SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Associated Press is reporting that Jordan Hamlett, a Louisiana private investigator and self-proclaimed benevolent "white hat" hacker, pleaded guilty on Monday to misusing Donald Trump's Social Security number in repeated attempts to access the president's federal tax information before the 2016 election. Hamlett faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine following his guilty plea in federal court.
A court document accompanying Hamlett's plea agreement says he used Trump's Social Security number and other personal information to open an online application for federal student aid on Sept. 13, 2016. After obtaining a username and password, he tried to use an Internal Revenue Service data retrieval tool to obtain Trump's tax information, the document says.
"The defendant made six separate attempts to obtain the federal tax information from IRS servers, but he was unsuccessful," says the document. It doesn't specify how much of Trump's tax information could have been retrieved with the online tool.
[..] Federal prosecutors had asked Judge James Brady to bar Hamlett's lawyer from presenting a trial defense that that he was acting as a benevolent "white hat" hacker. Brady, a senior federal judge who died Saturday at a Baton Rouge hospital, ruled last month that Hamlett couldn't testify that he had a "good purpose" in attempting to test security flaws in the website.
[... Defense attorney] Fiser said Hamlett liked to test security systems for weaknesses in his spare time and would notify system administrators if he found a system vulnerable to a security breach. Hamlett once discovered a security flaw that allowed for public access to the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office's "raw" reports on open investigations and exposed personal information about police officers.
source: Louisiana man admits misusing Trump's Social Security number
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 15 2017, @02:45AM
If this twit were a real hacker, he would have known that messing with any Trump data would be noticed. Gubbermint takes care of it's own, even when it's own are dumber than rocks.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @03:10AM
Nope, they get send to PMITA prison now.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday December 15 2017, @03:16AM (6 children)
OK, I've been staring at a blank screen for a good 5 minutes without a snarky comeback.
But "misusing" a SSN is a thing? WTF?* Guy is trying to steal Trump's identity and he gets a "misusing" charge?
/ WTF - What's This Feature?
// what did you think it meant?
/// actually snuck that into an international proposal on cell phone protocols some 20 years ago
//// First off, some Australian contractor working for me came up with it circa '95
///// Second, it didn't make it into the official spec
////// That Aussie was awesome, funny as hell, competent as hell. I hope his life turned out well. I wish I could remember his name.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 15 2017, @03:42AM (4 children)
What I think is the boggle here is that misusing an SSN has so much potential gain to it. Needless to say, a nine digit number shouldn't be that special.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 15 2017, @05:09AM (3 children)
It's an identifier, that's all, nothing more. Like a name, but more unique.
Replase SSN with "name" in the story, and there should be the same level of shock. Man tries to acquire Trump's tax information using Trump's name. If that's not a story, and not a court case, then this shouldn't be either. Unless the "hack" succeeds, of course.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 15 2017, @06:30AM (2 children)
Well, identifiers identify. That causes problems [aclu.org] in the US under the current system.
"Improper prying" was what this particular character tried to do.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 15 2017, @09:00AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 15 2017, @04:23PM
You only think you are disagreeing with me. What do you think I said in the first place? ;)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 15 2017, @05:14AM
Congratulations, you win the "retard who doesn't understand the concept of theft, and how information can be replicated without removing it from the person who originally had it" award.
Fancy a job with the MAFIAA?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Friday December 15 2017, @03:41AM (5 children)
Yea, "White Hat" hacker my hairy left nut. If he had succeeded the only question was where he was sending it and whether the moron would have used a cutout. DNC, WaPo or NYT? Or more likely all three.
This obsession among progs to use the tax system as a political weapon needs to stop. Because if it doesn't, Trump will eventually get pissed enough to use it and there won't be no putting the genie back in the bottle. Of course if the tax system didn't require submitting more information than "audited financials" entail this wouldn't be a problem. Something to think about.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @05:02AM (1 child)
"Progs"??
Go read a little history!
http://theweek.com/articles/463613/irs-political-weapon [theweek.com]
“In almost every administration since the IRS’s inception,” wrote David Burnham, author of A Law Unto Itself: Power, Politics and the IRS, “the information and power of the tax agency have been mobilized for explicitly political purposes.”
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Friday December 15 2017, @05:47AM
If I want history I can do a lot better than a yellow rag like TheWeek but lets go with it for the sake of abusing you a bit....
First off, no; it enumerated the offenders:
FDR, Truman, JFK, Nixon, Clinton and Obama. (ignoring J. Edgar Hoover who ran through many administrations doing good things, and questionable ones)
Nixon was impeached with his abuse of the IRS as one of the charges. Pop quiz, what else makes Nixon unique in that list?
Remember, when reading the legacy media you are reading SJWs. And what are the three laws that govern them?
1. SJWs Always Lie. So of course they went for the false equivalence of implying "everybody does it" when, no everybody doesn't.
2. SJWs Always Double Down. You will demonstrate this one in your reply... if you have the stones.
3. SJWs Always Project. Always looking for the Red Team to be "literally Hitler" and bring in a dark reign of fascism..... as you and rags like TheHill adore monsters like Clinton and Obama who already DID break every civilized norm in their mad rush to crush all enemies and "fundamentally transform America."
(Score: 4, Touché) by aristarchus on Friday December 15 2017, @06:29AM
I, for one, did not need to know the hirsute status of jmorris's distaff testicle. Ewww! TMI, dude.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday December 15 2017, @04:37PM
You have nothing to worry about. Because NO ONE has more respect for taxpayers than I do.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 15 2017, @04:42PM
Yea, "White Hat" hacker my hairy left nut. If he had succeeded the only question was where he was sending it and whether the moron would have used a cutout. DNC, WaPo or NYT? Or more likely all three.
And yet, when a hostile foreign government does the same to one of our political parties they're just "telling us the truth," right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @07:03AM (1 child)
Who cheer because it was Trump who was the victim of a crime here.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 15 2017, @04:45PM
I don't think hacking should be used to interfere with our political process.
(Score: 1) by Muad'Dave on Friday December 15 2017, @06:06PM
This breach [google.com] allowed hackers to get tax info from the Dept of Education site and IRS.
I should know - I was hit by this.