Russian Hacker, Wanted by F.B.I., Is Arrested in Prague, Czechs Say | Hacker News Reader

Russian Hacker, Wanted by F.B.I., Is Arrested in Prague, Czechs Say

nytimes.com

132 pointsr721150 comments

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Czech Republic a member of European Union: Check!

Czech Republic a NATO Ally: Check!

Computer Crime Illegal In Czech Republic by Czech Law: Check!

Computer Crime Illegal In European Union: Check!

Bilateral Extradition Treaty Present Between US and Czech Republic: Check!

European Union Recognizes Validity Of Bilateral Extradition Treaties With The US: Check!

I am not clear on the basis of Russia's expectation that they're going to get their hacker back soon.

> I am not clear on the basis of Russia's expectation that they're going to get their hacker back soon.

That expectation probably has nothing to do with the law or legal means.

Where do you get those check marks from? There is not a single word in the article that has a proof of what he did.

Imagine if Russia captured US citizen in Argentina saying he is American hacker who they think hacked Russian servers, I can imagine the outrage of the US and its European puppets.

Also nytimes is incredibly biased against Russia, I would not trust a single word it says.

Did you see a check mark convicting him of hacking? I do not. First you arrest. Then, you arraign. Then, you spend months building a case and allowing the defense to build theirs. Then you try the case. Then you convict.

Would you like me to add a final line: "Dude is convicted of hacking in US: NO CHECK!"? I can, if you think that clears anything up.

Isn't there also a hearing before extradition to determine probable cause? If the US can't provide proof he won't be extradited.

Probable cause isn't the same thing as proof. Proof isn't required for extradition.

> Where do you get those check marks from?

Do you want to dispute any of them? Do you believe the Czech Republic isn't an EU/NATO member, as asserted with the "check"s?

These check marks have a meaning only if they have a proof that he is guilty and is subject to extradition, otherwise they don't mean anything in this context

You're getting downvoted like crazy, but I really think you're just making a simple mistake in interpretation. You seem to think extradition occurs after trial, so that the convicted accused serve their sentence somewhere else. No, that's not how extradition works. The accused is extradited to face trial somewhere else.

I don't think it's so much a mistake as a disagreement with the process of extradition. Government wants person so they can abridge their freedom from across the globe to satisfy the government's belief that they have the right person.

It's understood the trial ultimately determines the person's fate but it does seem like more proof or evidence should be made public before taking a rather rather drastic action like this. They don't have to show their whole hand, but something that is convincing enough that they have the right guy.

Again completely Realize that's not how extradition works it's just it does seem like a raw deal that flies in the face of the U.S. Justice system ideals

In most of the cases we've seen with extraditions to the US for hacking, the burden placed on the US to justify the extradition has been pretty significant. We have in fact lost extradition cases where few of the underlying facts were in doubt.

I'm also not sure how bringing suspects to trial in the US flies in the face of US justice system ideals.

Well in this instance I'm suggesting that the uprooting and deprivation of freedom using foreign law as a basis is unreasonable. I fully admit this is a lay person interpretation and the law likely disagrees, but I would imagine that a more fair process would first let an international court or the local governing body determine in full if they cooperate, not instead have a blanket extradition treaty. Unless I am misunderstanding the entirety of extradition treaties, it just seems the burden of proof that they have the right person to even start questioning is low and not subject to scrutiny except from within.

Most extradition treaties agree with you, and refuse to extradite unless the crime charged is criminal in both locales.

The exception being the European arrest warrant. Assange was going to be extradited from the UK to Sweden for something that is not a crime in the UK. (Failure to use a condom is considered extremely rude but is not a crime in the UK.)

One is generally subject to extradition if they are charged with an offense covered by an extradition treaty (there are often procedural details here, but IIRC they generally don't extend much beyond verifying that there is a minimally plausible basis for the charges, similar to a preliminary hearing.)

Guilt or innocence is determined at trial after extradition; guilt isn't a question to be resolved to determine whether one is a subject to extradition.

Unfortunately, our (Czech) president is a big friend with Russia/China etc., he actively pulls strings in the background, so I wouldnt be surprised if this scenario would magically happen, somehow.

That would mean pissing of the US big time though.

Now they have the choice between aggravating the US or Russia. Ahh, good old times...

Hong Kong showed the way with Snowden: You ping the victim giving him a 24 to 48h head start. Then he is gone and it's or your problem anymore.

How is this possible after 1968? This world is strange.

Strange question. People are friends with Germany, no? Japan has good relationships with the US etc.

You do realise that in modern russia Stalin is considered a hero and praised? The actions of USSR in Prague are viewed in a positive light. If Germany was uniformly praising Hitler and building him monuments I somehow doubt Germany would have a lot of friends.

This comes as a surprise to me. Prague is rife with anti-communist monuments. Plaques implore the viewer to never forget about the scourge of totalitarian rule. Free anti-communist movies were on display in the park.

I was a tourist; I'm not disputing what you said.

All of the above I said about Russia, the surprising part is having a pro Russian president in the Czech Republic.

Heh, just give it time[1]. The EU is bringing back Nazism all over the place: Greece (3rd party officially), Austria, Hungary, France and now Germany.

[1] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/09/germany-vote-results-1...

The EU isn't bringing anything, its citizens are fed up by the results from choices from own leaders.

Every action has a reaction.

I've been living in the czech republic for almost two years now and I haven't seen more anti-communist people than here.

Sorry for the late reply.

This is bullshit. Yes there are some people who praise him as a hero, and quite a number of those who does not see him as a hero, but does not view him as a murderous dictator either - it's more like "yes, he did horrible thing we should remember through our lifes, but he did what was necessary for the country". This view is very debatable\questionable, but still has it's right to be.

Most of the people view him just a historical figure without giving in to some deeper thought. Same as for Ivan IV The Terrible, or Peter I The Great (yes, he did much for the country and basically made it up to european standarts, but still was what you'd call a bloody dictator)

>The actions of USSR in Prague are viewed in a positive light

Same as above - this can be applied to 10-15% of population at most.

Well they can at least ask.

Czech Republic, is supposedly a base of Russia espionage for European Union[1]. There are very close connections between our high-profile politics to people around Putin.[2] My guess is that he will be returned to Russia.

I recommend to read the profile published by Guardian last year on Czech president Milos Zeman.[3]

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/czechrepubl...

[2] http://praguemonitor.com/2016/08/10/zeman-attend-conference-...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/15/milos-...

Anecdotally, my wife grew up in Prague and has said it is a favorite for Russian tourism, so it's probably fairly easy to enter the E.U. there.

Yup, Prague and especially Karlovy Vary are full of Russian tourists.

Not just tourists, unfortunately they own a large part of that city.

they are pretty much the majority of the people in karlovy vary.

I can't blame them for that :) Prague is beautiful.

On a simple basis that guy is not a hacker, but a completely innocent gigolo, grappled by some career-eager US spies.

Ahh, the old Kenneth Lay argument. Good luck with that!

You should read the article to the end. It apeears that I am right.

No word on who was arrested or who their victims were.

All we have to confirm the story is political posturing from two global superpowers over an arrest in a third country. This sounds like the opening act of a cold war era political struggle. War by proxy, etc.

Can we please not repeat that chapter in history?

Or, if we're going to do so, at least not use hackers as the pawns in this sick game? I'd appreciate at least that much.

Which part do you consider an opening act of a cold war? Launching a cyber attack in a foreign country - or arresting someone who launched a cyber attack?

All of the above, really. I meant act in a literary sense, not as in "one specified unit of verb".

to be truly accurate, it is _allegedly_ launching a cyber attack.

I read it as "opening act of a political struggle", where the struggle is of "cold war era" style.

Probably that hacker shouldn't have worked for Russian intelligence while living in a NATO country. I'd expect the same for an NSA hacker working out of Turkmenistan or something.

Is there any benefit to a Russian hacker not working from Russia?

The EU has a higher standard of living.

So maybe he just prefers living in Czech Rep.?

All I'm saying is I don't like where this is going, and I think it's eerily similar to a path both countries have traveled before.

If history must repeat, I'd rather not have the world's hackers get dragged into the struggle. I hate politics in my technology, dammit.

I'm still not clear on where you think this is going. He was arrested by the FBI, not rendered by the CIA. He's being charged with a crime. It's a crime that both the Czech Republic and the US have recognized as a crime for a long time.

> I'm still not clear on where you think this is going.

Further political strife and possibly even all-out war, especially if warmer heads get elected.

> He was arrested by the FBI, not rendered by the CIA. He's being charged with a crime. It's a crime that both the Czech Republic and the US have recognized as a crime for a long time.

Is he going to be prosecuted in the Czech Republic and (if the prosecution is successful) sentenced to a prison term in the Czech Republic, guaranteed, without any possibility of extradition to US or Russia?

No, he's going to be extradited to the US and tried for crimes in the US.

OK, and that is exactly the point at which it becomes an international politics issue.

I'm not following. Extradition has been an international norm since before the US even existed. We signed our first extradition treaty in the 1700s.

Extradition to a country the defendant never went to seems like a new thing, no?

No, that is also not a new thing. Marcel Lazăr Lahel, for instance, was arrested in and extradited from Romania. I'm sure we can find more examples.

What might be new-ish (last 30 years) are crimes you can commit against a foreign state without setting foot on their soil. But I doubt computer crimes set the precedent there; I'm guessing if we look, we'll find some financial crime, or some organized crime, that took place in the middle of the 20th century and created the same fact pattern.

Remember as well that the US isn't the only country that extradites people, so we'll probably have a lot of data to look through for examples!

Russia and the US are going to bicker over who gets this person, as the article makes clear and you've alluded to. This is just one of many conflicts between both nations that could have far-reaching political consequences.

I'm not sure what's more difficult to follow here? I'm not predicting a specific outcome (or worse, detailing some conspiracy theory); I'm just stating that there's a significant potential for bad things to follow this news and expressing my dislike for the general theme of it all.

Russia has no basis for bickering. No norm of international law suggests Russia has the right to shield its citizens from foreign prosecution. US citizens are routinely tried abroad, as well.

That was the point of the checklist I provided upthread.

OK, that makes a lot more sense now. The confusion was on my end.

> US citizens are routinely tried abroad, as well.

Unless treaties give jurisdiction to laughable U.S. military courts, which is often the case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(1... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Okinawa_rape_incident

There's going to be no bickering. Russia is going to insist as loudly as they can that this is illegitimate, and everyone else is going to largely ignore an extradition in line with international norms.

If the world is entering a new cold war based on cybersecurity threats instead of existential WMD threats (and I believe it likely is), entire national populations are going to be dragged into the struggle, let alone a few hackers.

To all countries involved in this hypothetical scenario (or others like it), I have the following to say: Sod off and fight your own battles.

To be fair, due to Russian non-extradition rules this is generally how Russian hackers are arrested. Whether they are state sponsored or general black hats (e.g carders) the US authorities wait for then to take a trip into the EU or some other friendly (to the US) location and then arrest them. The guy who sent Brian Krebs heroin was a Russian hacker arrested in Italy and many other shave been arrested on their holidays to EU states.

Hackers aren't, generally, being "dragged into the struggle", they are voluntary active participants, for patriotic, ideological, or mercenary reasons.

It's the new frontier of warfare and espionage. Like it or not these tactics are here to stay.

Opening act? I think we're well past act 1 scene 1, there's a literal proxy war happening right now in Syria.

2012 hack on a "west coast company" ... anyone know which hack this might be?

Linkedin maybe? This stirred up controversy in the US gov where they might have invested resources in pursuing the attacker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_LinkedIn_hack

Yahoo's discovery of the big intrusion recently was from 2012 but that might have been too recent?

Also Dropbox was hacked in 2012.

That paragraph was just added, wasn't there a hour ago.

UPD "Suspect believed to be tied to massive LinkedIn hack arrested in Prague, sources say; U.S. officials hope to extradite him to U.S."

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/788754540656898049

“Following the 2012 breach of LinkedIn member information, we have remained actively involved with the FBI’s case to pursue those responsible,” a LinkedIn spokesperson told Motherboard in an email. “We are thankful for the hardwork and dedication of the FBI in its efforts to locate and capture the parties believed to be responsible for this criminal activity.”

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacker-allegedly-responsibl...

>The indictment, unsealed today, alleges that Nikulin, accessed computers belonging to LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring, each of which has its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area. The indictment further alleges that the defendant accessed the computers without authorization and that he obtained information from the computers. According to the indictment, the defendant also caused damage to computers belonging to a LinkedIn employee and to Formspring by transmitting a program, information, code, or command. Nikulin also is alleged to have used the credentials of LinkedIn and Formspring employees in connection with the computer intrusions. Further, Nikulin is alleged to have engaged in a conspiracy with unnamed co-conspirators to traffic stolen Formspring user credentials. In all, Nikulin is charged with three counts of computer intrusion; two counts of intentional transmission of information, code, or command causing damage to a protected computer; two counts of aggravated identity theft; one count of trafficking in unauthorized access devices; and one count of conspiracy.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/yevgeniy-nikulin-indicted-hac...

Oh interesting. So it was more than one. Thanks for the link.

Isn't it wrong? A person that is not an US citizen, that has never been to US, will be extradited to USA and will probably be convicted to a 10 or 20 years in prison unless he can afford a lawyer that costs several hundreds dollars per hour (because you have to pay for a "fair" trial in USA) for doing the same things NSA does every day. Since when US courts have jurisdiction over other countries?

Obviously this person's rights for a fair trial are violated.

If he is a Russian citizen, shouldn't he be judged in Russia?

Or should we apply the same rules to American citizens? For example, everyone working is NSA or its contractors can probably be prosecuted for taking part in a conspiracy to break into computer systems and intercepting private communications. Should muslim countries arrest any US tourist that have earlier posted pictures with Allah in Facebook and extradite them to Iran for fair trial by Sharia law? And what about people who develop software to bypass Great Chinese Firewall? Should they be extradited to China? US wanted to get Julian Assange, should not China get its enemies too?

By your logic prosecuting international computer crime wouldn't be possible. How do you expect that to work out in practice?

Also, he was arrested in the Czech Republic, not Russia. The Czech Republic has an extradition treaty with the US that existed long before the Internet did. This isn't rocket appliances, it's how our world's nation state system works. Sure, he probably shouldn't get 20 years and should receive competent legal representation. But to allow anyone to hack computer systems in the US because that person is not a US citizen and not in the US is borderline laughable.

The current system is asymmetric. If US can extradite people from other countries for something they do on the Internet, why Russia, China or Iran cannot? US is showing a bad example here. Once some governments get more power they will want to do this too. This is actually a display of power by US.

Maybe there should be some international agreements on how to deal with such cross-border crimes but they should be discussed and agreed upon by many countries.

And I don't like this anyway. I would rather prefer having american or russian systems disconnected from other countries than extraditing people into a foreign country to judge them by foreign laws.

> why Russia, China or Iran cannot?

But they can. They need preexisting extradition agreements and it's all good. And the system isn't asymmetric. By their nature extradition agreements are bilateral and therefore symmetric.

How has Russia handled extradition requests from the UK for Litvinenko's accused murderers? That strikes me as a display of power by Russia. Would you agree?

> Maybe there should be some international agreements on how to deal with such cross-border crimes but they should be discussed and agreed upon by many countries.

They're called bilateral extradition treaties. That's exactly what's being leveraged here.

> I would rather prefer having american or russian systems disconnected from other countries than extraditing people into a foreign country to judge them by foreign laws.

And I would rather people not hack systems for financial gain. I'd also like daily rainbows and a unicorn to ride to and from work.

If you want to build an analogy the display of power by Russia would be if it requested to extradite Litvinenko for trial and UK would comply (I don't know if they tried to do it).

> But they can. They need preexisting extradition agreements and it's all good.

Then let's wait to see whether muslim countries can make such treaties and start judging westerners posting inappropriate jokes about Allah on Facebook. Such practice will just lead to a situation when international travel will become too dangerous and you'll have to consult a lawyer before going abroad.

> If you want to build an analogy the display of power by Russia would be if it requested to extradite Litvinenko for trial and UK would comply (I don't know if they tried to do it).

If you don't know if they tried then why even bring it up, especially since Litvinenko was killed by Russian Intelligence? Speaking of which, how do you feel about a Russian citizen being murdered by other Russian citizens in a foreign country? Does that concern you? Isn't THAT wrong? Obviously this person's rights for a fair trial was violated. As he was a Russian citizen, shouldn't he be judged in Russia instead of being murdered by the state?

Of course that is wrong. Sadly if he was really murdered by government agents and even if they were caught they probably would not serve the full sentence and would be exchanged for some British spy.

In general, extradition treaties only cover acts considered criminal by both countries. Thus the situation you fear is neatly prevented.

> But to allow anyone to hack computer systems in the US because that person is not a US citizen and not in the US is borderline laughable.

NSA does hacking every day so can other countries extradite and prosecute its employees?

As does China, Russia, Israel, England, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and pretty much everyone else in the first world. What's your point? Comparing the actions of nation states to criminal enterprises, while fun, isn't really valid, especially when it comes to prosecution.

The problem here is that it is US who decides whether a foreign person is a criminal or not. The laws can be different in different countries and as I wrote above, posting a picture of Allah can be legal in one country and a serious crime in another. People even were killed for publishing such pictures.

The problem here is that a Russian citizen targeted and hacked numerous US based computer systems. If an American citizen was hacking Russian computers and was caught in China I'm pretty confident that person would end up in Russia. I don't think you're being realistic here. Sure, differing laws can be an issue IF they aren't covered under the extradition treaty between the two countries. How can you not see this?

From a point of view of victim I see no big difference between actions of nation state or a criminal. Should not they be treated equally?

Sure, they should. But they aren't. And I don't believe this case will be the catalyst to change the status quo.

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber

This sounds a lot like a thinly veiled attempt to dump a story about a state sponsored hacker being arrested and possibly extradited back to the US. All we've heard for weeks now is how a group of state sponsored Russian hackers were feeding DNC documents to Wikileaks.

The lack of details and the Russian response just sounds fishy to me.

the Russian response

History has taught us that it is very hard to pull the truth out of Russian response. You have to observe what they are doing and not what they are saying.

So this by itself does not conclude anything. Also not the opposite, or nothing about the other state level actors.

Although, you should do the same for any State, including the American gov't.

You have to observer what the US does and not what they say.

U.S. government officials frequently leak information more readily than Russian officials. I get the impression that Russian officials practice much better security with their public statements.

U.S. PR efforts strike me as ham-fisted and in reaction to current events. Checkers vs chess is the metaphor I'm trying to express.

An observer can glean more information from a U.S. government press statement than a Russian one.

Police video here: http://www.rferl.org/a/czech-police-detain-russian-hacker-su...

His instagram: https://www.instagram.com/i.tak.soidet/ (43.7K subscribers)

via http://www.currenttime.tv/a/russian-hackers-instagram/280642... (in Russian)

Never mind that the material this (allegedly) hacker exposed indicates rampant collusion and fraud that undermine the U.S. election system. Nope, that doesn't matter. The important thing is to stop the dissemination of the truth.

If I was Snowden I would be very worried. If the US gets a hold of this guy I could see Putin offering Snowden up as a trade to get him back.

Doubt it, Snowden has much more propaganda value making Russia look like the good guys protecting the world from evil USA.

The arrest happened 2 weeks ago, but is being reported just now? Interesting timing..

Wether he ends up extradited or not is largely irrelevant. The US sent the message Russian hackers who are suspects of engaging in cyber warfare better not leave Russia. Russia is trying to counter it and assert its dominance in the region and the Czech Republic is in the uncomfortable middle.

> David Schön, a police spokesman, said on Wednesday that the arrest of the man, whose name has not been released, was not announced immediately “for tactical reasons.”

That's two high-profile "info criminals" in a row given the secret arrest treatment.

I can't say I'm a fan.

The kinds of "secret arrests" you're referring to are routine in organized crime cases. I don't know what the procedure is in the Czech Republican, but the info-criminals "secretly arrested" in the US had immediate access to their attorneys; the arrests just weren't announced to the public.

There are so far as I know no secret indictments, and "secrecy" does not allow law enforcement to ignore Habeas in the US.

Read to the end "It appears that the man arrested in Prague is not related to the hackers Mr. Clapper described." Bravo. This should be the title.

That is some incredible burying of the lede. Well spotted!

> The Russian Embassy in Prague, however, called for the man to be released.

> “We insist that the detained Russian citizen should be transferred to Russia,”

Released or transferred to Russia? And why is the speculation from Janda there - he is no security expert? Where do the suggestions there is a link to DNC hack come from? He could easily be just running a botnet, blackmailing or a thousand other things... Really RT-level article here

Driving around in a luxury cars sounds more like a regular criminal than some one working for the FSB etc.

>Driving around in a luxury cars sounds more like a regular criminal than some one working for the FSB etc.

you probably doesn't know much about FSB and Russia in general.

just for fun, FSB academy "graduation ceremony" this year :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOzZROaFk6Y&list=PLot6UgSr1s...

Shit opsec then ;-)

Dobry den. Don't forget to remove your binary from target.

Guccifer2.0?

Unlikely to be him, he tweeted last night. The person referred to in the article was arrested a few days ago.

They're not sure if Guccifer 2.0 is one person or a hacking group. Many independent security firms have said it's associated with two Russian intelligence agencies.

Good point. I'm just not sure Russia would perform potentially delicate operations from an EU and NATO member state.

Also, not sure if all of this recent hacking is in fact leaking by persons within affected organisations. In the case of the DNC hack, I think it quite plausible to be a disgruntled employee.

We don't know that he performed operations from the Czech Republic, or if he was just apprehended there on vacation.

You comparing Stalin to Hitler? Are people mad these days?

Both were dictators who killed millions. Seems like a reasonable comparison.

Add Sir Winston Churchill to the list. He is personally responsible for death of millions of Bengali people.

We don't count them.

Still, nobody would compare Churchill (or Bush; see above) to Hitler or Stalin. This is because Hitler was not just responsible for the people killed in WWII. Hitler and Stalin also killed people because they wanted to get rid of personal enemies and because they actually wanted to do some form of ethnic cleansing.

Do you have any facts about Stalin doing "ethnic cleansing"? I thought he put people into Gulags no matter what ethnicity they were.

The US _today_ has the highest incarceration rate per 1000 people in the world. It uses slave labor in private prisons _today_. Why are you so keen on digging the Soviet past. Because it is safer to bark on a dead lion?

Well, the US government did ethnic cleansing during the WW2 by putting all Japanese americans to concentration camps. Don't bark onto dead lions. Look what your own government is doing with your own nation today. You have slave labour in private prisons!

They were both dictators that killed millions of their own citizens.

Why not? This seems like a fairly common comparison, made by actual historians. Some estimate that Stalins death toll may exceed that of Hitler.

Why would it be mad? Because Hitler singled out an ethnic group for extermination in addition to political opponents rather than just killing off political opponents? They both racked up a comparable body-counts of their own people as rulers (well, enough for both to be consider mass-murders, though I understand that Stalin had a high body-count).

Well, both are dictators responsible for the death of millions of people for political and ethnic reasons.

They are perfectly comparable.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/03/10/hitler-vs-stalin-... http://historyofrussia.org/stalin-killed-how-many-people/

> Well, both are dictators responsible for the death of millions of people for political and ethnic reasons.

I guess that's Hitler, Stalin and Churchill[1] then.

1. The Bengal famine claimed between 1.5-4m lives

I'd love to hear your reasoning why the comparison is so wildly incorrect that it earns this response.

Would you put George bush in that comparison? Or we already forgot how hundreds of thousand people died during invasion of Iraq for clear political reasons?

You are addressing criticisms of Stalin with a logical fallacy called "whataboutism".

I just hate hypocrites...You did not answer my question either.

We know that you hate the US, that's fine. But that doesn't mean you can't be objective about your own country's history.

Where exactly did I say I hate US? Quite the opposite I love It. I hate politicians who make stupid decisions that ruin people's lives. And nobody talks about those ruined lives anymore because it's not popular. Why can't you be objective about your country history that killed hundred thousands of innocent people in Iraq, Kosovo conflict and those Guantanamo prisons?

Please. George Bush did not run a dictatorship, had very limited power and did not kill his political opponents. There would be much more to say, but I'll leave it at that.

Is your comment designed to make this a USSR/USA thing?

Stalin killed far more people than Hitler, and Mao killed far more people than Stalin. I'm not sure where this instinct to give brutal dictators a pass so long as they were leftists comes from, but it makes no sense.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12745229 and marked it off-topic.

Is hacking really a crime? If your computer was secure, then the hacker could not hack. So.. who's fault is it?

If your house were secure, the burglar couldn't have gotten in and stolen your stuff. or stabbed you. So... who's fault is it?

(There is a whole other can of worms regarding what counts as "hacking" and what doesn't, but without knowing what the "hacker" actually did we can't really discuss it in this case)

The hacker's.

If it was a legitimate hack, a woman's computer has a way of shutting that down.

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