Remembering back, I certainly lacked a lot of critical reasoning which could have led me to do possibly equally stupid stuff like this had I the skill in my early teens. As I remember it, life felt more like a "game" in that you do whatever it lets you, without much consideration of whether people will be (potentially very) upset with what you've done. In person activities stood high risk of getting caught, but online it seems more like a computer game and the people on the other side of your actions feel more abstract.
Many years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
These kids discovered that their actions have consequences to them in person and not just someone being upset with them remotely.
As a parent now (but oldest is only 5), it's stories like this which make me determined remain aware of the kind of stuff my kids get up to and continually explain that actions have consequences, even if those consequences are seemingly as trivial as making someone else feel shit about themselves.
I wonder if maybe 10 or so years from now, after these kids have actually reached decent emotional maturity, that they'll look back at their actions and think about how stupidly reckless and needlessly destructive they were, to both others and their own lives.
I think this was true in the 90s and 2000s. When not everyone was a script kiddie. But why hire someone that literally didn't write their own exploit? Sounds like the most advanced thing they did was just social engineering and dumping a DB.
It was just simpler back then. There was no aslr, no hardware level protection from execution, traffic was all plaintext, switches didn't exist, or maybe they did but just nobody used them and everything on every network was just one giant collision domain, developers by and large didn't even think about securing software outside of DRM, and absolutely nobody understood the basic premise that someone on the phone may be lying to your business to get access to things they want.
The skillset that made you a 1337 h4x0r in the 90's makes you a mediocre sysadmin these days.
Now I have the opposite feeling. I know that if I ever do something useful that people like, I'll go to jail for it. I don't know how startup founders do it, I guess they need legal backing from an incubator.
Let's say I invented a genius way to use cryptography to send anonymous payments, I'd go to jail for doing that (Tornado Cash). Let's say I made a secure messenger, I'd go to jail for that (Telegram, EncroChat, SkyECC) or narrowly avoid jail (Session) or be forced to add a backdoor (Anom). Let's say I made an operating system that didn't spy on you, I'd be threatened with jail for that (GrapheneOS). And of course there are more things, for which there will be more consequences (mostly jail) but for things that haven't been done yet there are obviously no examples offhand.
Basically everything that fits outside of existing patterns is illegal one way or another. Only people who are naïve to these consequences will ever be motivated to make these things.
> Let's say I invented a genius way to use cryptography to send anonymous payments, I'd go to jail for doing that (Tornado Cash)
This is just a disingenuous take.
Tornado Cash founder didn't get criminally convicted for "a genius way go use cryptography to send anonymous payments." He got convicted for operating a money-laundering service.
The fact that his service utilized "a genius way to use cryptography to send anonymous payments" is entirely orthogonal to the actual crime he got in trouble for. He would have gotten convicted just the same regardless of the cryptography usage, because the actual crime here was operating a money-laundering service.
Yeah, like I said, a genius way to use cryptography to send anonymous payments. The cops call that money laundering. That isn't an orthogonal crime, it's a different name for the exact same thing.
Sure, and "manufacturing novel types of explosive devices, with evidence of them having been used in destructive acts of terror" is just a different name used by cops for "innovative applied chemistry". The criminal law must be truly just hating on the innovators in sciences.
What you said is actually a name for "innovative applied chemistry, and then blowing up parliament with it". If I invented a new type of explosive and didn't blow up parliament, but the cops somehow found out, I'd go to jail.
Edit: correction, you didn't even say I was the one who blew things up. You just said someone blew up things with my new explosives. Which is exactly what I'm talking about. If guns weren't already old technology, the government would hold Mr Smith & Mr Wesson accountable for every gun death.
Telegram and Session are never secure by any means. Honestly I'd consider both of them to be intelligence and law enforcement honeypots given how aggressively they marketed themselves as the "secure" option and how little they actually deliver.
10 years and they'll be mid way into their conference talk career. You know, that sweet spot where you can keep telling the same story over and over and still get attention for it.
That makes me wonder what Frank Abagnale has been up to recently.
Not sure if you're aware already and omitted it for brevity but maybe for others who might not already know: Abignale made up everything (or nearly everything) he claimed to have done in his book and in the movie. He was still taking advantage of people during this time, but the acts were far more mundane (and slimy) than his claims. He was a con man for sure, but not the "brilliant but misguided criminal gets redemption" that he portrays.
Nope, I never heard that. It doesn't surprise me one bit though. I found his talks sort of robotic, and having caught a handful, very rote. I always thought he didn't have the demeanor of the person he claimed to be.
I have found that keeping dialog open from early age on helps a lot. If kids get into trouble when they do something they're not allowed to, they're going to learn to stop telling you stuff real quick. And hide their activities. If they learn that you'll stay calm and continually prove that you trust them to handle their stuff, they might end up telling you things you wouldn't expect. But then... you don't get to blow your lid. Ever.
You can absolutely blow your lid, you just have to apologize afterwards and admit that you were wrong. This is very hard for some adults to do to a 5 year old.
I understand that some people have trouble apologizing to children, but could someone help me understand why? I’ve been a parent for almost a decade now, and I can’t count the number of important teaching and bonding moments that have started with me making a parenting mistake and apologizing for it. I rely on it pretty heavily to teach my kid about emotional regulation. It’s such an important opportunity to just throw away. Is it an ego thing? Do people struggle to see children as people? I promise those are good-faith questions. I know some people struggle more with that sort of thing, and that’s fine. We all have our strengths.
It really depends on what blowing your lid looks like. Regardless of whether you make up for it later, if you make yourself a reputation of it, others will learn to avoid the initial blow-up in the first place
> Jubair has 22 previous convictions related to hacking, fraud and harassment.
There’s more to what was going on here and none of us is really qualified to diagnose the psychology behind it from the details. I hope they can find some peace later in life because they are obviously not lacking ambition or ability
Behavior being different online than in real life is not limited to kids either. Nobody on Facebook is meaner than a 60-something year old lady with a wall full of cat pictures and minion memes. I genuinely doubt that half of them would hold the same discourse face to face.
I don't know, I was reading the article and went "well, good for them, if they could get into the system, fair play". Then I saw the part where they stole tons of data and inconvenienced people, and I can't support that.
If you hack into a system and leave a note "I got into your system, I win", more power to you. If you do damage, go to prison.
>Many years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
This is the #1 reason bots exist. We can't just punch them down anymore, we're flagged as bad people.
>Many years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
I've seen people have this opinion many times before and I don't get it. People talk shit in real life all the time and it's a much worse situation in real life because they might punch you in the face.
This is why I don't mind online shit-talking, because it isn't going to escalate into a fight. In real life it might and imo the teens are more likely to escalate it especially if they are in a group.
Yeah, that too. Like, being old enough to get my start largely in internet cafes means I actually _had_ in-person interactions with the type of person we're talking about - and they were _not_ nicer.
Being kinda big I might even stand a chance against one - unless they had a knife, which they probably IME did - but there was always at least 5 of the "lonely lost boys," at least one carrying a baseball bat everywhere.
> As a parent now (but oldest is only 5), it's stories like this which make me determined remain aware of the kind of stuff my kids get up to and continually explain that actions have consequences, even if those consequences are seemingly as trivial as making someone else feel shit about themselves.
Weird, somehow without significant parental surveillance or explicit explanation I somehow managed to _not_ do much of the awful stuff my acquaintances with much more engaged parents did.
Autism always makes your kids into sociopathic hackers, as we all know. They are also always top of their class in maths and bad at interacting with people
Why on earth would the BBC want or care for people to believe that? Are they in the pay of the anti-autism league? We're through the looking glass people!
The article is reporting on what was discussed in court: Autism, suicidal tendencies, living with grandparents. These were all probably brought up as elements of the story meant to influence the verdict.
Autistic people are unusually good at studying patterns objectively. While each individual person is... an individual, studying a sample from a population yields patterns, and thus the justification for the "social sciences". While autistic people may struggle with in person communication and upholding norms of human interaction, they do not generally struggle with understanding game theory, motives, and other aspects of rational decision making. So they can indeed make brilliant (and ruthless) social engineers if only when hiding behind a computer keyboard.
That is not autism, that is sociopathy. Autism does not turn on and off when you can gain something from it.
In your telling, autism is an excuse when they abuse others, because they cant help themselves. But, when it is for their benefit, the same person actually displays higher social skills.
Lol, U should meet my upstairs neighbour, his coping mechanisms are curiously similar to ways of slyly molesting and aggravating other people. He's spent seven years obsessing stalking and trying to harm me psychologically, now he's trapped in a hole he can't get out of... Because he didn't like me ignoring him. I ignore him because he is absurdely vain and likes being distasteful and offputting. I'm sorry, if they don't teach kids coping mechanisms, they are doing this to them. The BBC where mentioned here as spreading FUD about artists, I did a search to find one of the many supportive and educational stories I have seen on their website - the first result is for paid Autism tests for children. It is a profitable diagnosis. It triggers a non behavioural approach that leaves adults disabled for life.
I didn't say it wasn't sociopathy; it most certainly was. Autism and sociopathy are not mutually exclusive. And as they were executing their plan, I do not see any point where their "autism was turned off".
Autistic people can be highly sociable by explicitly learning social skills. They can also learn social skills in order to manipulate others, as is the case here.
Lastly, explaining how a medical condition whose stereotypes seem to make others think those with it would not be capable of committing a crime were in fact capable of committing that crime in no ways is the same as excusing the crime.
They're not excusing the sociopathic element. They're explaining the apparent discrepancy between the fact that autistic people are bad at socializing and the fact that some autistic people are good at social engineering.
There's no discrepancy because "social engineering" isn't "Being good at social things"
Social engineering is just conman pressure tactics or hard sales tactics. It's so simple you can train your average stay at home mom or "hustle culture" bro to do it for Amway or similar in an afternoon.
It requires zero social skills. You aren't "Charming" the tech support, you are just badgering them and waiting until they do the normal human thing of trying to be helpful.
I'm not assuming anything. I'm explaining that they can be, because the original comment made it sound like autistic people can't understand social behavior at any level.
It kept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon from being extradicted to the USA. Apparently the courts don't accept "your opsec is shit and I got in with default passwords", but they do accept "I have autism"
Let's try it in action:
- "Mr Wallace, we have several credible reports that you harrassed TV production staff by going around with no underpants on, and finding excuses to take your trousers down. What do you say to that?"
> gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.
The whole edifice was built on a helpful, possibly overworked and possibly harassed help desk worker? The end result is that two kids end up in jail. It could have been so different, and better. What they did was wrong for sure, and has real-world consequences for those whose information was leaked. But, when I look at the contingencies that led to the outcome, it really does depress me.
Like, at some point we have to start considering teens natural disasters, and put it on the company to prevent something as banal as a password reset that can be requested on a phone from compromising their _entire_ fucking system. These kids aren’t most at fault here.
> Woolwich Crown Court heard both men [...] spent most of their time online unsupervised.
Such an infantilising and surveillance-normalizing slant. Why is it worthy of mention that an adult spent time unsupervised? (Sure, one of them was 17 at the time, but that didn't stop them from waiting until he was 18 to charge him)
do you think there is a way to divert kids like this into some kind of useful programming / IT direction and if so what do you think would be the best way to handle this
(like a group that takes black hat hackers to white hat hacker projects?)
kids with like anti-social or aggressive tendencies plus maybe some tech "skillz"
I mean you can’t put a building on fire and say you should not be sentenced for the whole building burning down because the impact of the response by the fire department (if they had been faster/better the fire would not caused so bad damages)
The building owner has a degree of duty to mitigate loss. They can't go around opening doors and windows after the fire is started but before the fire department gets there and be all "whoops not my fault blame it on the guy who started the fire" regardless of how the fire started.
The duty to mitigate loss is a concept in contract law, and its main use is in calculating damages (ie. you can't claim damages for a loss that you ought to have mitigated)
It would definitely come into play if TfL were suing Jubair & Flowers, but it's not really relevant in a criminal situation like this.
Actually if only half the building burns down you aren't supposed to be sentenced as if the whole building burned down. Even if the whole building would have burned down if the fire department didn't show up.
jonathanlydall | 6 hours ago
Many years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
These kids discovered that their actions have consequences to them in person and not just someone being upset with them remotely.
As a parent now (but oldest is only 5), it's stories like this which make me determined remain aware of the kind of stuff my kids get up to and continually explain that actions have consequences, even if those consequences are seemingly as trivial as making someone else feel shit about themselves.
I wonder if maybe 10 or so years from now, after these kids have actually reached decent emotional maturity, that they'll look back at their actions and think about how stupidly reckless and needlessly destructive they were, to both others and their own lives.
grim_io | 6 hours ago
grubbs | 5 hours ago
jfyi | 5 hours ago
It was just simpler back then. There was no aslr, no hardware level protection from execution, traffic was all plaintext, switches didn't exist, or maybe they did but just nobody used them and everything on every network was just one giant collision domain, developers by and large didn't even think about securing software outside of DRM, and absolutely nobody understood the basic premise that someone on the phone may be lying to your business to get access to things they want.
The skillset that made you a 1337 h4x0r in the 90's makes you a mediocre sysadmin these days.
swarnie | 5 hours ago
I expect to find them at an MSP with a firm equal opportunities policy.
inigyou | 6 hours ago
williamdclt | 6 hours ago
inigyou | 5 hours ago
Basically everything that fits outside of existing patterns is illegal one way or another. Only people who are naïve to these consequences will ever be motivated to make these things.
filoleg | 4 hours ago
This is just a disingenuous take.
Tornado Cash founder didn't get criminally convicted for "a genius way go use cryptography to send anonymous payments." He got convicted for operating a money-laundering service.
The fact that his service utilized "a genius way to use cryptography to send anonymous payments" is entirely orthogonal to the actual crime he got in trouble for. He would have gotten convicted just the same regardless of the cryptography usage, because the actual crime here was operating a money-laundering service.
inigyou | 4 hours ago
filoleg | 3 hours ago
inigyou | 3 hours ago
Edit: correction, you didn't even say I was the one who blew things up. You just said someone blew up things with my new explosives. Which is exactly what I'm talking about. If guns weren't already old technology, the government would hold Mr Smith & Mr Wesson accountable for every gun death.
xpct | 4 hours ago
inigyou | 4 hours ago
pibaker | an hour ago
I would trust WhatsApp before I trust telegram.
jfyi | 6 hours ago
bityard | 4 hours ago
irishcoffee | 4 hours ago
jfyi | 4 hours ago
beng-nl | 3 hours ago
Kichererbsen | 6 hours ago
Aeolun | 4 hours ago
ilinx | 4 hours ago
dmd | 4 hours ago
anthony_d | 4 hours ago
LoganDark | 4 hours ago
Aurornis | 6 hours ago
> Jubair has 22 previous convictions related to hacking, fraud and harassment.
There’s more to what was going on here and none of us is really qualified to diagnose the psychology behind it from the details. I hope they can find some peace later in life because they are obviously not lacking ambition or ability
harvey9 | 5 hours ago
illliillll | 4 hours ago
exe34 | 4 hours ago
folkrav | 6 hours ago
pixl97 | 5 hours ago
thejokeisonme | 5 hours ago
jareklupinski | 5 hours ago
cucumber3732842 | 4 hours ago
inigyou | 3 hours ago
stavros | 5 hours ago
If you hack into a system and leave a note "I got into your system, I win", more power to you. If you do damage, go to prison.
1970-01-01 | 5 hours ago
This is the #1 reason bots exist. We can't just punch them down anymore, we're flagged as bad people.
exe34 | 4 hours ago
Aerroon | 4 hours ago
I've seen people have this opinion many times before and I don't get it. People talk shit in real life all the time and it's a much worse situation in real life because they might punch you in the face.
This is why I don't mind online shit-talking, because it isn't going to escalate into a fight. In real life it might and imo the teens are more likely to escalate it especially if they are in a group.
LaGrange | 4 hours ago
Being kinda big I might even stand a chance against one - unless they had a knife, which they probably IME did - but there was always at least 5 of the "lonely lost boys," at least one carrying a baseball bat everywhere.
LaGrange | 4 hours ago
Weird, somehow without significant parental surveillance or explicit explanation I somehow managed to _not_ do much of the awful stuff my acquaintances with much more engaged parents did.
Must have been my autism, I guess.
smallnix | 6 hours ago
Ah.. I hate when stereotypes play out like this. It's always those single children.
amiga386 | 4 hours ago
butlike | 2 hours ago
d-lowl | 6 hours ago
What does this have to do with anything in this article.
voidUpdate | 6 hours ago
/s
rapidaneurism | 5 hours ago
inigyou | 6 hours ago
Steve16384 | 5 hours ago
inigyou | 5 hours ago
billygatesgruff | 4 hours ago
Aurornis | 6 hours ago
Take it up with lawyers.
Der_Einzige | 5 hours ago
masfuerte | 5 hours ago
d-us-vb | 5 hours ago
watwut | 5 hours ago
In your telling, autism is an excuse when they abuse others, because they cant help themselves. But, when it is for their benefit, the same person actually displays higher social skills.
billygatesgruff | 4 hours ago
d-us-vb | 4 hours ago
Autistic people can be highly sociable by explicitly learning social skills. They can also learn social skills in order to manipulate others, as is the case here.
Lastly, explaining how a medical condition whose stereotypes seem to make others think those with it would not be capable of committing a crime were in fact capable of committing that crime in no ways is the same as excusing the crime.
inigyou | 3 hours ago
mrguyorama | 2 hours ago
Social engineering is just conman pressure tactics or hard sales tactics. It's so simple you can train your average stay at home mom or "hustle culture" bro to do it for Amway or similar in an afternoon.
It requires zero social skills. You aren't "Charming" the tech support, you are just badgering them and waiting until they do the normal human thing of trying to be helpful.
illliillll | 4 hours ago
d-us-vb | 4 hours ago
amiga386 | 5 hours ago
It kept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon from being extradicted to the USA. Apparently the courts don't accept "your opsec is shit and I got in with default passwords", but they do accept "I have autism"
Let's try it in action:
- "Mr Wallace, we have several credible reports that you harrassed TV production staff by going around with no underpants on, and finding excuses to take your trousers down. What do you say to that?"
- "Did I mention I have autism?"
( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24lxl85wyo )
kayo_20211030 | 6 hours ago
> gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.
The whole edifice was built on a helpful, possibly overworked and possibly harassed help desk worker? The end result is that two kids end up in jail. It could have been so different, and better. What they did was wrong for sure, and has real-world consequences for those whose information was leaked. But, when I look at the contingencies that led to the outcome, it really does depress me.
"all for the want of a nail"
Aeolun | 4 hours ago
VladVladikoff | 5 hours ago
Retr0id | 5 hours ago
Such an infantilising and surveillance-normalizing slant. Why is it worthy of mention that an adult spent time unsupervised? (Sure, one of them was 17 at the time, but that didn't stop them from waiting until he was 18 to charge him)
erelong | 5 hours ago
(like a group that takes black hat hackers to white hat hacker projects?)
kids with like anti-social or aggressive tendencies plus maybe some tech "skillz"
kortilla | 5 hours ago
parisisles | 5 hours ago
smith-kyle | 5 hours ago
dofm | 5 hours ago
You don't get to argue that your crime wouldn't have been so bad if your victims weren't incompetent.
victorbjorklund | 4 hours ago
cucumber3732842 | 4 hours ago
roryirvine | 4 hours ago
It would definitely come into play if TfL were suing Jubair & Flowers, but it's not really relevant in a criminal situation like this.
inigyou | 3 hours ago
inigyou | 3 hours ago
antihero | 4 hours ago
throwaway888666 | 4 hours ago
They are teenagers. They don't belong in prison, they belong in an any cybercrime agency.
willy_k | 3 hours ago
cedws | 3 hours ago