He's not being treated inhumanely, he's being punished for repeatedly trying to skirt the system. You put people in jail who break the rules of society. You put people in isolation who break the rules of the prison system. He can "fight the system" all he wants but I don't see any reason to shed tears over it each time he gets caught and punished. He's an adult acting like a child getting punished like an adult.
> Is it really worth the cost of imprisoning people for non-violent crimes?
Are you suggesting they should go unpunished?
> It doesn't appear to deter people from committing crimes.
The suggestion that the threat of imprisonment does not act as a deterrent to criminal activity is absurd.
> It certainly doesn't help criminals rehabilitate and become productive members of society.
Do you really not see "I'm here because I screwed up. I probably should try to not screw up in the future." going through the mind of prisoners as they sit in their cells?
It is odd that you go from "don't imprison non-violent offenders" straight to "don't punish non violent offenders".
There's a bunch of stuff that we can do that is cheaper than prison, and better at stopping people from committing more crime. Restorative justice programmes are pretty good.
> The suggestion that the threat of imprisonment does not act as a deterrent to criminal activity is absurd.
Why are you not a thief? Is it because you're afraid of prison, or is it because you know that stealing is wrong?
The rate of recidivism is pretty high, the US imprisons so many people yet still has crime.
> Do you really not see "I'm here because I screwed up. I probably should try to not screw up in the future." going through the mind of prisoners as they sit in their cells?
But it doesn't. Really, it doesn't. People pass the blame onto others. Prisoners may well think "I screwed up by getting caught. I probably should try harder not to get caught in future".
Not to mention that a large factor in crime is an (apparent) lack of legitimate avenues to find work. Just the fact that one has set foot in a prison eliminates the vast majority of potential career paths. If our goal is to reduce crime rates, jailing anyone and everyone is the exact opposite of what we need to do.
Well I'm with you on the restorative justice philosophy.
I am a thief. I relentless pirate movies, television shows, and music. I do so because I know my chances of getting caught are next to zero.
I'm sure there are some who think that way and by the numbers hobs references it's probably a large number. Maybe a restorative justice based system could change this? Either way, I don't feel like using weev as the poster-child for the restorative justice agenda.
>Are you suggesting they should go unpunished?
I believe he is suggesting there are other methods which are more effective, less costly, and meet current societal goals. Remember that prison is partly about punishment, but to society, we just want productive people who do stuff that falls into the category of pro-social behaviors.
>The suggestion that the threat of imprisonment does not act as a deterrent to criminal activity is absurd.
I think that this point cannot really be proven anyway, so I will let it lie.
>Do you really not see "I'm here because I screwed up. I probably should try to not screw up in the future." going through the mind of prisoners as they sit in their cells?
Maybe? Who cares? The actual thing I am interested in is recidivism, and according to pew:
About 43 percent of prisoners who were let out in 2004 were sent back to prison by 2007, either for a new crime or violating the conditions of their release, the study found. That number was down from 45 percent during a similar period beginning in 1999.
So we are sitting at 43% re-offend AFTER going to prison... looks like our system works!
I can agree with you that maybe a restorative justice-based system would work better. It would be interesting to see how that worked in practice. I've always thought the prison system was too easy and that prisoners should be put to work in factories and farms. However, I don't feel like using weev as the poster-child for the restorative justice agenda.
That's why he is in jail for the time he is, and that's why he is in SHU. Person who doesn't want to be in jail says "Your honor, doing what I did was a terrible mistake, and I will remember it for the rest of my life and will behave responsibly in the future and apply my knowledge for good, not for evil". Person who wants to end up in SHU says "Fuck you, judge, fuck you, system, you're not the boss of me, I'll keep doing what I want to do and I'll do it worse next time. Yeah, you thought your puny jail would stop me from doing it again?! Fuck you!".
If he was some kind of Ghandi that refuses to cooperate with the system for a noble cause, I'd feel sympathy for him even though his conduct is contrary to what a reasonable person would do. Struggle for freedom requires people to do unreasonable things to push the boundaries and improve the system. But he's no Ghandi, he's a douchebag and the only cause I can see about him is his own douchebaggery. So my sympathy for him is very minimal.
And repeated proclamations from his supporters in the vein of "oh, he's treated so badly, he'll burn you all to the ground once he's out" is not helping either. Threatening is usually not the best way to gain sympathy.
No. It's pretty much entirely because he and his group spoke loudly about what a horrible job AT&T was doing.
Because other than that they scraped a website and sent a list of email addresses to journalists.
> Person who doesn't want to be in jail says "Your honor, [...]
Sure, and a photographer who'd just taken an incriminating picture of the police but who didn't want to go to jail would say "Yes, sir, here's the card."
> But he's no Ghandi, he's a douchebag
Your main reason for thinking that he's no Ghandi is that he's a douchebag. Circular reasoning always justifies itself.
You'd probably be one of the many standing around watching, lecturing, about how the smelly hippy should have given the police the memory card if he didn't want to be beaten, without asking why the police are trying to confiscate photographs.
> So my sympathy for him is very minimal.
That's good. Conserve your sympathy. Wait for the moment, then unleash it when they least expect!
> repeated proclamations from his supporters
Who, me? Doubtful. I'd likely find him to be a douchebag. No, seriously. I don't know him.
And what's a proclamation then? If it's cold and I say it's cold, have I proclaimed it or complained about it?
> in the vein of "oh, he's treated so badly, he'll burn you all to the ground once he's out" is not helping either.
Gosh no. Not in the vein of - exactly like.
But I don't mean him. He's done here because he's too visible. Weev's final troll is going to be costing $80k a day forever for a team of secret-service to follow him around making sure he never tweets anything in violation of his parole.
I mean the next person who for their own reasons stumbles onto a vulnerability and realizes what the company is like to other hackers - douchebags or not.
> Threatening is usually not the best way to gain sympathy.
You misread my intent again. It's not to win sympathy for weev, it's to point out that they've made an enemy of their own choosing.
They're kicking a hornets' nest. If they stopped, it'd stop spewing hornets. Then maybe they'd discover it was honey-bees after all.
>>> No. It's pretty much entirely because he and his group spoke loudly about what a horrible job AT&T was doing.
Nope. It is because he stole tons of private info from AT&T and then boasted about it and then said he would totally do it again and with worse consequences to the victim. Law enforcement usually doesn't like people that say "I'll do it again and worse" too much.
>>> Sure, and a photographer who'd just taken an incriminating picture of the police
Very nice, now do you have anything to say that is not wildly offtopic?
>>> Your main reason for thinking that he's no Ghandi is that he's a douchebag.
My main reason to thing he's a douchebag because I've read about him and his actions. My main reason to think he's no Ghandi is the same - nothing in these actions points at anything but being a docuhebag. Name me what he did that nominates him for being Ghandi - is it GNAA, maybe?
>>> about how the smelly hippy should have given the police the memory card
Very nice, now do you have anything to say that is not wildly offtopic?
>>> They're kicking a hornets' nest.
There's no hornet's nest. There's a bunch of douchebags on the internet that could think of nothing better to do that cause mayhem and suffering to those around them. Those despicable and miserable creatures would be around us forever, probably, but they are not honey-bees. They're more like dung flies - both by their tastes, their places of habitation and their behavior, and their attractiveness. Of course, even dung fly can cause an epidemic, given improper sanitation and bad luck - but I wouldn't be too proud to be one.
> Nope. It is because he stole tons of private info from AT&T and then boasted about it and then said he would totally do it again and with worse consequences to the victim.
Wrong. It wasn't private info, it was email addresses. They aren't treated as private and no harm comes from someone else knowing them. These were on unpassworded, public-facing URLs because nobody cared.
Another way to tell you're just manufacturing outrage here is that you pretend to care about sensitive data but don't give a shit that without the leak the hole would have remained indefinitely. If it really was sensitive, it could have been exploited.
Repeatedly your main complaint about weev has been his disrespect for authority, and your hastily-formed notions about his personality. Nothing about actual harm, because you know there was none - or if there was it was because of AT&T's dereliction of duty.
To the degree that there were victims, they were the customers who were implicitly lied to. Without this security audit they'd still be in the dark.
>>> Someone who didn't want to go to jail would say "...
>> Someone who didn't want to get unfairly arrested would say "...
> Very nice, now do you have anything to say that is not wildly offtopic?
Sorry, but it's not off-topic, it just shows your point is full of holes the size of a truck. You brought up "what someone who didn't want to go to jail" would say, but upon examination it fails to help your case and now you don't like that tangent.
You're more concerned with jailing those who disrespect your surrogate authority than in patching whatever hole there is.
> There's a bunch of douchebags on the internet that could think of nothing better to do that cause mayhem and suffering to those around them.
God, I know. Don't you just hate idiot politicians who try to control things they don't understand with the same blunt-object laws they fail to fix anything else with.
> Those despicable and miserable creatures
You're conflating what they thought would be funny with what they actually did.
> they are not honey-bees.
Really? They look like it from my point of view. They're useful if farmed with care but harmful if mistreated.
> My main reason to thing he's a douchebag because I've read about him and his actions.
Well, your interpretations of things are pretty weak - that doesn't mean much. Was this before you were told what to think? Because following links from an echo chamber is just going to reinforce your preconceived notions.
You seem easily led by anyone who says something catchy - you're using a juvenile phrase implying weev resembles a menstrual pad. It's like the rash of ideological clones saying "mansion arrest" in any discussion of Wikileaks, indicating not a single one of them had ever had an original thought.
> Law enforcement usually doesn't like people that say "I'll do it again and worse" too much.
It's pretty obvious you're upset because you're an authoritarian and you see someone flouting the rules. You're fixated on it.
>>> It wasn't private info, it was email addresses. They aren't treated as private
Maybe not by you. But for those to whom they belonged they certainly were private and not meant to be disclosed. BTW, somehow I don't see your email address in your profile either even though you could easily put it there.
>>>> Another way to tell you're just manufacturing outrage here
I'm not "manufacturing" anything, I just state the facts - one of the facts is the the emails were private and Auernheimer accessed them without authorization, thus committing a crime.
>>> Repeatedly your main complaint about weev has been his disrespect for authority
This is completely false, it wasn't neither my "main" complaint, not any other complaint - I never complained about anything like that, which is obvious to anybody who read it. Which of course does not prevent you to claim the contrary, as you seem to be an expert at ignoring reality and substituting your own fantasy instead.
>>> Without this security audit they'd still be in the dark.
It was "security audit" the same way as a mugging is "personal belongings safety audit". Word games are not going to change reality anywhere but in your head.
>>> You're more concerned with jailing those who disrespect your surrogate authority
Again, this is completely false - nobody talked about any respect to any authority. What we were talking about is unlawful and unauthorized access to private data - which of course has nothing to do with filming public servants appearing in public and your subsequent fantasies on what may happen next.
>>> God, I know. Don't you just hate idiot politicians
You're trying to change the topic again. By now you should have noticed I would detect such attempts and point them out.
>>> Really? They look like it from my point of view.
This is because your point of view has nothing to do with reality and is completely based in fantasy, which I amply illustrated here. You think if you call something by different words and misrepresent facts, they would actually be something completely different, but that is not going to happen. Bunch of trolls getting into private data store and unlawfully taking data remains a bunch of trolls getting into private data store and unlawfully taking data, call it "audit" or "honey bee" or "bologna sandwich".
>>> You seem easily led by anyone who says something catchy
As I do not know if English is your native language, I give you benefit of the doubt and inform you that calling somebody a "douchebag" in English does not actually implies he looks like a hygienic product and can be used as one. It implies he is an arrogant, insufferable and extremely repulsive personality, compounded with over-inflated self-worth and actions often characterized with complete disregard over the harm they cause to others. There's nothing "juvenile" in using this to describe someone who actually fits this description, it is very common turn of phrase.
>>> It's pretty obvious you're upset because you're an authoritarian
I'm not upset at the least - why would I be? I'm not the one getting in trouble here, so I have nothing to be upset about. I just point out the reasons why Auernheimer is treated like he is, and the fact is that he and his personality the main cause of it. Your attempts to telepathically read my brain over the internet and deduce my political and moral leanings resulted in a miserable failure.
Seriously. The only thing this episode teaches me is that instead of gaining publicity or attempting to help in any way at all, exploit the victims as hard and as fast as possible, doing maximum damage once financial and information gains have been appropriately optimized.
I think a more rational takeaway would be responsible disclosure. That or avoiding these situation entirely by not meddling where you're not supposed to.
> I think a more rational takeaway would be responsible disclosure.
The takeaway, happy or not, is that most companies see no disclosure as the only right disclosure and will punish you beyond reason if you're even connected to something that hurts them a little - even if they're the ones who caused themselves the hurt.
So, responsible for who?
Because the fastest way to guarantee this stops sooner than later is leak every address publicly with information about every error AT&T made and let civil suits from pissed-off customers fry them.
This is all just manufactured panic anyways so it's not like anyone would even get hurt. Email addresses aren't secrets and we don't act like they are or we'd be arresting spammers.
> That or avoiding these situation entirely by not meddling
No, then it'd still be broken and nobody would know.
> where you're not supposed to.
Sorry, but if you have my data or provide a service I need, I've got an interest in your systems.
> The takeaway, happy or not, is that most companies see no disclosure as the only right disclosure and will punish you beyond reason if you're even connected to something that hurts them a little - even if they're the ones who caused themselves the hurt.
But we don't know this is true for Apple because Weev didn't try to responsibly/ethically disclose his findings. He boasted about it on IRC and then to a reporter.
So maybe Apple would have sued him if he tried to bring it to their attention. Still, he could have disclosed it to them anonymously.
> Because the fastest way to guarantee this stops sooner than later is leak every address publicly with information about every error AT&T made and let civil suits from pissed-off customers fry them.
I don't know whether you're a programmer or not, but one thing you learn very quickly when you are one is that programmers are humans and humans make mistakes. Bugs happen all the time, and no one wants to be on the receiving end of some kid who finds ones and takes rubbing it in your face as his divine mandate. Dumping all the info you pull from a hack is neither responsible nor ethical. Doing so dons you with the blackest of hats and destroys your reputation to all except like-minded sociopaths.
> No, then it'd still be broken and nobody would know.
If it's broken and nobody knows, is it still broken? I do understand where you're coming from though.
> Weev didn't try to responsibly/ethically disclose his findings.
Going to a journalist is the ethical answer.
Sending phishing emails or extorting people would be the unethical answer.
> Bugs happen all the time, and no one wants to be on the receiving end of some kid who finds ones and takes rubbing it in your face as his divine mandate.
Did the customers want their email addresses leaked?
> Dumping all the info you pull from a hack is neither responsible nor ethical.
Bullshit. Depends on the hack. Dump Scientology docs pertaining to harassment of critics, awesome. Dumping private medical records of random people, pretty nasty.
You may notice that email addresses are not considered sensitive information. In fact, I'm sure Apple and AT&T reserve the right to share customer information with "select partners". Leaking customer email addresses doesn't actually hurt the customers, but does hurt the company's reputation for providing a secure service - which is exactly what should happen. Anything less and there's no motivation to change.
> Doing so dons you with the blackest of hats and destroys your reputation to all except like-minded sociopaths.
Oh yeah, the blackest. My kitten-eating hat. The one I wear when I trick people into slavery or prostitution, when I plot to exterminate entire subraces of humanity because of their lack of rhythm. That hat.
Yeah, right. Because only sociopaths think major corporations should have their feet held to the fire and that it's best it happens on a zero-value attack like email addresses rather than anything important.
