
Millionaire hacker gets 9 years in death of man building nuclear bunker tunnels - bobsil1
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-nuclear-bunker-fire-20190617-story.html
======
uiuc_throwaway
I went to school with Daniel at Illinois, we were in the ECE program at the
same time and took classes together (with other HN readers, surely).

I dispute _all_ posts saying "the sentence is too harsh" and that this was "a
genuine accident." This person is dangerous and willfully endangered others in
his pursuits.

This type of "accident" would not happen "in normal circumstances" because
there is no normal circumstance in which your employer intentionally masks
your location and forces you to defecate into a bucket in the basement of
their own home.

Personally I believe Daniel used the investment he made in the victim's
company to manipulate him into this situation.

From my POV it was only a matter of time that he did something that resulted
in serious harm. It is terribly unfortunate that someone had to lose their
life before he was able to get help for his mental illness.

I do not have an axe to grind against him personally, nor do I lack empathy
for the mentally ill. But for those quick to jump to the other side, you
should know what the experience is like living near someone in this
circumstance. It is quite viscerally terrifying, to the extent that I have
made no public comments about this for fear of retribution on his part despite
the fact he'll be separated from society for quite some time.

~~~
oh_sigh
What was it about this guy that freaked you out? Was it his observed behavior,
rumors, just a bad feeling,...?

~~~
_ah
I believe that one of the scariest aspects of living in proximity to a person
with severe mental illness is that their actions and responses are not
necessarily rational, or predictably irrational, or even consistent day-to-
day. Any random action (or lack thereof) is capable of triggering a
disproportionate response, and there can be no warning signs ahead of time.
This is mentally exhausting, since the healthy person must devote a large
portion of their emotional energy decoding and understanding the current
mental state of the ill person, proverbially "walking on eggshells" to avoid a
negative situation.

~~~
jhayward
> _since the healthy person must devote a large portion of their emotional
> energy decoding and understanding the current mental state of the ill
> person, proverbially "walking on eggshells" to avoid a negative situation._

Dealing with mentally ill people is quite challenging, but if one is 'walking
on eggshells to avoid ..' one is doing it wrong. The necessary role for the
healthy person is to _be_ the healthy person, and not let the ill person's
issue distort healthy behavior.

~~~
_ah
True. But for practical purposes, some degree of conflict avoidance is often
an important survival skill.

------
dx87
I'm suprised that he got 9 years in prison and was convicted of 2nd degree
murder for this. What he was doing was definitely strange and ended up causing
someone's death, but I haven't seen anyone from Tesla or Uber going to jail
when people died because they're beta testing autonomous cars on public roads.
The double standards are crazy.

~~~
jessaustin
He's a weird guy, which means certain jurors will be biased against him. He's
also an asshole, which also means certain jurors will be biased against him.
Also he killed someone, even if out of negligence rather than spite. This
doesn't seem like a giant miscarriage of justice.

~~~
debt
“He's a weird guy”

He was building a series of tunnels beneath a bomb shelter to protect himself
from an impending nuclear war with North Korea.

He’s not weird, he’s crazy.

~~~
jessaustin
If I had enough money I would definitely be building weird shit which could
include tunnels. I already like caves. I don't particularly care about DPRK,
but I'm sure normals would find something wanting in my motivations.

The problem is not that he built some tunnels. The problem is that he lethally
endangered his employee. Rich people make tasteless decisions all the time
(for proof, drive through any tony suburb). It is important that their
tastelessness not be negligent.

------
perryh2
This person got in trouble at UIUC in 2013 for getting an exam canceled, among
other things, and was expelled.

[http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2013-01-22/former-
ui-...](http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2013-01-22/former-ui-student-
arrested-computer-incidents-building-damage.html)

------
bluepirate
Darknet Diaries has a great episode on this. It's called alarm lamp scooter.

~~~
dannygarcia
Direct link to the episode which includes images:
[https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/39/](https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/39/)

This podcast has been around for a while but I recently discovered it and has
become a personal favorite.

~~~
jessaustin
Yeah it's great. I downloaded a big chunk of it before a car trip and it made
the miles fly by. Now I listen to it the day it shows up on my phone...

------
b_tterc_p
I have so many questions I want to ask both the victim and the guy who is
going to jail. For example, was he actually good at trading or hacking?

In the last few years I have become increasingly aware of a trend where we
wonder if successful people with blatant signs of being an idiot are in fact
geniuses. My recent favorite being the pizza bomber woman from the aptly but
honestly completely inappropriately named Netflix documentary “Evil Genius”.
(I would recommend maybe two episodes and then just wikipedia’ing the rest)

I’m curious if this is Protestant work ethic fallacies in American culture or
if it is prevalent elsewhere too.

~~~
sct202
This article says he was a crypto millionaire, which makes more sense to me
with his age, wealth and computer background. [https://melmagazine.com/en-
us/story/he-was-an-infamous-colle...](https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/he-
was-an-infamous-college-hacker-then-a-bitcoin-millionaire-now-hes-charged-
with-depraved-murder)

~~~
closetohome
I'm not sure buying and holding bitcoin qualifies someone as...well, anything
really.

~~~
b_tterc_p
Lucky?

------
mbrubeck
Beckwitt's alias "3AlarmLampscooter" is a reference to the excellent novel
"Interface" by Neal Stephenson and George Jewsbury (previously published under
the pen names Stephen Bury or J. Frederick George).

Coincidentally (?), the phrase occurs in the novel shortly before a politician
is evacuated from the capitol building through a secret Cold-War-era civil
defense tunnel.

------
xeeeeeeeeeeenu
Mirror for people in the EU:
[http://archive.is/p073a](http://archive.is/p073a)

~~~
bluefin
For anyone using Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS, archive.is won't resolve. This has
been discussed 10 months ago and still hasn't been fixed.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17742457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17742457)

~~~
teraflop
It's apparently intentional on the part of archive.is:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702)

------
canada_dry
A bit more background here:
[https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/maryland/demolition...](https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/maryland/demolition-
ordered-after-tunnels-discovered-under-home/65-505503433)

So bizarre.

~~~
Cactus2018
More local news coverage:
[https://wtop.com/search/?s=bethesda+tunnel+fire](https://wtop.com/search/?s=bethesda+tunnel+fire)

------
xwdv
I wonder if this man used to post here? There’s plenty of millionaire hackers
who are into doomsday prepping here on HN.

~~~
Lowkeyloki
There's something upsetting about that combination of traits, don't you think?
"Millionaire hackers" should be using their influence and money to try to
avert a doomsday scenario if they believe it's likely. Not just prepare to
hole up and wait it out.

~~~
dokem
I'll do what I damn well please with my money (not a millionaire).

~~~
Lowkeyloki
At least you understood what I was implying. Most other commentors seemed to
think I believed a single person with a million dollars could affect the
change needed to avert the apocalypse. Or that I was implying said apocalypse
was real in the first place.

------
55555
I think this guy is partly being punished for being mentally ill or at least
very atypical. What he did isn't normal behavior. And then there's the
hoarding. From my armchair, it seems like some sort of obsessive condition.
The sentencing seems terribly long for a genuine accident.

~~~
uiuc_throwaway
I went to school with Daniel at Illinois. He is quite simply a dangerous and
manipulative person. Having known him I would have preferred he spend
significantly more time in jail or otherwise separated from society.

It should be telling that I created a throwaway account to post this for fear
of my safety _even if he won't get out for another decade_.

------
razzmataz
Darknet Diaries episode 39 covers quite a bit about Daniel. He also used to
call in to the PLA Phone Show under the pseudonym “Skunkworks”, and talk about
dissolving bodies and vocal cords.

------
S-E-P
This is the talk in 2016 they referenced
[https://youtu.be/33bouyeSh-w](https://youtu.be/33bouyeSh-w) It's a little
cringy, but gives you an idea of who they were dealing with.

The sentencing is harsh to say the least.

~~~
threwawasy1228
Harsh is an undrestatement, this guy should have gotten a few years at most.
The sentence he got is absolutely ridiculous.

~~~
jessaustin
Would we all agree with this if his victim had been white?

~~~
threwawasy1228
I didn't even look at what race the victim was, you are commenting in bad
faith. I don't think the guy should get any time at all for doing this,
probation would be more than adequate.

~~~
jessaustin
Sorry about that; I need to recalibrate my assumptions. Not everyone reads TFA
before commenting. I'm normally not a throw-the-book-at-them kind of person,
but I don't think any employer who locks his employee(s) into an uninspected
burning deathtrap should get off without prison, regardless of his mental
state at the time. There is too much history behind this. I'm also not
convinced that this dude actually has any mental problems beyond "asshole with
too much money". I already have half of that mental problem...

------
droithomme
That title is amazing.

~~~
yakubin
It took me about 10 attempts to properly parse what the intended meaning was.
Perhaps my English skills aren't that good.

~~~
gurpreetsatwal
Thank God, I thought that was just me. I read it like 3 or 4 times and only
understood after I read the first few sentences in the article.

------
Charad3
This is a better article [https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/he-was-an-
infamous-colle...](https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/he-was-an-infamous-
college-hacker-then-a-bitcoin-millionaire-now-hes-charged-with-depraved-
murder)

~~~
brokenkebab
How's it better, really? Besides being exclusively one-sided, it tries hard to
make up a very strange connection between the fact that the guy was treated
mildly for hacking into his university network, and the death which
essentially was caused by combination of paranoia, poor electrical engineering
skills, and hoarded house (which is often a sign of mental problems too).
Apparently, if you won't put a hacker into prison as early as possible s/he
will cause a deadly fire!

------
YeahSureWhyNot
why are people inclined to believe in conspiracies also happen to be hoarders?

~~~
wolfgke
> why are people inclined to believe in conspiracies also happen to be
> hoarders?

Because they are prepare themselves for the scenarios that they believe might
happen and will be uncomfortable for them. You cannot mitigate against all
conspiracies, but for some, prepping is a form of mitigation against the
possible consequences.

------
erobbins
Elon Musk? I'm not sure which one you're describing here.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
As far as I'm aware Musk hasn't faced a jury?

~~~
HarryHirsch
This may yet happen. Over the "pedophile" tweet:
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-
canada-48238576](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48238576)

It's about time he lost his shirt over that, you can't have people throw
around accusations of that sort.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
So long as the punishment fits the crime, I agree, for what it’s worth.

