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Comment by alexschnapp | Hacker News Reader

I personally know Paras. Brilliant guy, really fun to hang out with, and learned a lot of technical knowledge from him. He was my go-to guy (like a lot of other people in the class) to help me fix the programming problems that I can't fix quickly.

I think he hacked the school for the lolz.I dont think he even thought it would be this serious when he did it, with feds and possibly jail time. He probably just wanted to see what he could do.

Even finding out about his involvement in Mirai today, it still doesnt change what I think about his character, or his ethics. Knowing this now, I think he'll become very successful very soon.

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That's horribly disappointing. The man hacked thousands of devices and used them to launch DDoSes. He attacked competing minecraft services to steal customers and generate a profit. His botnet was also used to attack Brian Krebs (security researcher) and Dyn.

This isn't up for despute- although Paras originally denied involvement in the botnet this plea agreement and his confession prove that he is both a liar and a criminal.

He may end up being a successful person in the long wrong, but that doesn't make him an ethical person.

Yeah he hacked minecraft services to generate a profit when he was 19 or 20, I wish I could do that when I was 19. I dont think I would have known better at the time either.

He's as responsible of taking down Dyn as Mikhail Kalashnikov is responsible for all the people killed by the ak-47. He simply open sourced a tool for other people to use however they like.

He took the plea to reduce the sentence and the legal expense.

They literally founded a company, "Protraf Solutions LLC", that would DDoS people for profit.

Your AK-47 claim also shows that you really don't know anything about this case and are just trying to justify why you still like your friend. They open sourced their botnet four days after they DDoSed Dyn and Krebs- it wasn't random people who used this software for the attack, it was their company that did so.

When you were 19/20, you didn't realize creating a botnet to take down competing businesses would be illegal?

"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."

- G.K. Chesterton

Anyone with a brain would know it's illegal, just like anyone would know selling weed is illegal unless you own a dispensary, and can get a really harsh sentence.

Sure, but selling weed generally doesn't harm anyone, while sabotaging and extorting a company directly causes harm to its owners, employees, shareholders, and customers. Not to mention the harm caused by infecting millions of people's devices to create the botnet in the first place.

What is the point you're trying to make here, that somehow this was a victimless crime?

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