PS: And I have done some hacking, stolen some files, financial information a long time ago, but I agree that it is highly illegal and should be punished and I do regret my actions. Thankfully I stopped before it was too late
This is the problem. It should be "illegal" but not "highly illegal" -- the penalties should be along the lines of trespass, e.g. 30 days in jail or a $1000 fine, not 30 years in prison and a million dollar fine.
More than that, the crimes need to be defined with actual specificity. Read the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act sometime if you want to scare yourself. It's preposterously vague. How about we repeal that in its entirety and defer to the laws that prohibit the actual bad stuff, like fraud, identity theft, misappropriation of trade secrets, etc.
If all you do is get root on a server and then leave, the penalty should be a $5 fine and a stern warning, and the same penalty for the "victim" who put an insecure server on the internet.
The point is that they should both get the proverbial slap on the wrist -- the person who breaks in should be chastised but hasn't caused any real harm and the person who allowed it to happen should endeavor to be more careful and not redirect responsibility for something trivially harmful that they could have themselves prevented if they deemed it worthy of the required effort.
I'm actually ambivalent about this, but I'm always intrigued as to whether people's sense of "Protect yourself on the internet or you deserve what you get" translates to "Protect yourself at home, or you deserve to be burgled".
Indeed - one could take it so far as, "Protect yourself with a weapon late at night/in your home, or you deserve to be beaten/mugged/etc..." - but, in general, we recognize the black and white line somewhere between "ssh server" and "put in hospital with contusions" - I think the "snooping around my house with unlocked door" is the gray area.
In that situation having a bunch of mostly harmless curious kids banging around creating antibodies in the system is probably a net positive, so that you find out your security is broken when some kid (who isn't trying to avoid detection and steal your trade secrets) is the one who opens your eyes to the vulnerability instead of the eye opener being a Chinese company selling your secret formula for near-cost on the world market.
There's a persuasive argument that no nonviolent crime should be punished by prison time at all.
His own father believed that he was involved.
Note the same content is now available over the Internet for free legally. So what has changed, and what was lost?