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Convicted tax fraudster sues CNBC for defamation, says he's not a "hacker"
Daniel Rigmaiden wants the world to know that, while CNBC's American Greed television show may have portrayed him more than two years ago as a "hacker," a "recluse," and more, he is none of those things.
Earlier this year, Rigmaiden sued NBCUniversal, CNBC's parent company, and an Arizona Republic journalist shown in that episode, accusing them all of defamation.
Rigmaiden wants unspecified damages and also a permanent injunction that would stop further distribution of the episode, which is currently available on Amazon Video for $2.99.
Lawyers for CNBC have tried to get the case dismissed, and the two sides will face off in a Miami-Dade County courthouse on Monday, November 19.
In actuality, Rigmaiden is a man convicted of tax fraud who became a privacy activist—he has become something of an icon in surveillance-law nerd circles.
"Plaintiff did not use black-hat computer hacking to steal money from the IRS," he wrote. "Plaintiff used computer software to automate the process of filing fraudulent tax returns and collecting the refunds. The IRS was not hacked by Plaintiff, and Plaintiff otherwise did not use black-hat computer hacking to facilitate the tax-refund fraud scheme."
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 25 2018, @04:04PM (3 children)
First, let me agree with you that the public fear of technology, scientific "tinkering" of any kind, etc. is deplorable today. It is anti-intellectual, and it is a real concern.
But that has nothing to do with the past history of the term "hacker," which has always skirted the bounds between at least the "grey hat" and "white hat" connotations, and basically from the start included at least disruptive "black hat" activities. No, the black hat connotation isn't just a recent misuse by the media. No, the word "cracker" is not the only acceptable word for black hats, and its history is much more recent. All of this stuff is basically a sort of urban legend among a lot of tech folks today who want to downplay the role of ambiguous and sometimes nefarious "tinkering" in the history of "hacking."
It used to be that reliable information for this was hard to find, making it easy for geeks to deny the history of the term "hacking," but that's no longer the case.
Let's clear some things up: The first documentary evidence we have for the modern use of "hacker" in relation to technology is in the notes of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club from the mid-1950s. At that time, lore said [berkeley.edu] there were two types of students at MIT -- the "tools" and the "hackers." The "tools" went to class, earned As, and spent a lot of time in the library. The "hackers" overslept and failed to attend class, because they were up late tinkering with technology rather than studying. There was an early sense that "hackers" were at least non-conformists, if not at times skirting ethical boundaries. Indeed, the VERY FIRST known citation of the term "hacker" in writing from the MIT Railroad Club's minutes states that "hackers" should be careful when they do their tinkering to avoid blowing fuses.
Hackers have thus ALWAYS skirted the bounds of potentially disruptive activities, and the very first recorded media reference [manybutfinite.com] from 1963 employs the term "hacker" to refer to phone phreaking in a disruptive sense. Note that this was in the student-run MIT newspaper The Tech, not some silly ignorant media folks. MIT students writing about themselves already recognized the possible nefarious activities of "hackers" over 50 years ago. This is not a recent misuse by media folks.
As computers became more well-known in the 1970s, the term "hacker" migrated to mainstream media usage, often with derogatory connotations, or at least hinting at possibly skirting ethical boundaries. It was in this culture that in the early 1980s Richard Stallman attempted to re-write history and coined the term computer "cracker" to try to shift the black hats into a different category and protect "hacking" from its own history. Ever since, there seems to be a war of "No True Scotsman" fallacies abounding among tech geeks who wish to expunge the black hats and grey hats from "hacker" nomenclature, even as the black hats themselves continue to use the term for themselves, as they have ever since the origins of the term in the 1960s.
There's more to the history [newyorker.com], but let's please stop pretending that "hacker" as a term has ever been solely devoted to innocent tinkering. It didn't always denote criminality, though by the 1980s in the mainstream media it tended to imply that. One can legitimately argue that the media has downplayed or misunderstood the positive (white hat) "hacker" culture over the years, but let's not pretend uses of "hacker" that are derogatory or affiliated with gray hat (and even black hat) activity are erroneous. "Hacking" has always been about skirting ethical boundaries for some, and some "hackers" have always gone a bit too far.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 25 2018, @04:50PM
I think it pretty safe to say that all hackers, black, white, or gray, hear "You can't do that", and they immediately ask "Why not?" Or, "You have to . . ." and the question is, "What if I don't?" "This goes that way." leads to "What if I put it this way instead?" They are always looking at things upside down, backwards, inside out, or kitty-corner. One and all, they refuse to think inside the box. Or, if they do play inside the box, they are busy slicing it into segments that were never intended, then rearranging those segments to their liking.
I think it all started with that monkey-man who brought fire home with him, and made a pet of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @07:55PM (1 child)
I don't disagree with the rest of your post, but this proves what, exactly? That tinkering is by definition unethical? I'm sorry, but fuses are part of a safety system and it is perfectly acceptable to run into safety boundaries when experimenting. To use a car analogy, this would be similar to pointing to the car manual section on seatbelts and using that as proof that all car drivers are maniacal killers. Or to keep within the realm of experimentation, the statement "medical students should be careful when practicing with hypodermic needles to avoid hurting patients" does not imply that all doctors are sadists.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @08:49PM
......
I am 99% sure it was about not blowing fuses in dorms or a lab where other people are working. Not some "save the fuses" PC movement.
When you are doing side projects without supervision it is preferable that the dean or whoever not get bothered and shut it down.