7 Hackers Who Got Legit Jobs From Their Misdeeds 123
adeelarshad82 writes "Just like in Stephen Glass' fabricated feature where a lonely teenage hacker gets hired by a major software company, the 21 year old PlayStation 3 hacker, George "Geohot" Hotz, was offered a job at Facebook. Ironically Hotz wasn't the first school-aged hacker to be rewarded for his cyber-crime rather than a prison sentence. Turns out there are others who have managed (with one exception) to avoid jail time, and instead found themselves gainfully employed by some of Silicon Valley's most exclusive circles."
Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
GeoHot != Criminal
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Indeed. This whole story slants towards defamation and libel. At worst he violated the terms of service, which would be a civil matter.
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And that's assuming he actually agreed to and was abound by them in the first place.
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If we had competent courts rather than a mockery of a court system run by corrupt "lawyers" and bribed/senile judges, those provisions would long ago have been declared unconscionable and therefore unenforceable anyways, much like "non-compete clauses" have routinely been found unconscionable.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
If we had competent courts rather than a mockery of a court system run by corrupt "lawyers" and bribed/senile judges, those provisions would long ago have been declared unconscionable and therefore unenforceable anyways, much like "non-compete clauses" have routinely been found unconscionable.
Emotional-driven generalization != truth.
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agreed but unlikely, if not imposable
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And that's assuming he actually agreed to and was abound by them in the first place.
Exactly. His incident was the inspiration for my signature.
One day someone will have the will to go through years of legal battles necessary to take down abusive EULAs...is what I was going to end this post with, but then I realized that iPhone jailbreakers already won their battle and nothing changed. Sigh...
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Only 2 or 3 are actually black hats (Score:4, Informative)
George Hotz - Benevolent tinkerer
Peter Hajas - Benevolent tinkerer
Johnny Chung Lee - Benevolent tinkerer
Jeff Moss - Benevolent
Jeff Putnam - Created destructive Facebook virus - Black hat
Ashley Towns - Created harmless prank virus - Benevolent
Michael Mooney - Created spamming twitter worm - Black hat
Kevin Poulsen - Rigged a competition to give himself a car - Could be considered a black hat
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Indeed. This whole story slants towards defamation and libel.
Right 100%, except that it explicitly says that they escaped punishment for their "cybercrime", and given that all that one of them did was software development or connecting hardware they owned to computers they owned that's not just a "slant". Isn't there a point at which people in the US have a right to defend themselves against false accusations? I mean, several of the companies listed (especially the anti-virus companies) have very strict policies against hiring criminals; this could do serious damag
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
Neither are most of the others in the slide show. The one guy who actually did to jail time actually did something quite illegal. Figuring out how to pair your Wii mote via bluetooth, not so much.
Peter Hajas is the creator of uber-popular iOS jailbreak app MobileNotifier, a notification system that resembles Google Android’s in that it seamlessly layers and stacks your mobile notifications on top of running apps
Johnny Chung Lee is more of a modder than a hacker (which some would argue is just a matter of shades of grey). Lee is a computer scientist who famously hacked a Nintendo Wiimote in 2008 using a few ballpoint pens and infrared lights. He was then hired by Microsoft to develop the Kinect.
Jeff Moss is the founder of the Black Hat and DEF CON computer hacker conferences, but back in the pre-bubble 1980s he ran underground bulletin board systems for hackers.
During his early college years at Georgia Southern University, Chris Putnam and his friends created an XSS-based worm on Facebook and modified infected pages to look just like MySpace profiles.
In 2009, a then 21-year-old Australian named Ashley Towns stayed up late one night downloading iOS app development programs, and unwittingly created the first known iPhone worm. The virus automatically set a photo of singer Rick Astley’s face as your mobile wallpaper, possibly the ultimate "Rickroll."
Also in 2009, a 17-year-old high school student from Brooklyn named Michael “Mikeyy" Mooney coded a Twitter worm that sent tweets from hundreds of accounts, mostly with links to a spam website or Mooney’s phone number. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone likened Mooney’s worm to the Samy worm that hit MySpace in 2005 and vowed to press charges.
Kevin Poulsen hacked into L.A.’s KIIS-FM radio station to rig a competition that eventually scored him a Porsche. He followed up with breaches into FBI computers. Naturally this put the federal agency in hot pursuit of the black hat hacker. He was arrested in 1991 and served five years in prison in addition to paying a $56,000 fine for charges of mail, wire, and computer fraud. Upon serving his sentence, Poulsen became a journalist, and is now a senior editor at Wired magazine. One of his most notable achievements was creating a program that identified hundreds of sex offenders on MySpace.
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Johnny Lee didn't actually hack the Wiimote; what he did was pull off a very cool hack using the Wiimote. The original reverse engineering was done by other people, myself included. He is indeed more of a modder (though he very much deserves the praise - anyone can play around with devices, but it takes someone special to envision and develop the applications that he did).
The article is pretty silly though. Big corporations hire all the time,
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Kevin Poulsen hacked into L.A.â(TM)s KIIS-FM radio station to rig a competition that eventually scored him a Porsche.
IIRC, he actually broke into the phone company switch so that he or his friend would be the Nth caller to win the car.
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Yes. He and Sony *settled*. That means that sony found it better for their image to put this ad acta, and saw no big change of winning. Otherwise they would have sued him to the end. Agreeing to a settlement does not make you criminal. Agreeing to a settlement does not even mean that you broke a contract.
Agreeing to a settlement just means that you and the other side agree that there has been a different in the interpretation of a contract, but that its of for both sides not to insist in the original interp
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Sony came out ahead in the settlement. They got Geohot to bow and kiss their feet by promising never to hack ANY sony product ever again, or face 10K in fines for EACH attempt. All his security work on the PS3 gets locked up forever and he can't talk about it ever again.
He's also agreed to be bound by all future TOS for said products even before he's read them.
And what you said about Sony settling because they couldn't win could just as easily be said about Geohot. Plus, suing a young hacker into oblivio
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Its simple: No side could afford to loose. the Hacker because he would be bankrupt and sony because that would render a part of their business model worthless.
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And what you said about Sony settling because they couldn't win could just as easily be said about Geohot.
No, because Geohot doesn't have the money for a lawsuit from a large multinational corporation. As an ordinary private citizen, you'd better agree to the settlement, even if you're innocent. Even if you come out winning a decade later, you'll have lost ten years of your life and amassed legal fees you'll never be able to pay back.
The situation is not symmetrical. It's nothing strange or unusual for a large corporation to come out ahead in a settlement against a private person even if their legal position i
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CNN Coverage (Score:2)
CNN's coverage described George as a hacker who "Cost Sony 20 Million Dollars by hacking into the PlayStation Network. He also published instructions for how to do it online."
Sigh...
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Because they just republished Sony's press releases unchanged.
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That's what I was thinking ... AFAIK, he was working on something to allow loading of homebrew games onto a PS3 ... other than the fact that Sony are dick heads, what exactly did GeoHot do that was illegal or criminal?
Whoever is lumping him in with people who got somewhere due to their "misdeeds" is an idiot. Sony disagreed with what he did, and claimed it could be used to do illegal things ... but nothing he did was illegal.
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In Sony's defense, licensing fees for the PS3, like all other consoles, is the primary revenue stream, so bypassing the security and license requirement means Sony doesn't earn money on their console games, which breaks the Gillette razor model - sell the razor at a loss and jack up the price of blades to make up for the loss.
For you and me that is an unpopular stance, but honestly, they have to protect their revenue stream - Microsoft and Nintendo would do the same thing in a heartbeat. If you don't like t
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Except, that none of the stuff GeoHot was doing was actually illegal. It was in support of doing perfectly legal things which Sony said could lead to doing illegal things.
Well, Sony has already used up any g
That's called *Competition* (Score:2)
Yes, if you're making money selling razor blades for your shiny shiny razor, and somebody else makes competing razor blades that can also use your razor, and sells them cheaper (in this case, gives them away free), then you won't make as much money. That's not called "crime", it's called "competition", and if your business model can't cope with competition, that's called "capitalism", or as Schumpeter put it, "Creative Destruction".
And Sony's PS3 revenue stream model is also at risk if Microsoft comes out
Not irony (Score:3)
Fail.
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Seriously, I can understand that there may be some situations where the use of ironic is debatable, but that usage must just be to troll us. They even spelled it 'Ironically', FFS.
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Spelling wasn't the right word for me to use there. My point is that the word they wanted is 'ironic'.
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No, "ironically" is correct. In the sentence "Ironically Hotz wasn't the first school-aged hacker who...", "ironically" modifies the predicate ("wasn't"), not the subject ("Hotz"), so it's an adverb, not an adjective. It's not Hotz who's ironic; it's him being "the first school-aged hacker..."
What's with this aversion against "ironically"?
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P.S. There should be a comma after "Ironically", though.
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I work at a Danish multi-national corporation. It has English as its official language, but most of the top-level bosses are Danes. I've noticed that people here are using some peculiar English phrases, and I'm guessing they're based on grammatical misconceptions from one of the bosses which have then spread throughout the organisation. For example, at our company, we don't "reply" to e-mails; we "revert" to them. I haven't seen this particular error anywhere else.
According to a high school teacher of mine,
KEVIN MITNICK! (Score:3, Informative)
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Came here to say this. How these dopes could list all those minor guys and skip Mitnick is beyond me.
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He is self employed after starting his own security company. All of the others received job offers, most of which came from large corporations.
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Whether he's a drone in a corporation, or corporations hire him as a contractor, he still got work off of his rep as a hacker.
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Is he allowed to use a computer yet? Last I heard he still couldn't, and had to hire people to do the driving for him.
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Stew Nelson might have a claim, too. But he's not named after a breakfast mascot.
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Robert Morris was well after Stew Nelson and John Draper. 1987 is a long time after 1971 in terms of computers. Draper's interview with Esquire was published when RTFM was about six years old. Draper was serving nights in jail when he wrote Easy Writer for the Apple II in 1979. Morris wasn't convicted until 1991.
See the difference? When words like "original" or "first" come into play, timelines matter.
tl;dr: Glad to school you, n00b. HTH. HAND. ;-)
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Exactly. Kevin Mitnick is a far better example of this than anyone else. Though there are a lot more hackers who came from the security cracking scene and went on to become rich internet entrepreneurs. Rop Gonggrijp is a pretty famous example.
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Errr. So yeah, "consultant" works pretty well I guess....
Meh (Score:3)
Ironically Hotz wasn't the first school-aged hacker to be rewarded for his cyber-crime rather than a prison sentence.
Wouldn't call this irony. The whole ex-hacker/burgler/forger/etc turned ultra-well paid employee working for the "good guys"[tm] is an old cliche.
Hell, in some lines of work, doing a little jail time (or at least almost doing some) to earn some rep might just be part of the plan.
Re:Meh..on the internet (Score:2)
Ironically Hotz wasn't the first school-aged hacker to be rewarded for his cyber-crime rather than a prison sentence.
Yes, but this time is was done on the internet which, as the USPTO will tell you, makes it novel and original - worthy of praise as if it had never been done before!
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You might even get Steven Spielberg to make a movie about you as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_me_if_you_can [wikipedia.org]
What crime? What misdeeds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly. It's not like he was hacking into Sony websites and stealing credit card numbers. He was just tinkering with his own bought-and-paid-for equipment at home to make it more functional. A true hacker in the traditional and honorable sense rather than a criminal, as much as Sony tried to paint him as one.
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This! So very much this!
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What's criminal is defrauding people by taking away functionality they purchased.
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The words you are looking for are unethical, unjust, "not right." I think "criminal" would refer more to breaking laws, committing crimes: An action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law. We use it hyperbolically or analogously when we really, really don't like something ("that's a crime!") but that doesn't make it technically correct...
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fraud, a definition [thefreedictionary.com]
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So then I guess the following people are all criminals and we certainly shouldn't respect them.
1. George Washington - committed treason. And it's still treason and criminal no matter how unjust the law.
2. Abraham Lincoln - he abrogated the constitution during the civil war.
3. Any black slaves that ran away - they should have just 'stayed' I guess.
4. Alic Paul - and those other suffragists. Cause they should have asked more meekly for freedom and equality.
5. Rosa Parks - she was such a criminal sitting at th
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Well, the grandparent may just have wished to point out that Geohot was technically breaking the law, even if it was justified.
I highly doubt Geohot did even that, though. I haven't seen any evidence of it.
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...and we certainly shouldn't respect them.
Don't put words into my mouth. I have no problem with what GeoHot or whatever his name is did. I thought that was made clear by me referring to the law in question as unjust. Don't let that stop you from flaming on though.
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It's higly doubtful he broke any of the criminal provisions of the DMCA. Sony only sued him; they didn't file any criminal charges.
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How so? What he did was basically to allow interoperability.
I find it hard to believe that Sony ever came close to demonstrating that GeoHot violated the DMCA ... they just managed to intimidate him enough to make him stop doing what he was doing and promise never to do it again.
I'm not at all convinced what he did was wrong, or anywhere near illegal.
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The law of most civilized nations explicitly state the opposite. You are INNOCENT UNTIL RULED GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW.
This is certainly the law in the US , and it is also part of the European convention of human rights.
Thus at least legally speaking, you are very much not a criminal if you've never been convicted for anything.
Hotz isn't just some script kiddie (Score:4, Insightful)
This wasn't the case of some phone-phreaker or wardriver getting hired. Hotz was an actual skilled hacker, with some pretty serious reverse-engineering and programming abilities. He wasn't just some asshole who figured out a password or slightly modified some virus code.
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As much of an ass that I think geohot is.. I have to agree. Man has some serious talent.
Really makes me wonder what the hell he'll be doing at facebook. Surely he could be doing something more interesting then cranking out IOS apps.
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Maybe they're putting him at the head of some tiger team?
What idiots (Score:2)
When an article wrongly bases itself on the premise that hardware hacker, IE Hotz, equals security hacker, IE Lulzsec, you have to scratch your head and wonder. When that article is from a 'reputable' computer publication, you have to wonder if they have a clue or not, or are just trolling for hits. Either way, PC mag just went down in my eyes to a level just above supermarket tabloids.
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Yes, my first thought was "most of these people are hackers in the old sense of the word," but when being cleaver, inventive and creative is lumped in with "and, oh yeah, a guy who committed wire fraud to steal a car", then it just makes everybody who uses a computer for more than word processing seem like a potential threat to national security. Computers are the chemistry sets of the 21st century, I suppose.
Better than incarcerating the youth (Score:2)
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We as a society need to more carefully consider the reasons for which we take away someone's freedoms.
In an economy with over 25% un- or under- employment, any reason to "thin the herd" seems acceptable by the (rapidly shrinking) majority that still have jobs... That's what gives this story a twist, rather than being thinned from the herd, they actually got jobs.
If we don't "thin the herd" using the questionable justice system, we'll either have to admit the situation is worse than it appears, which certainly isn't going to happen, or find another way to thin the herd, perhaps stealth ageism by grade inflat
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Perhaps we wouldn't have so many economic troubles if we questioned our leaders more often...
And perhaps we wouldn't have so many economic problems if instead of always blaming "the man", we took responsibility for not being a savings culture, living always on credit and always ready to jump into the next speculative thing (the dot-com, trading, real-state, blah blah) and never caring for our own education and manufacturing capabilities because rar rar we are USA we rock, them Chinamen and dot-injuns are too neolithic to take mah jawb.
Stop putting all the blame on leaders. Yes, they have a respon
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Exactly. Respecting diversity and different race/culture is a good start. Racism does not come from the leaders, it comes from the common folk.
Just look at what happened last weekend in Rose Bowl for the final of Copa Oro. People threw racial slurs to mexican fans after USA lost in a spectacular fashion.
In order to clamp down racism, banning religion is the key. Religious text provides racial superiority over others (Talmud for the Jews are the best example). With religion such as Islam, Judaism and Christi
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And perhaps we wouldn't have so many economic problems if instead of always blaming "the man", we took responsibility for not being a savings culture, living always on credit and always ready to jump into the next speculative thing
If people have the chance to make a quick buck by exploiting the holes in the system, they will. The only thing we can do is to plug the holes.
I think people are responsible for their own, personal misery resulting from taking too big loans, but the misery on a large scale (economic recession) and the indirect effects it has on people, is the responsibility of the government.
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Not blame it on the leaders and take responsibility? Not
How times change... (Score:2)
Long live the days of the unknown, unsung hacker... for he is truely the one to ph33r.
Exceptions to the rule. (Score:2, Informative)
For every "geoHot" out there there are 40,000 of them getting ass raped in prison. Remember kids, "street cred" is romantic, but doing it anonymously and covering your ass and tracks protects you from the unwanted sodomy of the legal system. Be paranoid. IF you want that lifestyle you have to be paranoid and assume that anyone you know will rat on you. Look at Adrian Lame-o he happily ratted on anyone and everyone to save his own ass. your "buddies" will do it to you if they get the chance.
A friend
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40 000?
I doubt there are 40 in prison for "cybercrimes".
I would say there are more like 40 000 under the radar hackers employed by corporations that did or did not attain notoriety but never got linked to their real life name.
None of them in the list (Score:1)
I haven't see any carder ( a special type of hacker ) on the list. China , Russia , former soviet bloc and Vietnam are more advanced in terms of laws regarding cybercrime as carders are offered a real job.
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I never thought of comparing webpages.
Unexpected results came from searching:
slashdot, xkcd, gamespot
George Hotz and misdeed in the same paragraph? (Score:3)
How can what he's done be a misdeed? He was placed under an injunction to not show anyone else how to do what he's done, essentially a gag order. The only reason he agreed to this is he didn't have the money to fight sony in court. Sony is the one guilty of misdeeds in this case.
What About The Ones We Don't Know About? (Score:1)
Incorrect Statement in Summary (Score:1)
Please don't indulge this (Score:2)
I hope it's not just me, but I'm sick of seeing this trend of "list" articles on the web in the Cracked Magazine style. I cannot put my finger on it, but it comes off as litter to me. It's a cheap way to grab attention and generate page views by leading the reader through a slide show of bulleted items.
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Agree, it's lazy journalism.
really? (Score:1)
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These people in the TFA (Score:2)
Have not taken any profit except the last one. That is why they are gone scott-free.
That is why you won't find a single credit card / bank hacker in the TFA. The law regarding cybercrime are much different in 3rd world countries, as those people are bringing in much $ for the economy, similar to how 419 plans works for the economy of Nigeria.
Not a crime (Score:2)
Geohot hasn't committed any crime. He hasn't even been accused of one. Sony sued him (i.e, a civil trial, not a criminal one) for publishing information that allowed people to modify their own PS3 consoles. It's highly doubtful he broke any law by publishing the information, and the parties eventually settled out of court.
It's kind of worrying that people think there's anything illegal about what these hackers do, just because multinational corporations try to scare them with dubious lawsuits. Does somethin
Light on perspective, and hold the insight? (Score:1)
Connection (Score:1)
What? (Score:2)
This article is idiotic.
Now, Hajas’ profile says he is an intern at Apple—the typical entry path for every developer there.
What? Yeah, every Apple developer was an intern first...
Johnny Chung Lee is more of a modder than a hacker (which some would argue is just a matter of shades of grey).
What sort of shade of grey is there for an HCI researcher ripping open a Wii controller??
I guess the problem with the article is more fundamental than that... hackers and modders are fairly equivalent, the pro
This isn't new.. (Score:2)
Hackers using their skills to get jobs is old news. My university had an unspoken policy of hiring students who broke into the servers as admins (with job one being "fix the hole you used"). Hell, isn't this the plot of Sneakers? :)