
Weev Needs To Walk - testrun
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/21/weev-needs-to-walk/
======
6cxs2hd6
> _The problem, in short, is that the Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenn Moramarco
> doesn’t understand what Weev did and instead compared his hacking to
> “blowing up a nuclear plant in New Jersey.” He said:_

>> _We have a case here where…[the defense] is arguing that this was
completely open to everyone. But you look at the testimony of Daniel Spitler
and the steps he had to take to get to this wide open Web and I’m
flabbergasted that this could be called anything other than a hack. He had to
download the entire iOS system on his computer. He had to decrypt it. He had
to do all sorts of things—I don’t even understand what they are._

Wow.

When a prosecutor is not only technically illiterate, but _proud_ of their
illiteracy, they should be disbarred.

In my opinion, this individual's statement makes them sound like a self-
aggrandizing, grade-A asshole -- the prosecutorial equivalent of an ambulance
chaser with a low-def ad on late night TV and a strip-mall office that smells
like moldy carpet.

~~~
eCa
> I don’t even understand what they are.

Should a prosecutor be allowed to prosecute a case if he doesn't understand
the actions taken by the prosecuted?

How can he be sure that a crime has been commited?

> He had to download the entire iOS system

I guess the prosecutor has downloaded the entire iOS system to his Iphone. I
guess he doesn't know that he has done that.

~~~
skolor
> Should a prosecutor be allowed to prosecute a case if he doesn't understand
> the actions taken by the prosecuted?

Yes.

There's no reason a prosecutor needs to understand the details of exploit
development in order to prosecute a case related to it. A hyperbolic
comparison would be to claim a prosecutor needs to be able to build a nuke if
they were to prosecute someone who built one in their garage. A more apt
comparison might be:

Suppose Weev was the first person to discover bleach+ammonia = toxic gas. The
prosecution is trying to demonstrate that this was done intentionally, using
techniques that are well beyond the average person. An equivalent quote would
be

> "He had to purify the ammonia. He had to use a centrifuge. He had to do all
> sorts of things—I don’t even understand what they are."

~~~
glesica
But if he doesn't know what a centrifuge is, then how does he know that most
people wouldn't know how to use one? Maybe he's an outlier...

Also, I don't think anyone is saying the prosecutor should be an expert at
infosec, but he should _at least_ know enough about the supposed crimes
committed to know whether or not they are crimes.

To extend your nuke analogy, he needn't know how to _build_ a nuke, but he
should know or learn what a nuke is and he should know or have someone tell
him whether the garage nuke was actually a nuke and, if so, how dangerous it
was.

~~~
derekp7
So kind of like a science fair student that builds a nuclear reactor by using
the material from a smoke detector, and sensitive enough test equipment to
demonstrate that a micro chain reaction took place? To someone with
appropriate knowledge, this would be nothing special -- but to the general
public, "Nuclear Reactor!!! Lock him up!!!"

------
DoubleMalt
Weev is not a good guy imo. I'm not even sure I prefer him outside of prison
walls for some of his past actions (although of course the solitary stuff is
outrageous).

But: He really must be acquitted for the actions he is now in jail for. There
is just no way this should ever be punishable. Otherwise it would set a very
bad precedent for corporation bullying of people that uncover negligence when
it comes to customer security.

~~~
watwut
Criminal courts should not evaluate whether accused is good guy or a bad guy.
The only possible exception is when the guy is found guilty and court is
looking for sentence.

Courts should evaluate whether the guy broke the law and whether the law is
consistent with constitution. His trolling activities and personality should
not play much role when determining guilt.

~~~
gamblor956
Criminal courts aren't allowed to evaluate whether the defendant is good or
bad. It's actually one of the basic federal rules of evidence. Character
evidence is relevant and admissible only if the defense _first_ makes the
defendant's character a part of the defense.

 _Courts should evaluate...whether the law is consistent with constitution._

This seems to be a big misunderstanding in the tech world. Courts already do
make sure laws are consistent with the Constitution; that is one of their
primary jobs. But they primarily do this when the law is challenged--usually
when it is first introduced or on its first application to a novel set of
facts. The courts do not re-determine the constitutionality of a law every
time a criminal case proceeds, and especially not when the constitutionality
of the law has already been addressed in prior cases.

------
mherdeg
The author writes "Weev is a good guy. I know him."

Is that true? What about his behavior towards Kathy Sierra?

(I agree that it is a problem for unjust things to happen to bad people.)

~~~
metatalk
I couldn't agree more. Weev is in no way, shape, or form a good guy. He's a
horrific asshole, and the world is better with him locked up.

Sadly he's locked up for the wrong reason. But he really is a stain on
humanity.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
As abhorrent as his personality may be, there is no reason to lock him up.
Prison is not a place to just put in everyone you find disagreeable, although
most governments would likely insist against that.

~~~
Consultant32452
Actually, prison is exactly the type of place we invented for the sole purpose
of putting people we find disagreeable. We create laws to attempt to define
disagreeable behavior and intentionally keep them vague enough that if someone
gets out of line we can lock them up.

~~~
agwa
> and intentionally keep them vague enough that if someone gets out of line we
> can lock them up.

(Is this a joke? I honestly can't tell.)

That may be what you'd expect in a despotic regime, but in a free country
(which is what the US aspires to be), laws cannot be vague, and vagueness is
grounds for a law to be found unconstitutional on its face. Individuals must
have adequate notice as to what conduct constitutes a crime and what doesn't.
Otherwise it's impossible to know if what you're doing is legal or not, and
you can find yourself thrown in prison just for being unpopular.

~~~
Consultant32452
Our prisons are primarily filled with unpopular people. We tend to refer to
them as minorities. Some specific examples off the top of my head of
intentionally vague law is when there's purely subjective decisions as to
whether a crime is just a "regular" crime or a "hate crime." There also seems
to be a lot of ambiguity around what exactly constitutes copyright
infringement or the legal vs illegal varieties of hacking.

~~~
agwa
Agreed, our prisons are full of unpopular people (though that's kind of
circular, because being in prison makes you unpopular).

Good point about minorities, though that's largely because of uneven
enforcement of laws (e.g. blacks tend to receive harsher sentences, and are
more likely to be busted for minor drug use) and arbitrary laws that are more
likely to affect them (e.g. crack cocaine being treated way more harshly than
powder cocain). It's not because the laws are vague (not to imply that that
makes this acceptable) since vagueness is way for a law to be struck down. For
example, vagueness is one of the primary arguments being made in Weev's case
against the CFAA. (Don't know enough about hate crimes to comment, and
copyright infringement is mainly a civil, not criminal, matter.)

------
rayiner
The article conveniently leaves out that he was convicted on one count of
identify fraud in addition to the CFAA count:
[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/11/att-hacker-found-
gu...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/11/att-hacker-found-guilty), by a
jury. If it had just been the CFAA count, he would've gotten just a
misdemeanor.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
You conveniently leave out that "identity fraud" was setting his browser User
Agent string to say "iPad". Which Safari does, via the "Develop" menu, right
out of the box. This distinction is meaningless and laughable.

~~~
sitkack
shit so when I use the '-U' on wget I am also committing identity fraud? Did
gnu set me up for this? If I call something a spade which clearly not a spade,
am I committing identity fraud? I am so confused now.

------
meritt
Weev needs to be in prison for attempting to blackmail and extort a company
over private consumer information.

Unfortunately, they put Weev into prison for hacking under CFAA, which on
those charges, I agree - He needs to walk because they're utterly bogus.

~~~
josephlord
> Weev needs to be in prison for attempting to blackmail and extort a company
> over private consumer information.

Can you back that up? I thought that Weev joked with friends about doing that
but never took it anywhere or did anything that I would regard even as
"attempting" to blackmail or extort instead just told Gawker.

Would be interested if there is something but in the absence of further
information my view is that all these charges should probably be dropped.

Edit: From what I've read he isn't a good guy and there may have been a case
to charge him on unrelated matter (stalking/harassment) but he should still go
free on this stuff.

~~~
rayiner
> Can you back that up? I thought that Weev joked with friends about doing
> that but never took it anywhere or did anything that I would regard even as
> "attempting" to blackmail or extort instead just told Gawker.

There are words on an IRC transcript. Whether those words constitute a "joke"
is a matter of interpretation, and that's something we leave up to juries. For
various practical reasons, we do not just trust criminal defendants when they
say they are "joking." Weev's jury, which returned a verdict after just a few
hours, apparently did not think he was joking.

At the end of the day, this is the sort of thing that got Weev convicted, not
some "corrupt prosecutor." If you do something at the edge of the law, and do
it in a way where a jury of your peers is likely to find you unsympathetic or
not understand what you did, you're going to have a bad time. Maybe this isn't
fair, but it's a natural property of criminal law systems based on jury
trials. The law isn't enforced by robots, it's enforced by people, and if
people don't like you, that diminishes your odds.

~~~
josephlord
Whether a joke or a real suggestion there seems to be nothing suggesting it
was taken forwards and it isn't like they didn't get chance to go through with
something because the police knocked down the door that minute.

Without further evidence of any concrete action I don't see how it could be
regarded as an "attempt" at anything. That he was convicted on the basis of
that[0] strikes me as a failure of the system (including the prosecutor, the
court and the jury) and that hopefully an appeals court would correct the
error.

[0] Assuming that was the extent of the evidence in this aspect as there may
be other evidence of which I am not aware.

------
runako
I think the author makes a poor analogy here:

>> This would be as similar to blowing up a nuclear plant in New Jersey only
if the nuclear plant were stupid enough to put a button on their website –
hidden, obviously, through a feat of minor obfuscation – that said “Press Here
To Blow Up Nuclear Plant.”

Not having experience in nuclear plants, I would not be surprised to learn
that there's a lever/button/etc. that would destroy the plant if pressed at
the wrong time. Maybe the button to remove all the control rods or something.
Airplanes, cars, computers all have a similar button (e.g. steering wheel, rm
-rf, etc.). In any case, it's not obvious to me that a power plant _couldn 't_
be destroyed by someone actively trying to do so, especially if that person
thinks he's special because he can see through the "minor obfuscation".

So I think this was a really bad analogy.

I don't know enough about weev to have an informed opinion.

------
bishnu
I'm glad the tech industry has been able to come together in a defense for
weev that they couldn't seem to for Aaron Swartz.

~~~
Zigurd
Better late than never. The same would go for ensuring that Stephen Heymann
and Carmen Ortiz don't wreck other valuable lives.

------
ternaryoperator
This article and others about Weev seem convinced that his sentence is
attributable to his unpleasant personality and his previous malice on the net.

In the absence of evidence that this was part of the judge's sentence, this
seems like speculation. Which leaves the one real question: whether the
sentence is fair independent of Weev's character.

The sentence strikes me as certainly on the heavy end of the spectrum, but not
so outside the bounds of what's just that I feel some grave injustice has been
visited upon him.

------
RealGeek
This is ridiculous. We have a legal system where murderers like George
Zimmerman get away for ridiculous defense like "following someone with a gun
is not illegal", "shooting is not illegal" etc. But downloading iOS is
illegal?

We are hounding people like Aaron Swartz & Weev and threatening them with 30
yrs in jail time for downloading a few files with wget.

I guess hackers should shoot a computer with a gun after hacking and use
affluenza in their defense to get away. /s

~~~
at-fates-hands
>>>I guess hackers should shoot a computer with a gun after hacking and use
affluenza in their defense to get away.

While I realize this is sarcastic, there's a huge reason I stopped hacking
into systems. I know its a felony, I know the government has a hard-on for
making examples out of people they catch breaking into systems or doing
anything they deem mildly illegal. To me, it's not worth it to test the
government and try to show them the error of their ways. He was playing with
fire and he knew it.

On the bright side, he's still getting what he wants. He's getting plenty of
people coming to his defense. His security company is getting a lot of
exposure, and people are clamoring for a review of the law his was prosecuted
under. His cost is going to be spending three years in jail and having to put
that he's been convicted of a felony on every job application until he
retires.

If you asked him if it was worth it now, what do you think he would say?

------
Orangeair
I take it as a sign that our court systems are failing when a judge can jail
someone for crimes that has admitted to not even understanding. Whether he's a
good guy or not, that's ridiculous.

------
webkike

        [01:33] <weev> what kind of furry bluefox are you?
        [01:33] <weev> i have a giant weevil costume
        [01:33] <weev> with fawn horns
        [01:33] <weev> to symbolize my malevolence

~~~
epochwolf
Why is this relevant?

