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Adrian Lamo Pleads Guilty 296

Posted by CowboyNeal from the turning-oneself-in dept.
darth dickinson writes "InfoWorld reports that Adrian Lamo, the so-called 'homeless hacker,' pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges that he broke into the internal computer network of The New York Times. The 22-year-old could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine at a sentencing hearing in April." From the sound of things, he just wants to pay his debt to society and put this behind him. It'll be interesting to see if the judge sticks to the suggested sentence or not.
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Adrian Lamo Pleads Guilty More

Adrian Lamo Pleads Guilty

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  • from the article... (Score:5, Funny)

    by croddy ( 659025 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @09:41AM (#7937271)
    Lamo gained notoriety long before hacking The New York Times for his rootless life on the streets of San Francisco and for admitting to hacking the networks of high-profile companies such as Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Worldcom Inc.

    no pun intended.

  • he should get the book (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    reminds me of the movie. he is a true cyber punk if i ever saw one,
    • United Artists [imdb.com] is probably churning out some cliche riddled piece of trash as we speak! Now, I wonder how long it will take for them to turn the Adrain character into a heterosexual with a super-hot 'hacker' girlfriend who he runs away with at the end....
  • Go to Freelamo.com [freelamo.com], a non-profit website DEDICATED to supporting Adrian Lamo.

    ALL profits from donations and or merchandise purchases are donated to the Adrian Lamo Defense Fund.

    We HAVE to help this guy out. Jail is not right -- what he did was mere curiosity mixed with the desire to HELP these companies fix their network.

    He did nothing of REAL financial damage. Please help him today (imagine if you were in HIS shoes!).

    Thank you for reading this, friends. We, as a large tech community, have to get behind this guy and show others that mere EXPLORING is not to be looked down upon. What if we didn't explore Mars/Moon?

    • Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Wrong. He's a criminal and should pay for his crimes. Let him rot in jail where he won't do any more damage.

    • Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @09:54AM (#7937323) Journal
      Why?

      It seems he crosed the line into illegal hacking. The website gives no reason not to believe the prosecution's account of the case, and to accept that the penalty agreed to is proportionate.

    • Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10, 2004 @09:57AM (#7937331)
      In real life if you go exploring where you shouldn't, you'll likely be charged with tresspassing. There's a variety of other crimes you could be charged with, depending on how you entered. One of these is breaking and entering. Just the same, in the online world, if you circumvent security measures, you should expect to be charged with a crime for it, should you get caught. In the real world, if I get caught having broken into someone's house, whether or not I actually stole or destroyed anything doesn't matter. I still illegally entered. It lessens the crime, but there still was a crime committed.

      That's the law, like it or not. Lamo broke the law and needs to pay his debt to society just like anyone else who breaks the law. Whether or not you agree with his sentence of the law itself doesn't matter.
      • Five years for tresspassing? That just not right. I once had a homeless person enter my yard and sleep in the shed (it wasn't locked). I called the police and they removed him but they didn't charge him with anything and he didn't spend 5 years in jail. I don't see why what this guy did is so much more evil then any homeless person who "breaks into" a unlocked building and sleep.
        • Do you keep potentially sensitive information in your shed? For instance, payroll information, information regarding contacts, unpublished articles, or other confidential information?

          A better analogy to the situation at hand would be if your shed was locked, chained, and bolted shut, the bum was actually a person who forced open locks, chains, and bolts in their spare time and your shed contained your personal and tax information, any information about your business' transactions and contacts, and your ent
          • "Do you keep potentially sensitive information in your shed? For instance, payroll information, information regarding contacts, unpublished articles, or other confidential information?"

            Now that I think about it I did have some paperwork stored there. Things like old bills, paystubs and maybe even a some old cancelled checks. I also had oher valuable things in there like lawnmower, shredder, weedeater gardening implements etc. Finally there was gasoline and paint there which could have been used to torch th

        • Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @01:34PM (#7938494)
          In the United States the punishment for a crime is always inversely proportional to the damage that the crime did to society.

          For example, a Chief Financial Officer of a major Forbes-500 corporation who does a pump-and-dump on the stock, collects $100 million dollars and wipes out the pension funds of thousands of employees MAY get six months if caught.

          A cracker who breaks into a 'secure' corporate network and has the opportunity to view home phone numbers of op-ed page contibutors will LIKELY get three years.

          A black or working-class white teenager found with 25 cents worth of marijuana in his pocket will get a mandatory minimum of five years in prison.

          In the USA the punishment for your 'crime' (and everybody is guilty of something) is determined by the amount of money that you spend on your lawyer. The lawyer acts as the intermediary between you and the 'justice' system. He/she ensures that the court takes your social class into consideration when the prosecutor is determining what 'crime' that you will be charged with, and that any applicable pay-offs are delivered to the right parties with all deniable discression.

          In the USA many prisons are run by private corporations that receive a set fee for each convict delivered to them. Often these prison corporations (such as CCA and Wackenhut) are publicly traded on the stock exchanges and their stock price depends on how many people they have in their camps. These corporations set up Political Action Committees to lobby for prision sentences that are much longer than the same activities would bring in other countries where the activity is considered a felony offence.

          The most common cause for long prison sentences in the USA is getting high differently than drinking whiskey like the ruling class does. Major drug dealers are routinely set free in exchange for supplying the prison industry with hundreds of individual users who supply more bodies for the prison and ensure high profits and stock prices for the prison corporation. Since these people are often poor, they don't have the money to buy 'legal services' like bribes that would keep them out of the camps. Once in prison these people are sold by the prison corporation to drug companies as test subjects for corporate drugs that will then be sold to middle-class people through television ads at enormous profit for imaginary diseases like shyness.

          As a result the USA has more people in prison for longer periods than any other country.

    • More details of what he did. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gantrep ( 627089 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @09:58AM (#7937332)
      His "exploring" involved the access of "home telephone numbers and Social Security numbers for more than 3,000 contributors to the Times' Op-Ed page." And use of the LexisNexis service without paying for it. He also "set up five fictitious user identification names and passwords inside the Times' system to use to access LexisNexis and then used them to make more than 3,000 searches in February 2002."

      While you can quibble about the definition of damage, I feel that what he did is the analogue of theft and trespassing on a massive (albeit electronic) scale. He is remorseful for his actions, and I agree that he certainly should be held accountable for his actions.

      This from the CNN [cnn.com] article.

      I'm sorry man, but the moon wasn't anybody's private property and equipment.

    • Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @09:59AM (#7937337)
      Lexis-Nexis costs money. NYT has to pay for that access. Administrator time costs money.

      I wouldn't be in his shoes; I would be smart enough not to cross the line between checking out their security and racking up bills with other online services in their name. I also wouldn't be adding stuff to the corporate databases.

      So if you catch some kids in your house, just snooping around, but not stealing anything (they ate a few of your cookies though, and watched one or two Pay-per-view movies), and they came in through a window while you were on vacation.. it's okay because they are "Just kids, just exploring?"

      The neighbor who checks your front door, finds it unlocked, knows you are on vactaion, so he locks it for you and slides a note under the door, he's being nice. That's a totally different story than a stranger wandering around your shit.

      • Lexis-Nexis is free, wooops, for being a college student, I get access to Lexis-Nexis and 100+ other expensive databases, because of this, I have sworn to remain a student for life!

      • So if you catch some kids in your house, just snooping around, but not stealing anything (they ate a few of your cookies though, and watched one or two Pay-per-view movies), and they came in through a window while you were on vacation.. it's okay because they are "Just kids, just exploring?"

        Well, I sure wouldn't want them to go to prison. Grounded (house arrest for a month) or without allowance (a few K fine), yes.

        Now, if they look for unlocked houses because they know a notorious thief is touring the ne

    • Re:This is NOT right - Please DONATE to his fund (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @10:03AM (#7937357) Homepage
      No you are way wrong.

      He is a vandal, and bragged about his vandalisim.

      In fact he is not even a hacker/cracker but pretty much a poser with a little bit of "skillz".

      While I will be the first to defend a hack/crack that was in the truest sense, or someone that was trying to do good, I will not help defend a vandal-punk nor condone such actions.

      This was not some curious person trying to better themselves or found something that was wrong and brought it to the attention of it's owners... this was a person that intentionally set out to deface and damage other people's property.

      Just like the kid that spray painted my car, I was there in court to help hang him for damaging my property... but he was merely curious if spraypaint would stick to cars.

      If he hacked in, looked around, maybe mssed around a bit and used some of the resources there to learn more, then I agree.... he did not, he intentionally went in to damage.

      Please help him today (imagine if you were in HIS shoes!).

      I wouldn't be, I'm not so stupid as to brag about what I have done. The true sign of a lamer.... they brag.

      so I wont help, this isn't like the last 2-3 (and no, Mitnick was not innocent, he was guilty as hell and merely a common thief but treated very unfairly)

      so call me when he is not allowed a speedy trial, or other rights are getting violated. until then this is a simple punk that broke the law for the fun of destruction and got caught because he was really stupid.
      • Did the guy who spray painted your car get five years in jail?
      • Oh god I thought I was the only one who thought this was a bunch of BS.

        I was watching Tech TV when I saw his arrest, I was wondering how the hell do they think this guy a savior? He didn't do anything good, in fact he just exploited an unsecure proxy! He did it maliciously and then he tried to make it sound like he was just "doing his part" for the hacker community! what the hell is wrong with this guy! he's done something illegal and he's trying to make it sound like he's done nothing wrong.

        I dont think
    • If actions were not wrong and of such value to these organisations he 'helped' by accessing confidential information without authorisation, why are they not paying for his defence?

    • If a guy breaks into your house, make him a hero? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      OK, mind if we make a hero out of burglar who breaks into your house?

      After all, there is nothing wrong if he "EXPLORES" your medicine cabinet and sock drawer, right?

      As long as he doesn't do anything of "REAL financial damage" ?

    • This is absolute BULLSHIT. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iiioxx ( 610652 ) <iiioxx@gmail.com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @10:54AM (#7937593)
      We HAVE to help this guy out. Jail is not right -- what he did was mere curiosity mixed with the desire to HELP these companies fix their network.

      He did nothing of REAL financial damage. Please help him today (imagine if you were in HIS shoes!).

      Thank you for reading this, friends. We, as a large tech community, have to get behind this guy and show others that mere EXPLORING is not to be looked down upon. What if we didn't explore Mars/Moon?

      Pardon my frankness, but you are full of shit. If you came home and found this asshole sitting in your livingroom watching pay-per-view TV after having gone through all of your cabinets and drawers, would you say:

      "Oh, no problem. What you did wasn't wrong. You were just being *curious* about what was in my house. You were just *exploring* when you went through my desk drawers and read all of my personal documents. You were just trying to *help* me by pointing out security vulnerabilities in my patio door and alarm system. Thanks so much!"

      NO! You wouldn't. You'd call the cops after chasing the guy out of your house.

      This isn't about exporing Mars. This is breaking and entering, pure and simple. It's time that people like this stop thinking the whole goddam world is here just to satisfy their personal "curiosity". To be perfectly blunt, you can take your Adrian Lamo Defense Fund and cram it up your ass. I want to see this guy do the maximum stretch as a lesson to other "curious" fellows.

    • I wouldn't donate to this fund. He crossed the line - I have no sympathy for him. He deserves punishment - he went from merely revealing security weaknesses to actually trespassing and meddling (modifying, running up bills) someone's service.

      If he did that to one of my servers, I wouldn't get the law involved, I'd go over there with the wire brush of enlightenment and give him a LARTing he wouldn't forget. If he merely told me about a vulnerability without going in and meddling with things, I would view it
    • He did nothing of REAL financial damage.

      He didn't run more than $300K worth of searches on LexisNexis on somebody else's dime? Please consider the actual facts before starting a campaign.
    • What a load of crap. I hope he does time. He has no business intruding on other people's systems and they should make an example of him.

      He fraudulently gained access to a private system, stole usage of pay services from them, and accessed personal, private data.

      How'd you like me to break into your house to prove to you that you need better locks?
    • He didn't "explore". He illegally hacked into a private computer system. He didn't own this system and he wasn't asked to evaluate its security beforehand.

      Is it OK to break into a store to tell them where their security weaknesses lie? I didn't think so. But somehow its alright if its done from a keyboard right?

      How about you quit enabling him and others who may be contemplating getting themselves into the same kind of ass-pounding situation and the world will be a much better place, capice?
      • Is it OK to break into a store to tell them where their security weaknesses lie?

        Hey, your back door is unlocked. How do I know? Tried it a few times. This bag of twinkies is from in there.

        The store owner is wrong in leaving the door open, the intruder is wrong for walking in and munching on some twinkies. I think both people are about equally wrong here given the following.

        The intruder is right to tell the store owner (though a bit screwy in the head given what predictably comes next).

        The store owner d

    • Go to Freelamo.com, a non-profit website DEDICATED to supporting Adrian Lamo.

      ALL profits from donations and or merchandise purchases are donated to the Adrian Lamo Defense Fund.

      We HAVE to help this guy out.

      No we don't. This guy broke the law. He is getting what he deserves.

      Jail is not right -- what he did was mere curiosity mixed with the desire to HELP these companies fix their network.

      While I agree this was PROBABLY his motivation, that is not a legitimate defense. He still broke into a company's c

    • It's been alleged that the freelamo site existed before his arrest, and that this guy was trying to be arrested because he dreams of being the next Kevin, an internationally famous hacker martyr.
    • I knew Adrian a long long time ago. Back when he used the nick 'Magus'...

      Long long ago, he was an egomanical Machievallian individual. His skill, I suppose, was with people. Very little programming knowledge, or technical for that matter. He loved attention though. He was a slightly more sophisticated script kiddie, I suppose. Liked playing his games.

      I have not spoken to him in years. Nor do I care to. We parted under terms that were less than cordial. Sometimes, when my thoughts do drift to the

  • Karmic Pun? (Score:2, Funny)

    by ispinstr ( 637677 )
    That the hacker is represented by a man named "Hecker"? Only in America...
    • That the hacker is represented by a man named "Hecker"? Only in America...

      That's right, only in America. In Mexico, the guy would have been represented by Sr. Heckador. In France, M. Heckeur. In Cuba, probably by nobody.

  • Not Homeless (Score:5, Funny)

    by SirChris ( 676927 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @09:53AM (#7937320) Journal
    Well, at least he won't be homeless for 5 years.

  • Why didn't he do something useful? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10, 2004 @09:59AM (#7937340)
    Why didn't he do something useful, like get rid of that obnoxious registration system?

  • Crackdown (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nadsat ( 652200 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @09:59AM (#7937341) Homepage
    He is a charasmatic hacker. He explains to companies their weaknesses. When he hacked WorldCom in 2001, WorldCom praised him for his efforts.

    Apparantly it seems Times doesn't share the same affinity. Now FBI has him as a public menace and threat. I wonder what the talk would be if he was Islamic?

    I'm beginning to think that all the FBI does these days is find martyrs, symbolic arrests to illustrate points of model citizen behavior. This is opposed to actually arresting people who do do a lot of damage. Another example, Sherman Austin from Raise the Fist.com, was subject to police raid, extended arrest, and jail sentencing because he posted information in a protest guide (that he didn't author) which contained a small link about explosives.

    Too many martyrs. We need a calendar, the martyr-a-day celendar, to list the date when all the different people were arrested. Otherwise we'll lose track and just start accepting this.

    • Would you share the same affinity? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Apparantly it seems Times doesn't share the same affinity"

      Would you be like WorldCom or like the Times if a stranger broke into your house "just to test how easy it was"?

    • Re:Crackdown (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AKnightCowboy ( 608632 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @11:35AM (#7937790)
      He is a charasmatic hacker. He explains to companies their weaknesses. When he hacked WorldCom in 2001, WorldCom praised him for his efforts.

      There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. When you do them the wrong way you need to expect to be punished by society. If he would've done it the right way and either started a consulting company or joined one of the numerous computer security companies he wouldn't be in this situation. I don't care how kind hearted you think you are when you're breaking into someone's system, it's still illegal and you're still a criminal. The only legitimate people that can break into systems are the administrators themselves or people who have been given permission (no doubt along with a lengthy rules of engagement that you must adhere to).

    • Don't forget tommy chong [freetommychong.org]. He is in jail for selling bongs on the internet.

      I guess that's what passes for a free country these days.
      • Weed equipment is illegal. What is so hard to fucking understand about that? Because there are laws on the books that makes this an unfree country?

        Or is it an unfree country because you can't do whatever the hell you damn well please?

        We're a society too, keep that in mind when you bitch about some law or rule.

        • Re:Crackdown (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Malcontent ( 40834 )
          " Weed equipment is illegal. What is so hard to fucking understand about that? "

          There is a lot that is hard to understand about that. Why is it illegal? Why is it legal to sell guns but not bongs? Why is it legal to sell bayonets but not bongs? What exactly is a bong anyway? Why not arrest people for selling tobacco pipes on the internet? You want to jail people for selling small pipes but not big ones? the whole thing is nonsensical. It's very hard to understand. Why do you blindly accept that some dork s
          • Guns are legal and their ownership is a Constitutionally protected right. Cigarettes are legal. Therefore equipment to enhance their usefulness are also legal within reason (machine guns aren't legal for civilians for example.) Weed is not legal however. We've decided as a society that allowing someone to become a loser dopefiend is not in our best interests so its not legal. That means bongs aren't legal either. Its not that hard to understand.

            Comparing number of laws is immensely stupid. The number of la

            • Re:Crackdown (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Malcontent ( 40834 )
              " I would ask you to keep in mind that freedom is not just a lack of laws and regulations but the ability of the common people to go about their business on a daily basis without being accosted and or negatively affected by various social ills."

              Really? That's your actual definition of freedom? Nothing about equality or habeas corpus? Nothing about fair trials or sane laws? You think prison labor OK? You think I am advocating chaos and no laws? You actually think that being addicted to cigarettes (or alcoh
              • In the US, US Citizens are protected by the writ of habeas corpus and fair trials. No country is immune from having illogical laws on the books here or there but you make it sound like that is all that exists in the US. Again prison labor is fine. There's nothing wrong with it and if there is you haven't stated any reasons why it should not be allowed. Equality? By and large the US is a nation that strives to treat every person as an equal. It doesn't always succeed but it tries.

                I never said cigaratte addi

  • What Debt to Society? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by William G. Davis ( 686044 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @10:22AM (#7937417) Homepage
    From the sound of things, he just wants to pay his debt to society and put this behind him.

    From the sound of things, Adrian didn't want to take the chance of having to spend five years in Danbury or Allenwood.

    He didn't create the vulnerabilities in the Times' network, he merely exposed them in the same way he's been doing for years. Adrian hurt no one and owes nothing to society.

  • Lamo may have a deal with the prosecutors (Score:5, Informative)

    by Honorbound ( 521347 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @10:25AM (#7937426)
    According to TechTV's "The Screen Savers" (computer help and trends show, for those not familiar), who have interviewed Lamo several times, he has struck a deal with the Feds to server six months in Federal prison. He was asking for six months of home detention, but he still ended up a heck of a lot better than five years!

  • So-called? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jmoriarty ( 179788 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @11:10AM (#7937658)
    I've been noticing the use of the phrase "so-called" everywhere lately, and it has me curious. So-called weapons of mass destruction, so-called mad-cow disease, so-called homeless hacker, etc. Quite often it seems to precede terms that are generally accepted rather than something obscure, which confuses me even further. Is there some sort of butt-covering here, like when news agencies go out of their way to refer to the guy seen on video tape committing a crime as an "alleged suspect"? Does it have some specific purpose? Is it just slang? My so-called mind wants to know.

  • Sad outcome but he knew the dangers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Metex ( 302736 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @11:11AM (#7937670) Homepage
    Well I have been waiting for this news for a while now. I know Adrian much more as a person then a hacker. It saddens me to see him plead guilty and possibly go to jail but I knew he wouldnt fight if they charged him with actions that he did do.

    One thing though that is hard to convay exspecially in text is his increadible sence of moral ethics. When we look at a name attached to the word hacker we have a certain mindset an image of all the hacker refrences we have at our disposal and apply that to Adrian. In this case that image is way off base. While I could list why I think he is an activly good person instead of the passive good/passive neutral people that make up the bulk of our society it still would not do him justice.

    If you ever have the chance to talk to him for a good 20 minutes take the oppertunity, sit down and buy him a drink. By the end of the conversation you will walk away feeling that in his case he really shouldnt get the maximum sentance.

    • Re:Sad outcome but he knew the dangers (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Richard Allen ( 213475 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @11:21AM (#7937721)
      Not trying to compare him in any sort of way to a murderer ... but did you ever notice the neighbors often say the same thing you are saying about a neighbor convicted of murder?

      "He was such a good guy. Seemed perfectly normal to me. Always waved 'hi' in the morning."

      Not trying to bust on your acquaintance, but since you brought it up ... if somebody does something wrong, just because they did 10 "nice" things before that doesn't excuse their action, and doesn't mean you should ignore the "bad" thing when defining their character. I'm sure there are worse hackers out there, but then again ... with the exception of one ... there always are.
    • If he has such an incredible sense of moral ethics then why was he using lame ass excuses to break into websites he did not own and was not invited to hack into?
  • Does he stand on the side of the road with a cardboard sign that reads:

    W1LL 0WNZ UR NETW0RK 4 F00D?

  • He's homeless.

    He committed a crime.

    He got incarcerated.

    QED...

    • He's homeless.

      He committed a crime.

      He got incarcerated.

      QED...

      Sending a homeless man to jail can be punishment in a way... but in another way, they get free room and board for a select period of time. In other words, you the american tax payer pays for it. Knowing the logic of our legal system, he'll probally get shoved in the prison work program, get shoved in front of a PC, and be given access to random people's personal details... as well as being given criminal training by other criminals and whe
  • If someone walked into my home or jimmied the door to gain access, and stood in my living room to say "by the way, your door sucks", he's guilty of trespassing at the very least. This guy is no different. There is nothing that gives him or any other hacker a special "permit" to go where they do not belong just because they claim to do it "for the greater good". He deserves some kind of punishment.
    • is a poor one, and it show your ignorance in certian protocols.

      A better home analogy would be:
      What if I requested access to your home, and you branted it? I am not tresspssing at that point.

      what if I requested access, and you say sure, but what is the password? than I say 'swordfish' and you let me in. I wouldn't call that tresspassing.

      Hw about you askfor a password, and then I look under the mat and find one? if I use that am I tresspassing? questionable. but remember, before looking under the rock, I a
      • ...is a good one as long as you do not try to justify hacking by claiming its a special kind of crime.

        The areas of the NYTimes website that this guy accessed were off limits to the public. That is akin to entering a private residence. There is no difference. A password is the same as a key and lock on a door or window. The point is he was where he shouldn't have been. Tresspassing in physical property equates to hacking in digital property.

        Now if your point is that as long as you were granted permission i
    • I'd liken the web proxy he used to a doggie door.
      It kinda begged for strays.

      And if anyone should be getting time/fined it should be the person who left the doggie door unlocked.

  • Thank Gawd for the crackers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cdn-programmer ( 468978 ) <terr@terraIIIlogic.net minus threevowels> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @12:38PM (#7938117)
    As was pointed out in posts about Kevin Metnik - the glory days of cracking systems past quite a few years ago.

    Back then people sent passwords in plain text, there were no firewalls, nfs was as vulnerable as eggs laid on a freeway. Practically nobody paid any attention to security issues.

    And this illustrates exactly why the crackers have done all of us a service.

    There are enemies in this world... but they are not people like Adrian Lamo.

    Without the crackers our systems would still be as vulnerable as they were 15 and 20 years ago. People would still take risks that any normal person would consider insane. In fact, a lot of people, perhaps the majority, still have a lot to learn.

    So again I say - thank Gawd for the crakers and guys - keep up the good work. Keep pounding home the point that people must pay attention to proper security. Without consequences for lax security it is clear they won't do a damn thing.

  • Lamo's Promotion (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SpunkyWabbit ( 739879 )
    This guy got excessively promoted and praised by SecurityFocus editor Kevin Poulsen (former well-unknown haxor who got busted for his computer activities;). One could find this an extremely suspicious and a coincidental matter. I'm in a serious doubt Lamo lacks the technical skills required to be recognized as a famous cracker. In fact, I've never seen a well-documented case, describing any of his actions on paper. Anxious to do so, though.
  • Well, look at the bright side - at least he won't be homeless anymore.
  • Does anyone know if Adrian's court documents have the phrase
    "LAm0, U R PWN3D!" on it?
  • I wouldn't worry too much about him. He'll probably make that much the first year he's out.
  • If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

    I'm glad that he is pleading guilty and owning up to his crime. And I hope the judge agrees with the deal (and judges usually do, simply because if they don't then there is no reason for making deals).

    But beyond that, I don't have a heck of a lot of sympathy.
  • People who punch the wrong command into a computer should be put on death row, next to murderers and rapists.
  • The Congress has created sentencing guidelines that make sentencing a virtual "fill out the scoresheet" process. In the absence of a plea-bargain, it would be rare that a judge would have much to say about it at all.
  • If you consider using a proxy that is misconfigured to get into a corporate LAN to poke around a crime, I dont wish to be in the same state as you. He should get probation, the judge should make him get a 20+ hour a week job, and a permanent address for the length of his probation. He should also write an apology letter to NYT. As far as I understand it, he did not even write anything to NYT's hard drives! But if he crossed that line... his sentence should go up. I often find a few bugs in cgi during my

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