
Hacking suspect Ryan Cleary 'has Asperger's syndrome' - ColinWright
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13916090
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gcr
Ouch. That headline puts us in a bad light. Worse, it doesn't even convey any
new information as people with Aspergers tend to be more concentrated in the
computer sciences than other fields. Who hacks into things? Likely only
computer scientists. But you knew that already. What you didn't know is that
people with Aspergers are going to hack your website! Alert the presses!
"Aspergers made do it! Mein leben!"

This headline is like saying "Rape suspect deemed to be a homosexual!" Even
though it may be true in many cases, everyone infers the wrong association
from it.

I'm disappointed the BBC chose to frame it this way. They could have conveyed
the same information by focusing on what he did, not what they think caused
him to do it.

~~~
elmindreda
The solution will never be to only show happy shiny aspies; rather it's to let
people see how incredibly diverse the group of people carrying that (or any
other) label is.

~~~
true_religion
Perhaps in an objective world that's true, but in reality people remember the
bad more than the good unless they're talking about their own personal
history.

To see where this can lead us:

People remember sociopaths as serial killers, and snakes in suits and not the
merely maladjusted people they bump into everyday.

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flyt
We're reaching a stage where banning somebody from all Internet access is over
the top, even for crimes like this. This would prevent him from accessing
online billing for utilities, banking, and many government services.

Some banks are even beginning to charge additional fees for services performed
over physical mail.

Before long a ban from the Internet will be equivalent to a ban from
electricity. At that point the criminal's life will be unreasonably
disadvantaged, regardless of the scope of their crime (and this guy's crime is
arguably less serious than that of the creators of StuxNet, for example)

~~~
beck5
The internet is or soon will be a human right in the EU so that should make
any ban impossible.

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choko
This whole new wave of Asperger's kind of bothers me. 10 years ago, we were
just called "nerds". Now, the medical community has decided that being a nerd
is a mental disorder, as if being highly intelligent with poor social skills
means you are mentally deformed. At what point did "they" decide being mildly
different is a disorder? It's not as if Asperger's makes someone potentially
more dangerous, like a sociopath. At what point will "fun" new drugs come to
market that will make "suffers" of Asperger's less intelligent and more
social, like a fan of "Jersey Shore"?

I'm sure there are cases where an "Autism spectrum disorder" diagnosis is
appropriate, but I really think that Asperger's is over diagnosed.

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ltamake
He DDoSed my friend's imageboard, and he joined our IRC to brag about it. He
DEFINITELY has mental problems -- he was threatening to fry everyone's
Internet with his botnet and he also threatened to DDoS my startup.

~~~
bkaid
Just because someone does/threatens the things you have listed does not mean
they have mental problems.

~~~
MostAwesomeDude
Entirely true. I've interacted with this guy before, and he was rude,
demanding, and childish, but to me, that only told me that he was young and
inexperienced in the community, not that he was mentally ill.

~~~
chippy
easy target to take down really. Highly unlikely that he was part of the
lulzec group

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noduerme
I love when the official government media outlet for a first-world power
focuses on something like this. Does this mean they're giving him a pass? Or
does it mean the UK will start preemptively arresting everybody with
Asperger's as a threat to national security? If neither: What relevance does
it have to any of this?

~~~
elmindreda
Ad revenue, mostly.

