
El Chapo Trial: Why His I.T. Guy Had a Nervous Breakdown - ajay-d
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/nyregion/el-chapo-trial.html
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Animats
From the article: " _The I.T. expert said the crime lord also asked him to
install spyware called FlexiSPY on the “special phones” he had given to his
wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, as well as to two of his lovers, including one who
was a former Mexican lawmaker. ... Mr. Rodriguez also gave the (FBI) the user
names and passwords of Mr. Guzmán’s FlexiSPY accounts, allowing agents to read
— almost in real time — the intimate and incriminating texts he sent his
romantic partners. "_

Right there is one of the best arguments to make against backdoors. If you put
in a backdoor for yourself, someone else may use it, too. This example will
get that across to CEOs and politicians.

~~~
SomethingOrNot
The world doesn’t change by “getting things across” to CEOs and politicians.
If a CEO’s enlightenment gets int the way of his fiduciary responsibilities,
he will simple be replaced.

It’s about systems, not Great Men.

~~~
toomuchtodo
People make the system. The CEO. The board. Your local city council. Your
federal representatives. There is no smart contract, there is no code that
evaluates the rules obediently without interpretation. Just people.

~~~
dredmorbius
And yet ... there's a tremendous degree of variety between and among people,
but it seems that certain archetypes tend to emerge time and time again in
specific positions of power and authority, including in business and politics.

One simply has to wonder if these systems either select for or change those
they come in contact with. Which would then point to a systemic rather than
individual responsibility role.

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kevin_b_er
Poor IT guy will probably be executed too. The reach of the crime syndicates
pretty pervasive, even throughout the US. He'll likely never know any peace,
even if he hadn't had a total mental breakdown.

~~~
krackers
Won't they have witness protection though?

~~~
guessmyname
Oh wow! I envy your ignorance.

Mexican cartels are some of the worst organizations in the world. They don’t
want to kill you, they want to make you suffer. They will kill his family, the
family of his family, and maybe the whole neighborhood just to make him go
crazy, and then _—right at the end—_ they will kill him.

If the IT guy was smart enough to hide all his family’s information, then
maybe they are safe, but he is still in danger because the mafia will bride
someone from the protection program to kill him, and I don’t mean “bride” with
money, no, I mean bride them with their own life, because if the person from
the protection program doesn’t gives them access to the IT guy, they will kill
their family too.

I am exaggerating a little bit, maybe I shouldn’t even write this considering
that I’m spreading the fear, and that’s probably what they want _—same as
other organizations like ISIS—_ but I have seen so much pain and tears over
the years, that I genuinely don’t believe the IT guy will be in peace.

~~~
pedro_hab
I don't think it's that easy to find someone in witness protection, unless
there are some other sloppy programs in the US, you, sir, are incorrect.

"More than 18,400 men, women and children have participated in it, and not one
of the 8,500 witnesses or the 9,900 family members has been harmed" [1]

Now his family idk, good luck to them.

1\. [https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/16/justice/witness-protection-
pr...](https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/16/justice/witness-protection-
program/index.html)

~~~
Casseres
It seems like that statistic will be harder to keep as technology becomes more
pervasive in our lives.

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keketi
> After fleeing to the United States, Mr. Rodriguez said he had a “nervous
> breakdown” within a year. He was hospitalized and treated with
> electroconvulsive therapy.

I had no idea that electric shocks are still used to treat mental issues.

~~~
retsibsi
It has that 'barbaric and probably pseudoscientific treatment that we surely
abandoned 50 years ago' feel, doesn't it? But I remember reading in this SSC
post (at point 7) that it actually works well, and isn't quite as scary as it
sounds, although the long-term effects are still uncertain:
[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/16/things-that-
sometimes-...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/16/things-that-sometimes-
help-if-youre-depressed/)

~~~
sandworm101
Labotomies are still done too. They are now more scientific and are used to
control things like eplilepsy, but still involve cutting/burning through brain
to sever connections.

~~~
HillRat
Nobody performs lobotomies anymore — haven’t since the ‘70s. You’re thinking
of corpus callostomies, which sever hemispherical connections in order to
limit the spread of epileptic signals. While they prompt fascinating questions
regarding neurological integration of the self, they don’t cause the
cognitive, emotional, or behavioral changes lobotomies do.

~~~
sandworm101
That is one form. There are also therapies, occasionally in the frontal lobe,
that use much smaller electrical devices to heat sections of brain to sever
connections. Some also use lasers. It is all about cutting connections, a
direct evolution from the dark days.

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whoisjuan
[https://outline.com/AZ9kWk](https://outline.com/AZ9kWk)

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sctb
A couple of recent discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18866729](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18866729)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18916367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18916367)

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readhn
What i find amusing is that he only asked for $100,000 to build the network.
To risk his life and his entire family for 100K ... even in mexico this is not
a lot of money it seems.

The number should have been closer to at least 5-10 million range depending on
the size of the family - enough $ to get everyone out permanently to a safe
place somewhere far far away on a short notice when things go bad. (similar to
that breaking bad guy who makes people disappear when things go bad: permanent
change of identity, relocation etc. even that movie guy charged 250K to make
that happen.)

But perhaps this IT guy was made an offer he couldn't refuse...

Also, i cant believe that someone running multi-billion dollar empire was too
cheap to pay for bullet proof security system. You get what you pay for.

p.s. clearly you can tell i watched too many narcos episodes and BB.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Right, so based upon repeated viewings of Breaking Bad and Narcos, you feel
you have the real world experience to understand the expected rate of an IT
project in Mexico?

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readhn
The world is global. There is no "local" anymore especially in IT.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
You say that, but that would mean that a dev in Indian should be making the
same as in Silicon valley, and the projects should all the cost the same.

