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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday April 21 2019, @08:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the zzzzzap! dept.

Alum Kills Over $58,000 in PC Gear With 'USB Killer' Device

The student in question is Vishwanath Akuthota. He graduated from [The College of St. Rose] in Albany, New York back in 2017. Yet, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), Akuthota "admitted that he intentionally destroyed the computers and recorded himself doing so using his iPhone, including making statements such as 'I'm going to kill this guy' before inserting the USB Killer into a computer's USB port." The video hasn't been published.

Akuthota also recognized that he caused more than $58,000 in damage to The College of St. Rose and has agreed to pay back that amount to the school. (And here we thought people only had to pay that kind of money for their alma mater when their student loans come due.) The DoJ said he "faces up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 and a term of post-imprisonment supervised release of up to 3 years" after sentencing.

Best advertising ever for USB Killer?

Also at The Verge.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @01:43PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @01:43PM (#832937)

    If he is going to prison and does not have the money for the fine and refund the damage. How they expect he pays? Remote work from prison?

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  • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Sunday April 21 2019, @02:22PM (1 child)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Sunday April 21 2019, @02:22PM (#832943)

    He will pay by selling blood, his anus, and perhaps other body parts. The way the system works, once he gets out of jail he won't be able to get a job doing more than cleaning toilets, so it is basically a death sentence.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @04:58PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @04:58PM (#833007)

      But he is luckily a foreign citizen. His US record won't be if interest to anyone in India.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @03:58PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @03:58PM (#832977)

    No can do. It's against the rules to run a business from Federal prison. There's not even an exception where you could get permission to do it.

    His prison job will pay between 12 and 42 cents per hour, out of which he'll have to buy any nutritious food he wants at full price, and pay for phone calls to family well above market price. Don't get the idea that you can save up money if your room and board are covered. Here's a discussion of what it costs to be in prison: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/04/11/money-changed-everything-for-me-in-prison [themarshallproject.org]

    Some of that will be withheld for restitution if he signs up for the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program, which is "voluntary" and which inmates are punished for not participating in.

    If he's very very lucky he might get into a Unicor job paying one or two dollars an hour.

    Then, as someone else just pointed out, he'll get out and hit the free world job market with a felony record. My prison pen pal is a veteran with two useful MOSs who was released to a city with 3.9% unemployment. Even with those advantages she struck out on a hundred jobs and is now resigned to flipping burgers.

    This is not a system designed with the primary goal of making victims whole.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @05:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @05:03PM (#833015)

      The goal of US society is to find a pretext to "trash" a person for life. Besides as a feather in a cap for some government officials, I don't know for whose amusement we do this. But obviously there is a gross oversupply of people.