This kid needs to be cultivated, not institutionalized.
(Edit: never mind, seems he IS a menace to society)
Yes, those mental hospitals were terribly run. But we need to create a safe place for these people. We can't just give up because of mistakes made in the past.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2018/06/health-beat-bring-back-the...
many are drug addicted, they would have somewhere to go but they opted out of society (well, they aren't in the forest so not full opt-out)
but yes a combination of state run rehab / mental hospitals seems to be the only solution, but is it done by force?
if it's not forced you'll have a hell of a time getting people to go. if it is, you are now rounding up potentially unwilling people and shipping them to a facility.
Do you know that? In the US, I read (several years ago) that the top reason was losing your home to medical bills.
Yes, of course. Do you really think most of these people even in the care of their own family would have complete agency over their lives? No, they'd be declared unfit and their Power of Attorney would be delegated to someone else.
Most people respond with patience, because they understand deescalation is their best move. This person has Autism. I think it's not a leap to conclude that he simply doesn't understand that deescalation is the right move. He may not even realize or totally comprehend that deescalation is an option!
If you want to convince me this person is a menace to society, then talk about his behavior before being arrested. What did he do then? Oh, that's right, he shared video of an unreleased game... Why should I, or any other person feel threatened?
He's part of a hacker group who steals data and extorts companies for money. And he talks about how he can't wait to do more crime when he gets out of lockup. It's all there in the article.
I know, crime against big companies isn't "real crime" as far as many are concerned, but these companies employ real people, and when they take a big financial hit due to cyber crime like this, it can affect peoples' jobs and livelihood. Because the companies will choose to keep paying the CEO a ridiculous sum while laying off lower-level employees to even out the cost of the ransom (if it's paid) or the financial loss caused from the data leakage (difficult to estimate, but a material loss nonetheless that the bean counters will have to account for).
The article also mentioned how they stole from individuals' crypto wallets.
I'm not working to give up that easily. This is a person with the rest of his life ahead of him; and that life has been locked in a room, and declared his responsibility.
How do you propose, exactly, that society handle a person that openly admits that they'll do whatever they see fit and decide for themselves what rules they'll follow? And we're not talking about minor rules and infractions, we're talking about major ones like 'don't be violent' and 'don't stalk and terrorize women' and 'don't run a doxxing website' and 'don't extort and steal'
Answer me this: _why_ does society need to 'understand how to behave around him' ?
What's the benefit to society?
The guy stands up in court and basically says 'yeah I don't have any remorse and I'm gonna keep doing it because I don't think it's wrong' - why do we need to try and understand that more?
The only evidence for this is heresay by the prosecutors.
> 'don't stalk and terrorize women'
As has been pointed out by others in this thread, that was a different person. Go read the article again.
> 'don't run a doxxing website'
You've got me there. But I don't think that comes even close to justifying an indefinite sentance.
> 'don't extort and steal'
Yeah, he shouldn't have done that. But as I said before, it does not at all justify an indefinite sentance.
> The guy stands up in court and basically says 'yeah I don't have any remorse and I'm gonna keep doing it because I don't think it's wrong' - why do we need to try and understand that more?
That is completely false. He is never quoted as saying anything to that effect. Rather, this is the closest thing we get:
> A mental health assessment used as part of the sentencing hearing said he "continued to express the intent to return to cyber-crime as soon as possible. He is highly motivated."
Perhaps the question should be what about cyber-crime he is motivated by. There is no indication that the motivation is anything malicious. It may be thrill that he is motivated by. If that's the case, it should be treated as an struggle with addiction, not evil.
My opinion, in short, is that people exist who simply thrive on chaos and drama. If you've met a person like that or have one of them as a member of your family, you understand. You understand that the power to destroy and create drama gives them a thrill that literally nothing else will ever come close to. You can't treat it, it's very hard to redirect (literally the _exact same activities_ will bore them if the outcome is positive rather than negative) and you can't reliably use them as part of a 'red team' because the first thing they'll destroy is the team cohesion.
If you have any teachers in your family ask them 'do you think that some kids are just born wrong' and they'll tell you all about it. They've seen it.
Here's one method: We simply remove that person from the society, because society is made of rules, not people. In a word: fascism.
Here's an alternative method: We better involve that person in the rule-structuring process. We do our best - through education, therapy, and socialization - to expand our common ground into shared goals; because society is made of people, not rules. If the person is unwilling to participate, then we give them judicious punishment. As a last resort, if the person is a threat to the safety of other people, we remove them from society. In a word: democracy.
The benefit to society is the recognition that both rules and people are living and changing. We can recognize that society is a system, and empower people to be in control of that system, rather than allow the system be in control of us.
They closed something bad and brought no alternative because it’s easy for a politician to score points by appearing to solve problems in the short term but providing no long term solutions.
What about the part where he continued hacking after being busted the first time and released on bail.
Its pretty clear that the kid poses a danger and doesn't understand that he needs to stop.
This isn't a youthful prank/indiscretion that went too far. This kid was on trial for causing millions in damages, and then did it again while on trial.
Yeah, institutionalizing people has a horrendous history, but this kid is incredibly destructive, and has proven that cannot control himself or will go out of his way to do the wrong thing. The only viable alternative to a supervised medical setting is jail for him.
His actions have physically injured people, destroyed property, and caused hundreds or thousands of people to spend otherwise productive time on fixing things.
This wasn’t some hacker poking around because he could. He was stealing assets and then trying to ransom them back. He also just straight up stole crypto.
Don't give him a life sentence for sharing secrets. Don't ask me to pretend that isn't what this is about.
You keep saying that he was given a life sentence. He has not. He has been ordered to live in a hospital until he is deemed by a professional to no longer be a danger to himself.
If he managed to do that using nothing more than a TV and an Android device, I have absolutely zero sympathy with his victims. In the end, I'd even classify that as a public service, getting these companies to up their security game at least to some standard.
> He also just straight up stole crypto.
And here I have even less sympathy. I have grown to hate anything crypto-currency with a passion, simply because it's even more enticing to criminals than a locked safe room full of diamonds.
Don't get me wrong: It's still not correct what he did. Lock him up in prison like every other random criminal. But it's not "lock him up for life"-worthy, not by any means.
What does it matter what form your wealth takes? Whether it's in a bank, in cash, in gold, or in cryptocurrency is an unimportant detail. What matters is that you have every right to keep possession of it.
He was ordered to remain under supervised medical care until a doctor determines that he is mentally fit to stop causing harm. This is as a result of both his hacking, his assaults on caretakers and destruction of physical property.
He also told the court that if he was released he would go right back to doing crimes.
What if his moral code is correct, and the court's moral code is wrong? (maybe it should be called the cult's moral code?)
Incredibly? There are many kids that age who murder and commit other serious felonies.
Do you think any of these people wanted to spend their time on this, that otherwise important things weren't delayed and sidelined? Do you think that the people he stole crypto enjoy having to work extra hours to make up for what he stole?
His crimes weren't victimless, and plenty of real people were impacted in serious ways. This wasn't some kid who pushed his computer skills a little too far and went somewhere he shouldn't. He engaged in an international conspiracy to extort millions using stolen data.
There are kids that age who commit murder and other serious crimes, and they should face consequences just like he is. But the grand majority of kids that age get through life without committing any serious crime at all.
Not a moral argument but a very practical one. If somebody like that manages to find a hole in your process big enough to exploit yet dumb enough to get caught you should feel really lucky that nothing worse happened (that you know of) with the hole you just got notified you had all along.
Yeah. If you keep your gold in a glass box, don’t be surprised when someone with a hammer steals it. But also, stealing things just because they aren’t locked up, and blaming the victim is no way to run a society.
I dont think this is changing the argument in terms of competence and dedication of the attacker to a meaningful degree. We are still talking about a small group of people without a sensible monetization angle involving somebody who couldnt keep his mouth shut long enough to not get put into a mental ward indefinitely. Its very much the bottom of the barrel in terms of attackers.
>But also, stealing things just because they aren’t locked up, and blaming the victim is no way to run a society.
I would also reiterate that you are making a moral argument about how society ought to be on a human level. Whether or not this is appropriate for human interaction, its really detrimental to running companies. I am making a practical argument on an economical level, companies need the negative incentive to run efficiently. Without they are unable to allocate resources to keep running, they fundamentally lack foresight without incentives. Management needs such cases to justify investment into security they need against determined competent attackers that are otherwise hard to visualize. And you cant get rid of attackers through law enforcement for the geopolitical reasons alone. You just make the risk invisible and companies more vunerable.
While his behavior might be antisocial if it had happened on a human level, it was beneficial and of vital importance to the company (and economic sector) he attacked. Its just that asscovering by the people responsible made it hard to acknowledge that.
Not saying he is a great guy, his personal behavior towards his fellow humans seems to have quite a bit of room for improvement. But dealing with him above that seems to be petty, counter productive asscovering.
> some idiot
He's a kid with a very serious mental illness. Perhaps we don't need to sink to these insults.
On the scale of things, what you describe is not "incredibly destructive". Many, many people have done worse (many legally). It's a crime (I never said otherwise) but not a big deal relative to very many other crimes - Rockstar didn't face any material danger; the justice system has lots and lots of cases going through it. I'd be more concerned if he was committing serious violent felonies.
> you might feel different
I'm pretty confident I'd feel exactly the same.
> Hundreds of thousands of man hours
What is that based on?
> international conspiracy
All the hyperbole undermines your point, imho.
Granted. I was speaking more to the general frustration of defense lawyers who have clients that say things when they should have said nothing.
> Hundreds of thousands of man hours - What is that based on?
A guess from years of working for large tech corporations. A company level crisis of this magnitude sucks in a lot of people from a lot of departments. Add in all the other time spent by investigators and the courts, and I don't think I'm overestimating at all. Now multiply that times the 11 major breaches he was part of.
> international conspiracy - All the hyperbole undermines your point, imho.
Arrests were made in Brazil and the UK. Organizations from at least six countries were attacked. They attempted to extort millions from multiple companies. Personal data from 300k people in Argentina was released. They took down the site for COVID vaccination records in Brazil. Rockstar was the 11th attack and one of the less harmful ones, I'm not sure why people are so focused on that one. What about the leaked personal info, what about the impacts to Brazilian health ministry and Brazilian citizens? These weren't explorers just getting in to see if they could. They got in, pillaged data, and followed up with more crimes. They certainly conspired, and it was certainly international.
I'm not saying that this is the most heinous crime an 18 year old can commit, and I never did. I am simply saying that this was more harmful than a lot of people think, and if it was mental illness that caused him to do it, then it is pretty reasonable for the court to say that he wont be criminally liable, but that he is required to get help before he is trusted to be out in the world again.