he said "only beer".

Even my mother still views marijuana as something that's only done by hardcore
criminals. I've talked to her about it, and rationally she realizes that it's
probably not awful, but has told me that she will never try it - the viewpoint
is just too deeply ingrained.

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zavulon
That's harsh... especially considering American jails are a picnic compared to
what happens to you in a Russian jail.

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ChuckMcM
Ya know, the guy is just not thinking things through. He clearly could put up
any video, so he could have put up a simpson's episode or one of a zillion
'can you believe this?' type videos that get posted to YouTube every day, but
instead he chose to put up a porn video. That's just not smart at all.

I helped a guy who was doing sign art for a new billboard in Las Vegas (really
basic, the sign gamut and pixel geometry needed to be taken into account in
transferring his drawings from Illustrator to the sign) and after showing him
what he needed to do (and about 150 lines of C code) he said "lets see" and
proceeded to upload the image by calling the billboard (it had a modem), it
gave him a command prompt and he uploaded his image, we drove down to see it.)
I asked him if there was anything preventing me from calling the sign and
uploading random stuff, his answer "Oh sure, you don't know the phone number."
!?!! After I explained war dialing to him we went and had a chat with the
Casino owner ...

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pavel_lishin
So, uh, has this been fixed? Or should I start dialing random Nevada phone
numbers? :)(

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yannickmahe
"I decided to confess because they'd caught me".

Reminds me of when I was studying in china. A Pakistani student was caught
doing something mildly illegal (renting an apartment off-campus without the
university's permission), and was caught by the police. They posted the story
on every information board in the school. The final sentence was 'after
interrogation by the police, he admitted to his fault and regretted doing it'.

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olalonde
Found a video of the hacked billboard here:
<http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ca2_1263729266> (skip to 1:20, NSFW obviously)

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sp332
Funny, the same thing happened in Germany last year. The police claim not a
single complaint was filed by people who saw it. (The store that owned the
billboard did press charges though.)

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jarin
They should let him off easy for not putting up goatse or 2girls1cup.

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MrVitaliy
I wouldn't be so sure they have caught the actual guy. They might have payed
him off to confess just to look good in front of the public/officials.
Russia's court system is corrupt and this type of behavior is especially
prevalent durring the election year.

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xentronium
Yeah, right, because putting people in jail for pranks will bring you
gazillions of votes.

~~~
false
Well, it might, at least in Russia

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Tycho
What is the perfect crime, how can you profit from it, and what does it have
to do with this news story? Answers are all here (along with a good laugh, if
you have the patience):

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfrNfVLWmhw&p=E8D1A7F1929...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfrNfVLWmhw&p=E8D1A7F1929421D8)

(it's a comedic podcast episode. it's pretty much 'safe for work')

