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Nine Years For Lowe's WiFi Hacker
from the quite-a-bit-of-time dept
Last year we wrote about a group of guys who were arrested for hacking into an open WiFi network at the Lowe's chain of home improvement stores, where they then set up a system to try to steal credit cards. They all got caught after there were questions why they were sitting in a car outside a closed Lowe's huddling over laptops. Today, one of the group was sentenced to nine years in jail. The guy obviously deserves some punishment. He was clearly attempting to use the network to steal credit cards -- though, it's unclear if he was actually successful. However, nine years seems a bit extreme, when it's unclear what actual damage they did, other than exploit the poor security of Lowe's. This, obviously, does not make it right at all -- but it seems like tossing around terms like "hackers" and "wardrivers" probably made this seem much worse than it actually was: a bad attempt at stealing credit cards.
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9 years
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Too bad, so sad
I feel so sorry for them, what an injustice! It is almost as if somebody has stolen something from them.
It must feel awful!
Seriously, my credit card has a 10,000 limit. Plenty of other cards do as well. Steal 10 cards, that's 100,000 available for mis-deeds.
Try robbing a bank and get away with that much money.
Just because you are using wireless laptops to break in does not make it more "game" like, an less "break and enter mixed with grand theft" like.
I don't lock my front door. But if you wanter in and try to steal my TV, You will be staring down the barrel of my "home defender".
Wardriving is fun, just to see what is out there. But trying to steal credit card numbers is a crime.
Do the crime, do the time, you stupid filthy punks.
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No Subject Given
As long as the sentence was for actually STEALING and not something like: "6 months for theft, 8 years and 6 months for hacking while doing it" I'm fine with this.
Mind you, I would have liked the judge to have said a few unkind words about Lowe's security BUT I think its too much to expect them to actually KNOW anything about computers so...
Basically, I agree with you, yes, LOWE'S should be ashamed and maybe punished for being so stupid with their networks...BUT...I still think the guys who did this SHOULD get sent away big time.
I mean, if I leave 10 grand sitting on my kitchen table near an open window in full view of the neighborhood and some guy waltzes up and steals it..yes, I'm dumb for doing it...but that doesn't make it LESS wrong for the guy who reached in and took it...and I'm PRETTY sure those guys KNEW they were committing a crime...this isn't ambiguous.
Crime should not be judged on a difficulty rating.
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Re: No Subject Given
If you can't do the time ...
don't do the crime !
... McGruff, Ploicedog
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