I almost started a thread about this awhile back. A friend of mine committed suicide about 2 months ago. He had been in quite a bit of trouble over the years for hacking type stuff. When he was 15 he hacked into some NASA computers and made national news when he was the first minor to be sentenced to jail time (later commuted to house arrest) for cyber crimes. Janet Reno was directly involved in his case. Before killing himself he had made some vague mentions that he was about to get busted for something BIG “that he didn’t do.”
Now one of his close friends - I guy I knew in passing, he was more of a FOAF but I’d met him a few times - has been indicted for this. My friend’s initials are all over his indictment. I’m pretty much 100% sure it was him. He was a really good guy but it was almost as if he was addicted to hacking. It’s all he cared or ever talked about. His mom died a few years ago from cancer unexpectedly. One of those things where she got diagnosed and like two weeks later BAM. Dead. He never really got over that.
I don’t condone what he did. And for the record I had no idea he was into anything this big. I thought he just poked around on sites he wasn’t supposed to. I guess he was smart enough not to brag about his crimes. He was very smart and could’ve done anything. Venture capitalists were practically shoving money down his throat once he was allowed on computers again after the NASA thing. He never made anything of it.
It’s funny that he knew the hammer was coming down at least two months ago. He had done some jail time (for probation violation, I think) and swore he’d never go back.
Sorry about your friend, Cisco, but I think you’re a little naive to say that he was a really good guy who just got addicted to hacking.
“Some credit and debit card numbers were sold on the Internet, and were “cashed out” by encoding the numbers on the magnetic strips of blank cards. “The defendants then used these cards to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars at a time from ATMs,” authorities said.”
The scam goes well beyond hacking.
My husband’s father died suddenly when he was 18. His mother died slowly of cancer over the next three years. If you dropped a dollar on the street in front of him, he’d tap you on the shoulder and return it to you. Having crappy things happen to you is no excuse for not making something worthwhile out of your life.
I have no idea to what extent he was involved. One of the guys had 1.6 million dollars in cash in his fancy condo, drove a BMW, etc. My friend was broke and living in the house he inherited from his mom, with no car as far as I know. I’m sure he helped out on the technology/data-gathering but I don’t think he was in it for the money. I’m sorry you feel like your husband is so much better than my friend, but he will continue to live on in my memories as a good person, because I know he was. I’m not defending his actions but good people do stupid things sometimes. You didn’t know him.