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The Bitcoin Baron, a self-proclaimed vigilante responsible for DDoS attacks on civic networks in Madison, Wisc., San Marcos, Texas, and other sites in 2015, has been collared in Phoenix and sentenced to serve 20 months in prison.
The conviction and sentencing is only for the former attack, in which Randall Charles Tucker, who was 20 at the time, disabled the City of Madison’s website for six days, crippled the 911 emergency communication system and degraded the emergency service dispatch system. He went on to boast about the attacks on social media, according to the court documents, and on Skype chats in his gaming community.
The attack’s motivation is unclear, but it came shortly after a fatal shooting of a 19-year-old unarmed black man by a Madison police officer sparked outrage. Police brutality soon became a recurring theme for Tucker.
[...] The hacker pleaded guilty in April of last year to one count of intentional damage to a protected computer, in Madison.
In addition to the jail time, U.S. District Judge Douglas L. Rayes of the District of Arizona also ordered Tucker to pay $69,331.56 in restitution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @08:36PM (10 children)
Once again it's NOT about "prison guards [making] life hell for those under their watch." It's about his fellow inmates. As I said in the very first post, "He's going to have to depend on those same authorities to protect him in the pen." You somehow want to equate prisoner on prisoner violence to guard brutality. Personally, I hope the irony is not lost on him that IF the guards prioritize his security below other duties, it's only the same brand of vigilante justice that he himself enjoyed engaging in.
Second, it's not "PROTESTING" if you demand payment to call off your DDOS attack. It's engaging in a criminal enterprise. I also fail to see how defacing a website for the Shriners Hospitals for Children with child pornography could ever qualify as any legitimate protest.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 26 2018, @03:45AM (6 children)
Exactly. The fellow inmates are the primary tools by which those same authorities can abuse their wards.
Whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @01:16PM (5 children)
I'm beginning to understand why we cannot see eye to eye on what constitutes brutality. You flippantly discount extortion equating it with protesting. You ignore the scores of innocent bystander victims who could not reach 911 services during this scumbag's "protest." Your only concern lies with his treatment at the hands of his fellow convicts that you want to conflate with guard responsibility as though it were being directed by guards.
Why do you identify only with criminals? Did you do some time?
Personally, I think this guy is a piece of shit. I don't care what his alleged intentions were. His actions hurt innocent people. He felt safe on his little computer causing mayhem and now he is dependent on those same people that he claimed to oppose for his own security. He was so sure of his convictions, he was willing to harm others to prove it. That's irony. He had better hope he was wrong in his broad painting of law enforcement for his own sake.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 26 2018, @02:07PM (4 children)
No, you aren't.
No, I didn't. Words have meaning. "Protest" doesn't mean "absence of extortion". It means such things as:
Extortion can indeed be an action expressing such. I think that was the case with this story.
Because I don't want my society to devolve to the point where freedom-loving people become the criminals.
I agree. I don't agree that we should abandon our laws and freedoms merely because there are pieces of shit in our societies.
He's not. We all know that in too many cases they're just another gang, particularly in prisons. Maybe he'll end up somewhere where they take their job seriously, but odds are good that he won't.
It is directed by the guards. The general population will figure out real fast who isn't protected, assuming the guards don't tell everyone in the first place. And once again, I find your cognitive dissonance interesting. You complain of the people harmed by Mr. Baron, but not of the people harmed by prison guards every day. Well, guess what happens when laws can be broken whenever it's convenient. You get a tyranny of thugs who are above those laws.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @06:28PM (3 children)
Yeah, I think we're done here. If you cannot discern that extortion (for personal enrichment) is not protest, we have no common ground.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 26 2018, @10:34PM (2 children)
Sorry, the discernment problem is not on my end. Words have meaning. It's not my problem that you can't wrap your head around what "protest" means. I gave you the definition, described how acts of extortion can fit in, and you're still blathering. The same problem goes on with all the other things we've talked about. You're talking not thinking. What more should I do here?
Fortunately, stupidity is extremely varied. Sure, you have a bunch of fellow idiots who believe the same things you do. But you all are countered by other idiots with different beliefs going in different screwy directions. It's noise in the end. I think we can continue to protect our democracies of the world from you, should we desire it. Ending police brutality (in a legal way rather than a disrupt 911 way) is a big step to making that future possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:51AM (1 child)
When you chose your name, you misspelled callow.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:42AM
Third, repeatedly and boastfully milks the irony of what's going to happen to a guy who allegedly protested police brutality in prison due to criminal actions of prison guards. Somehow that prison guard brutality (sorry, allowing proxy inmates to brutalize someone on your behalf is still your brutality) is going to persuade Mr. Baron that police brutality is not a big thing? That's absurd.
At this point, I think the thread is officially over. The nutso side is reduced to hurling empty insults and I've said my piece. May you, AC, learn through good fortune rather than bad the utter folly of your present beliefs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 26 2018, @12:33PM (2 children)
And personally, I hope any prison guard who actually does that felony ends up in jail (just like our Bitcoin Baron did!). I find it remarkable how you blissfully brag about prison guard brutality and then rationalize it away as being due to "fellow inmates".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @01:27PM (1 child)
No guard will ever be charged with a felony for failing to see an inmate beat another's ass. Watch the news. Guards are only criminally charged for having sex with the inmates, sneaking in contraband, helping an inmate escape, or tying them down and pepper spraying them.
I don't think you understand what constitutes bragging any more than you do guard brutality.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 26 2018, @01:39PM
And there we go again.