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'Addicted to hacking': Young hacker behind historic breach speaks out for 1st time, before reporting to prison (abcnews.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 3 points 5 months ago (16 children)

Would you like me to post exerpts from the article or are you actually going to read it?

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    I am a different person from the one you were bantering with. This is the best quote I've found:

    By the fall of 2024, Lane found the source of his next fix: Credentials stolen from a PowerSchool contractor were available online.

    And he's 20 now, mentioned right at the beginning of the article. So roughly 1.5 years ago? So if my math is right, he could have been 18? We have to count a few months more than just one year back (apr 2025 would have been exactly one year ago).

    Anyway I upvoted the both of you for the conversation. No hard feelings at all. It's just not so obvious to me he was 19 at the comission of the crime.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (13 children)

    I seem to recall skimming it pretty good 12 hours ago, then I went to work

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (12 children)

    He is 20 years old now and the crime he was prosecuted for and convicted of was committed when he was 19 according to the first two paragraphs of the article that is linked.

    On a recent Tuesday morning, as his parents were driving him to the federal prison in Connecticut where he'll be locked up for the foreseeable future, 20-year-old Matthew Lane sent a text message to ABC News.

    "It's extremely sad, and I'm just scared," he wrote.

    Barely a year earlier, while still a teenager, he helped launch what's been described as the biggest cyberattack in U.S. education history -- a data breach that concerned authorities so much, it prompted briefings with senior government officials inside the White House Situation Room.

    People seem to think that I'm advocating for him to suffer the messed up prison system when what I'm actually pointing out is that this is something he knowingly engaged in as a legal adult.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (11 children)

    well he isn't done with his brain deployment even now, and his incarceration wouldn't fix anything. being legally an adult doesn't change the ethics here.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (10 children)

    Sigh. I have not been disputing this.

    Just because someone you view as a child did something terrible but you feel like they deserve a pass because the consequences of that terrible thing they did are too harsh doesn't mean that this isn't the reality and additionally doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask the question of whether they would have stopped if they hadn't been caught or punished.

    If a child was kidnapped or raped because of what he did, what then? where's the line? Do you feel the same about school shooters, or children who molest other children, or is it just because he made a credible threat but wasn't able to execute it that you feel he specifically deserves a pass here?

    Brock Turner was 19 when he raped a woman who had passed out. He was heavily intoxicated. Should we take the fact that his brain wasn't finished developing, or the fact that he was intoxicated into account when we decided if he broke the law?

    Genuinely asking because there so much danger posed by leaking the data he stole, and pretending he did nothing wrong doesn't really make sense to me.

    I have already stated my views on prison and they hold for most crimes, regardless of age actually. I believe in rehabilitation rather than punishment, and I don't think prison or the prison system offers that so I don't believe prison is the place for this individual. But that doesn't mean that I don't recognize what he did was wrong or had a great potential for wide spread harm.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (9 children)

    so what the feds are doing is wrong. whatever the solution is, it is not what they are doing

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (8 children)

    Between August and December 2024, Lane used stolen login credentials to access the computer network of a second victim company – a software and cloud storage company that served school systems in the United States, Canada and elsewhere. Lane caused personally identifying information of students and teachers stored on that company’s networks to be transferred to a computer server Lane leased in Ukraine. Later, the second victim company and others received threats that the names, email addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, medical information, residential addresses, parent and guardian information, and passwords, among other data, of more than 60 million students and 10 million teachers would be “leak[ed] . . . worldwide” if the company did not pay a ransom of approximately $2.85 million in Bitcoin.

    He was successful. The company paid the ransom. The fact that he was 18 instead of say 25 doesn't enter into what the FBI charged him with because the law doesn't care what age you are, and unfortunately, especially at the federal level it has no real way to mete out consequences to "fit the crime".

    You offer no solutions, don't even have the beginnings of a way to better handle the situation (even though I can think of several that all have problems of their own including the house arrest suggestion I first posited) and this guy freely admits that he was unlikely to have stopped if he weren't arrested.

    Additionally, some of that data was leaked, leading to the company offering credit monitoring for 2 years but clearly we know that that leaked data will impact the victims possibly for the rest of their lives.

    It turned out that -- despite earlier assurances to the contrary -- what one state official described as a "rogue actor" tied to the original breach secretly kept some of the data.

    In exchange he got 4 years in prison which is a slap on the wrist when compared to what he might have gotten as far as prison time is concerned.

    Let me ask you something. Would you have them let him go? No repercussions? No consequences?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (7 children)

    I don't see how putting him in prison helps anyone. it doesn't stop data from leaking. it doesn't protect the other kids.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (6 children)

    Ask yourself if he would have stopped without the intervention of law enforcement. Please read the articles where he talks about being addicted.

    After you answer that question for yourself, please understand that unless you're planning on actually saying something relevant to the points I have made instead of reiterating a point I have not disagreed with, you should not expect any further replies from me.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (5 children)

    we will never know what might have happened, we can only know what has happened.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (4 children)

    What part of him was so undeveloped that he couldn't understand the wrongness of the situation he was in or the repercussions of what he was threatening? Including that if he was caught he would face prison time?

    Keep in mind that I am aware that the threat of prison time literally is scientifically proven to not prevent people from commiting crimes.

    Are you suggesting that this person didn't understand? Are you suggesting that this person can't be held responsible for his actions? Are you suggesting that this person lacked impulse control and therefore should not face consequences? Are you suggesting that this person is unable to think far enough ahead to understand the situation they were in?

    Because "not done developing" doesn't mean that they lack the ability.

    I'm going to leave you with this link because I am done with this conversation. I am and have not argued that this man deserves prison time, only that prison time is the current consequence for his actions under the law.

    I have not argued that prison is a good place or a good place for him, specifically because I do not believe that it is a good place or a good place for him.

    Read the article or don't. But I'm over having more than half of what I say ignored so you can regurgitate that same comment repeatedly as if it means something in the grand scheme of this conversation.

    https://www.sciencefocus.com/comment/brain-myth-25-development

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    the threat of prison time literally is scientifically proven to prevent people from commiting crimes.

    doubt

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