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Security Technology

Former Amazon Worker Gets Probation For Massive Capital One Hack (apnews.com) 76

A former Seattle tech worker convicted of several charges related to a massive hack of Capital One bank and other companies in 2019 was sentenced Tuesday to time served and five years of probation. From a report: U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik said sentencing former Amazon software engineer Paige Thompson to time in prison would have been particularly difficult on her "because of her mental health and transgender status," the Department of Justice said in a statement.

U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said his office was "very disappointed" with the sentencing decision, adding prosecutors had asked for Thompson to serve seven years in prison. "This is not what justice looks like," Brown said in the statement. In June, a Seattle jury found her guilty of wire fraud, unauthorized access to a protected computer and damaging a protected computer. The jury acquitted her of other charges, including access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.

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Former Amazon Worker Gets Probation For Massive Capital One Hack

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  • Oh. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05, 2022 @12:46PM (#62940761)

    "transgender status" is a get-out-of-jail-nearly-free card now.

    Don't say gay, say trans!

    • Re:Oh. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2022 @01:59PM (#62941087) Homepage

      This. If trans people want to be accepted as normal, that acceptance goes for privileges as well as punishments. You can't have it both ways, choose one: normal treatment, or special treatment.

      • Re:Oh. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2022 @02:16PM (#62941195)

        Being transexual is a symptom of mental disorder. No amount of sociological study will change this biological fact. Using it as a criminal defense is a bridge too far, particularly when the mental disorder was likely contributory to the crime.

        We really should see a rebirth of the sanitarium to help treat people with mental disorder. They were generally much more successful at helping people with mental disorders than modern pharma, as they tried to treat the cause, not the symptom.

        • I'm honestly a bit awestruck that there don't appear to be any raised eyebrows within the psychiatry community over the fact that we've seen a recent surge in the number of transgender people. It's so easy to misdiagnose anything and everything psychological. Given how the media and the LGBT scene love to hate on detrans people, I somewhat wonder whether many trans people might have second thoughts, but are too afraid to say anything about it. Basically the opposite of that guy in the "Pray Away" documentar

          • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

            The public schools have spent the past 20 years grooming children for LGBT and -adjacent lifestyles, and the last several years have been spent investing significant energies into grooming them for transsexuality. This push was much more significant than the "gay acceptance" push, because it was more than just sexuality, it was an entire ideological outlook on the world based on the pre-existing class- and victim-based virtue scale.

            Psychologists have effectively been the victims of regulatory capture. They

            • Your wild-eyed, highly implausible conspiracy theory is hugely ingratious to the educators who've dedicated their lives to the nation's children at scant pay (most places, not all) and minimal resources. Between agenda-wielding politicians, stifling consultants and administrators, and variously neurotic or absent parents, they are too often the only ones who give a damn about the kids.

              • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

                Do you have children? Have they been to public school?

                Agree with the other poster: most teachers are dimwitted salarymen, bullies, and barely educated in basic grammar and math. That goes for the high school teachers. The daycare I sent my child to prior to school had higher academic standards for their teachers.

                But public school teachers are pretty quick to push politicized leftist/woke/intersectional agendas about race, gender, and so on. Which, I don't know - might have something to do with 30% of high s

    • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Do you think a trans-man (or whatever you'd call a genetic woman who tries to bit-flip to male) would get the same treatment?

      Nope, she'd likely not. Ironically, this is probably just another symptom of our gynocentric society.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by azrazalea ( 10185271 )
      Hey there coward, wanted to make sure you saw the rebuttal to this: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04 [npr.org]... [npr.org] Regardless of anyone's feelings on justice being served or not, trans people are often put in prison with the gender they were assigned at birth not the gender their body and identity currently matches. This combined with the prison staff and inmates having similar attitudes towards trans people as what is shown in the comments here results in incredibly high abuse, murder, and rape rates for tra
    • Be interesting to see what happens to the trans Major and his Russian sympathiser wife who tried passing on med info to supposed Russian spy ( really fbi)

  • by Anonymous Coward

    "Sentencing former Amazon software engineer Paige Thompson to time in prison would have been particularly difficult on her "because of her mental health and transgender status," the Department of Justice said in a statement.

    I guess I will claim I am transgender if I ever commit a crime so I too won't have to go to prison.

    • Based.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      I agree with the DOJ here - prison would have particularly difficult; probably cruel and a violation of his fifth amendment rights.

      He should have been involuntarily committed until such time as he accepts what sex he is, and then sent to prison.

  • by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2022 @12:48PM (#62940773) Homepage
    Now you can get away with whatever you want so long as you are a member of the special club. Prison is supposed to be hard, it is not supposed to be Disney Land.

    Next they will start commuting death penalties because the defendants 'don't want to die'.
    • Next they will start commuting death penalties because the defendants 'don't want to die'.

      I think that would be a totally legitimate excuse for the innocent ones. Unless you believe innocent people never get executed LOL.

  • Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tomhath ( 637240 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2022 @01:00PM (#62940831)

    sentencing former Amazon software engineer Paige Thompson to time in prison would have been particularly difficult on her "because of her mental health and transgender status,"

    Why in the hell would "transgender status" have anything to do with sentencing? Can't do the time, don't do the crime.

    • Ranks right up there with afluenza as an escape plan.

    • Basically the Judge is saying it's likely the person will commit suicide if imprisoned. While that is a possible outcome, I do think they got slapped on the wrist.

      I think there are deeper issues with this person's mental status that transcend their gender.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I find it amusing that so many stories on slashdot trigger conservatives, and conservatives take it as validation of their position. You are a bunch of triggered idiots upset about nothing, and certainly nothing you can control. Keep driving up your blood pressure for nothing fools.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Hey, give them a break. Being a conservative means constantly looking over your shoulder for those naughty trans people sneaking up on you from Antifa. Then there are the Jewish space lasers, they'll get you when you go out without your foil hat. You try walking around with a Faraday cage around your head and see how you like it...though at least it keeps new ideas from filtering in from the outside.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        You think you're joking, lol. I used to say a I lean conservative (no way I'd claim that now, don't want to be associated with those lunatics in any way) and I tend to roll my eyes at a lot of the modern bullshit but it doesn't offend me and I don't obsess 24/7 about trying to find everything "woke".

        Many of those same concepts I roll my eyes at are called "woke" but I shy away from the word itself because it's real cringy now after being abused by right wingnuts. "Oh, you want a vaccine! You are super woke!

  • by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2022 @01:10PM (#62940879)
    The summary doesn't mention the impressive cost of this hacking to Capital One - not BS made-up numbers about cleanup costs, but money the company had to pay out: "Thompson, 37, obtained the personal information of over 100 million people - a data breach that prompted Capital One to reach a $190 million settlement with affected customers. The Treasury Department fined the company $80 million for failing to protect the data."

    I guess one could argue the $80m fine was for negligence, and thus not the fault of the hacker. I hope somebody credible determined that, a skillful hacker poses a danger even if the defenders are taking reasonable precautions, and judges and juries sure don't know anything either way.

  • “Prosecutors also argued Thompson used a digital tool she built herself to comb through Amazon Web Services (AWS) [gizmodo.com] and download companies’ user data.”
  • https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04... [npr.org] Regardless of anyone's feelings on justice being served or not, trans people are often put in prison with the gender they were assigned at birth not the gender their body and identity currently matches. This combined with the prison staff and inmates having similar attitudes towards trans people as what is shown in the comments here results in incredibly high abuse, murder, and rape rates for trans prisoners. The judge most likely made the decision he did because he didn't
    • doubt many hackers of any description will do well in a prison population of rapists and murderers, that's why there are prisons for non-violent offenders
  • We're to the point where even judges have to admit the prison system is a place where criminals continue to commonly commit crimes.

    Our system is broken.

    And one of the weirdest things is how normalized the idea is. Most people apparently don't have the problem with sending the average criminal to a place where extrajudicial violence is the method of maintaining control, and after so many years of living in this system, we'll consider the criminal reformed and send them back out to live with the rest of

  • Progression from chemistry in NYC is hard to prisons are hard.
  • Lock HIM up in a psych ward for 5 years then!
  • Learn their interests and use it to your advantage.

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