alt Hacker NewsTeen hackers who live streamed cyber-attack on TfL jailed
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When I see this it makes me depressed.
> gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.
The whole edifice was built on a helpful, possibly overworked and possibly harassed help desk worker? The end result is that two kids end up in jail. It could have been so different, and better. What they did was wrong for sure, and has real-world consequences for those whose information was leaked. But, when I look at the contingencies that led to the outcome, it really does depress me.
"all for the want of a nail"
Britain got talent I guess.
They are teenagers. They don't belong in prison, they belong in an any cybercrime agency.
>Jubair and Flowers who both have autism, gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.
What does this have to do with anything in this article.
do you think there is a way to divert kids like this into some kind of useful programming / IT direction and if so what do you think would be the best way to handle this
(like a group that takes black hat hackers to white hat hacker projects?)
kids with like anti-social or aggressive tendencies plus maybe some tech "skillz"
I don’t really have 16 hours to burn watching a live stream recording, but I kinda want to watch it for the lolz.
Ah so a little more serious than gang rape, I guess. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cd0m38xndp3t
Sad that they're being sentenced based on the impact of the response by TfL's IT team
> The court heard the single child was given his first laptop at the age of 10 by his parents - carers who moved to London from Bangladesh.
Ah.. I hate when stereotypes play out like this. It's always those single children.
(the french laundry)
> Woolwich Crown Court heard both men [...] spent most of their time online unsupervised.
Such an infantilising and surveillance-normalizing slant. Why is it worthy of mention that an adult spent time unsupervised? (Sure, one of them was 17 at the time, but that didn't stop them from waiting until he was 18 to charge him)
Remembering back, I certainly lacked a lot of critical reasoning which could have led me to do possibly equally stupid stuff like this had I the skill in my early teens. As I remember it, life felt more like a "game" in that you do whatever it lets you, without much consideration of whether people will be (potentially very) upset with what you've done. In person activities stood high risk of getting caught, but online it seems more like a computer game and the people on the other side of your actions feel more abstract.
Many years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
These kids discovered that their actions have consequences to them in person and not just someone being upset with them remotely.
As a parent now (but oldest is only 5), it's stories like this which make me determined remain aware of the kind of stuff my kids get up to and continually explain that actions have consequences, even if those consequences are seemingly as trivial as making someone else feel shit about themselves.
I wonder if maybe 10 or so years from now, after these kids have actually reached decent emotional maturity, that they'll look back at their actions and think about how stupidly reckless and needlessly destructive they were, to both others and their own lives.