Teen GTA VI hacker sentenced to life in a secure hospital | Hacker News Reader

Teen GTA VI hacker sentenced to life in a secure hospital

theverge.com

30 pointsgurgunday38 comments

>In August, a London jury found that Kurtaj carried out cyberattacks against GTA VI developer Rockstar Games and other companies, including Uber and Nvidia. However, since Kurtaj has autism and was deemed unfit to stand trial, the jury was asked to determine whether he committed the acts in question, not whether he did so with criminal intent.

He's highly autistic and currently doesn't seem to understand (or care, also a possibility) that committing cybercrimes are something you shouldn't do. The metric for keeping him in the secure hospital is based on him wanting to return to committing cybercrimes.

As an autistic person, this is fucking terrifying. Someday I might have something to say and people are going to say "oh poor thing, he doesn't understand" and my life is going to disappear. Fascist bullshit.

Reminds me of 300 Million Random Assholes Voting on How You Die[1]

- [1]: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/r-foxtale-300-millio...

What he did was illegal. Not just non-neurotypical.

You saying something isn't illegal. You're not going to be put in prison (or a hospital) for life for saying something.

I see in your other post that you think hacking businesses may be completely justified. That's fine; you can think that. But you understand that there are laws against it, right? And you can expect the laws to be enforced, whether or not you personally think the laws are justified (or even right)?

You may think in terms of civil disobedience. That's your choice if you want to go that way. But that's your deliberate choice, not just some random thing you do ruining your life.

Yes, illegal, but so is parking in a no stopping zone. Not making excuses for him, but I have a strong reaction to the phrase “sentenced to life” seems like the dead end of a life. Because a video got leaked. Rehab isn’t an option? I'm not a cybersecurity guy (“non-computational life sciences” guy) but seems kid the kid is pretty talented at something.

He's done a lot more than leak a video, perhaps you have a better idea on how he can receive treatment?

> Because a video got leaked.

You should read the article, the video leak has absolutely no bearing on the sentencing. He was part of a hacking group that ransomed the major telcos, and when arrested was violent.

He is currently being held for his and other people's safety, the sentence for life is "until doctors feel he is no longer a violent risk to the public".

Was it violent, or did he have a normal autistic reaction to the shitty things police do when they're on a mission?

Every autistic interaction I've ever seen with police has ended up with the police making some obvious mistake that made it impossible for the autistic person to react "properly". They always say confusing things, and they bark their orders over and over really fast so you can't think straight and thus can't follow their orders fast enough. You make one "wrong" step and they think it's okay to start touching you, something that makes many autistic folks involuntarily react in ways that can seem violent but often aren't violent at all.

You seem American.

Here in the UK we take this seriously. Yes, police are actually trained.

Unfortunately there was a case a few years back in America where an autistic person was having a sensory overload of some sort and was freaking out in the street. The police were called but there was another person trying to help calm them down.

The police drew their guns and the autistic person and the person calming them laid on the ground and complied. Somehow, the police fired at the calming person and hit them. I believe they survived but it's crazy over here.

I'm not sure how you go from being autistic and having something to say to being disappeared by fascists. Unless the thing you might want to say is "I intend to continue committing crimes"

"During Thursday’s hearing, the court heard Kurtaj “had been violent while in custody with dozens of reports of injury or property damage,” "

This is why he was committed, not because he hacked Rockstar. Lesson 1, don't commit ransom; lesson 2, failing lesson 1, don't get caught; lesson 3; failing lesson 2, don't commit dozens of violent acts while in custody

I believe I understand what you mean -- many autistic folks I know have a very specific sense of right and wrong and if something is wrong, it's wrong. If something needs addressed, it needs addressed.

And if the "wrong" thing is wrong in a fascist country it's a danger that you would not be able to stop yourself from speaking out about it or worse, not know it "wasn't OK to talk about" while all the neurotypicals did because of some unspoken body language code you also struggle to accurately read.

So you speak out and the secret police take you away because of what you said. Is this a fair representation of what you were meaning?

Yes that's exactly what I'm afraid of

Fascist country neurodivergent resident: what OP said about neurotypical oppression absolutely happens and on a wide scale.

Why should I care about the made-up damage claims of a corporate conglomerate that will go on to make billions off GTAⅥ either way?

it proves the fire tv stick has some use.

"Kurtaj leaked 90 videos of GTA VI gameplay footage last September while out on bail for hacking Nvidia and British telecom provider BT / EE. Although he stayed at a hotel under police protection during this time, Kurtaj still managed to carry out an attack on Rockstar Games by using the room’s included Amazon Fire Stick and a “newly purchased smart phone, keyboard and mouse,” according to a separate BBC report. Kurtaj was arrested for the final time following the incident."

Industrious and persistent, will give him that.

> newly purchased smart phone, keyboard and mouse

Why on earth would they allow him these things?

Someone at the very least needs to teach him to 1. Cover his tracks more, 2. Lie to authority figures about whether or not he intends to commit more crimes.

Poor kid.

It's so sad we made a society where kids like this exist.

So much wasted potential all because of a society unwilling to accept while this guy got convicted the perps involved with Mt. Gox and SVB never saw the light of day.

Secretly rooting for this kid to get out and topple the government.

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38723309

[dupe]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38723309

Duplicate "dupe" comment, was already posted 5 hours before this comment, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38728311

Yeah, but nothing was done about it and ppl still commenting here.

Is “secure hospital” euphemism for mental institute? I must have missed when this one was introduced.

This is an example of why an 'insanity plea' isn't generally a good idea: if you committed a crime and it's judged to be caused by mental illness, you're liable to be locked up indefinitely.

Mmm... sounds like they're scared of what could happen if he fell into the 'wrong' hands.

Maybe they should give him something to do and hire him themselves.

If he's actually "crazy", then would you want to work with him?

This is a bunch of crap. Autistic people are not "crazy", we just don't follow the same asinine logic you "normal" people do.

What he did isn't even some great big evil thing, he just hacked some corporations. There are plenty of neurotypical people who do the same thing. Governments too. A decent chunk of the world holds these entities to be pure evil and view attacks against them as totally within reason.

I can actually see the movie now. :)

He's not crazy. He's autistic. That makes him very valuable (as can be seen from his exploits). If you can work out what makes him tick, you have yourself a very powerful weapon.

Exploits?

>Lapsus$ uses a variety of attack vectors, including social engineering, MFA fatigue, SIM swapping,[6] and targeting suppliers

Exploit

DEED, ACT especially : a notable, memorable, or heroic act

>An exploit (from the English verb to exploit, meaning "to use something to one’s own advantage") is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or a sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug or vulnerability to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic (usually computerized).

This. I see talent, with issues. Release em with conditions, a job, handlers and some incentive to move us forward technically instead of wasting this incredible talent.

Gone to the asylum, department mi6.. He's gonna hack russians now.

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