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Hacker And The Fed

podcasts.apple.com

107 pointsArtRichards58 comments

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It's a podcast by a rat and a fed. They have nothing to do with hackers.

The guy who ratted on his whole crew?

Would you rat on your colleagues or accept 120 years in jail?

Sabu did much more than just rat on his colleagues.

If he had just ratted on his colleagues and was apologetic about it, he wouldn't get a fraction of the hate he does.

I rephrase then: would you do something other than what the feds ask you (malice-free compliance), when you have your freedom on the line?

Sabu never expressed any regret for his actions, to the contrary.

You don't have to be a bad guy to accidentally hit someone with your car while driving. But if you don't feel bad about it afterwards, you're probably a bad guy. If you go out of your way to point and laugh at the person you hit ...

The way I see it: there is no way an individual can win over an empire.

If one is engaging in activities to the detriment of said empire, they must consider the risk of being snuffed at any time, let alone betrayed.

See McAfee, Assange, and Snowden. Only Snowden had the OpSec not to get caught - by escaping the influence of the US.

>See McAfee, Assange, and Snowden. Only Snowden had the OpSec not to get caught - by escaping the influence of the US.

This is ridiculous. You're deliberately limiting your list to only fugitives that also choose to be celebrities at the same time.

And why would more obscure "bad guys" cover for each other?

How does the game theory change?

It does not. I perceive the penalties for losing a prisoner's dilemma are much larger than the potential payoff.

Celebrities play a different game. The adversary isn't the entire empire, but merely the resources the empire is willing to expend to get you.

Assange and McAfee worked hard to feed their adversaries.

I would accept 120 years in jail

I think when faced with that reality that you might not be so sure.

I think we should uphold courage as a value instead of cowardice

I am not upholding cowardice as a value and I don't know how you could believe I was, without imagining me saying things I have not said. that seems to be a thing here. "oh I know what this person is thinking" uh no, you don't.

anyway, the limbic portion of your brain is extremely loud and persistent, and principles do not matter to it. it is fight or flight with the limbic system (among other things).

I agree with you in principle, of course, but being human means that you sometimes make bad decisions when the shit hits the fan.

Isn't Sabu long dead already? I really thought he is, strange. But in 2022 he looks alive and well: https://newsday.co.tt/2022/10/06/hacker-to-deliver-keynote-a...

This is a good example of how government and hacker aren't always only good and only bad. It reminds me of the Silk Road agent Shaun Bridges.

I realize that is a stereotypical belief state, but do many people here really hold those beliefs?

Having known several folks in both of those camps, my experience is that career choice provides very little information about the chooser's ethics.

I will note that both categories have complex relationships with following the law, both personally and professionally.

Lawful evil and chaotic good?

Globalization made our villages far too large and complex to handle mentally. Many of us seek very simple abstractions such as someone or something being good or evil despite any nuance. I feel this is especially visible in politics.

Would be nice to see this on Spotify and Google Podcasts too. I searched and it looks like Apple Podcasts only for right now.

tldr from this 2 minute intro is that they caught Sabu and said you can have 120+ years in prison or join them...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introducing-hacker-and...

https://open.spotify.com/show/4uze2AoxrCv0dRjvElUpTy?si=4lGB...

Google Podcast usually takes a week or so to find the feed.

A modern day Frank Abagnale. Pretty interesting, excited to find time to listen

Related statement by Frank Abagnale:

https://www.abagnale.com/Frank-W-Abagnale-Jr-Film-And-Book-C...

https://whyy.org/segments/the-greatest-hoax-on-earth/

_____________

Created a post for topic, since I don’t think most people are aware:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33196568

The answer to "Why the downvotes?":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale#Veracity_of_cla...

I guess you can profit off of your crimes if you inform on your co-conspirators.

Or just entrap some lonely kids.

Why is this getting downvoted? That's exactly what Sabu was doing.

He and this FBI guy would approach random kids on IRC in order to entice them to join "his" prestigious hacker group. They weren't going after existing criminals, but going out of their way to create new ones. Largely underage children.

I wonder if they're still in the justice system (prison/probation/etc.)

No, Sabu got only 1 year of probation.

I was referring to the kids and any other he entrapped/informed on.

Probably not, it's been almost a decade now. Someone might still be on probation.

Even Jeremy Hammond is out since 2020, he'd been sentenced to 10 years.

Yeah, Sabu is a real creep. I hope this podcast fails.

Indeed. And it's worth it to note that Sabu isn't a creep merely because he snitched to save his own ass.

Sabu worked hard to entrap more and more people, largely underage children, and had a lot of fun doing so.

This isn't a guy who simply made a deal to save his own ass and felt bad about it. Sabu never apologized, but rather proceeded to attack the people he'd entrapped.

Power corrupts.

Reads like a headline from r/nottheonion

How come? Informants like Sabu have to work very closely with their handlers, these guys probably spent countless hours sitting next to each other, working together as some kind of a team.

It's not like this is an unique story either, Maksym Popov comes to mind.

Yeah, but "podcast" kind of throws it a bit...

Which is also a pretty standard career move for federal LEOs.

A modernized "Former Navy Seal writes tell-all book"?

Yep, all this being a necessary part of establishing an "expert" persona for future TV talking head gigs (and occasional consulting when you find a big enough idiot).

IMO that's hilarious, the visual of these gruff, no nonsense guys who probably spent days saying nothing and now they won't shut up lol...

Like the other commenter said, it's the podcast part that I find funny. A hacker and special agent, natural enemies, becoming BFF'S and making a podcast together sounds like the premise of a Netflix show, hence the Oniony nature of the headline

In the 2min intro the fed claims he took down Anonymous. Interesting.

I still see those videos on Youtube with a person in Guy Fawkes mask announcing their plans to take down (DDoS) such and such a service. They're still around, and they're not as cool anymore though. Anyone can make such a video and then slap 'We are legion, we do not forget' etc

Anonymous was never a real thing, there was never any kind of an organisation. It's just a meme.

The whole point of the podcast is to tell made up stories in order to boost the child-entrapper Chris Tarbells public speaking career https://www.leadingauthorities.com/uk/speakers/chris-tarbell

That link really threw me off, I spent a minute or two clicking on it on autopilot baffled as to why OS X has decided that I really should be using the podcasts app instead of safari.

seriously, Apple's weird obsession with hijacking the open web to push their own software is the most anti-user-friendly thing it does

dear Apple: you have 27% market share of podcast apps. please recognize that the rest of us like using other apps and stop pushing your defaults so hard.

oh my god! is it awful on desktop too? the podcasts app is the most infuriating monstrosity apple has been forcing on us for years now.

I see you're not an Apple Music user :/

See I can tolerate, sometimes even like Apple Music.

Podcasts though? Irredeemable.

And on iOS I can’t visit the link because it insists on using the Podcasts app, which I have uninstalled. Lame.

ytcracker - #antisec 22 Jun 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YoDt-MxhHg

871,836 views - 4.48K subscribers - nerdysouth

UPDATE 2012.03.09 i may indeed be the first rapper in history to endorse a suspected internet snitch. evidence is somewhat overwhelming for it to be simply a disinformation campaign, but, personally, i believe the truth is somewhere in the middle. i will discuss some of my thoughts on www.ytcracker.com.

i sadly will probably retire this song in its current form from my live performances just because i can't in good conscience rap about this until the grieving period has passed and this song becomes vintage and cute again.

kind of like jokes about the spanish inquisition being funny now but they weren't very funny in the years circa 1478-1834 (yes, i did wikipedia this).

we now return to your regularly scheduled video information.

--------------------

1999 bitch. (click "show more" if you like reading lyrics and want mp3 and stuff) swed.

twitters: @lulzsec @realytcracker @beats

www.ytcracker.com www.digitalgangster.com

download link: http://ytcracker.com/antisec/ytcracke...

lyrics:

im the defacto leader of a movement

screaming "hack the planet" back in 99

hacktivism in its prime globalHell had the .mil rooted

alphabet soup and their troops in the suits kid

kicking down doors and seizing my equipment

blocking all my shipments sitting on their hitlist

0day radical emphatic beat addict

and that stab hit i envelope the game call me rabbit

hop to hop i run the internet equivocally

bitch i be hit em with the bytestyle symmetry

digi g digital gangster repping till im dead

steady grep apache logs when im looking for the feds

fast forward now the internet anonymous

and captains of the lulzboat raise the mast prominent

dominant hacks - antisec on that new new

dropping tables in mysql like it was some poo poo

pound antisec - pounding through your speakers

pound antisec - pound it to the bleachers

pound antisec - if youre sitting below deck

in the lulzboat salute bitch and show some respect

lulzsec bitch they fold ya hacked sony

got that md5 we rocked ya macaroni

cook coke crack then boil like a noodle

while hbgary stay toast like a streudel

rootshell on ya bootstrap - now whos that?

botnet mjoin and drop your whole c class

see class? it is evident we flossing

ion cannon in the proc list ddossing

lean back bitch we be sending an injection

magic quotes off JOIN TABLE intersection

put it up on pastebin it wont get erased then

20 million hits to your dome like some cavemen

ask cnn - you want a interview?

send a PRIVMSG to the nickname sabu

on irc - man we convening

this some 99 throwback shit that im screaming

Why post this? The lyrics are bad, the rapping itself isn't good, and to finish it off the rapper himself is a big time poser with a day job at a bigco.

Eh it's kitch at worse, it's a bit of history, maybe you had to be there, what's wrong with an artist being a poser, and are you trying to shame someone for having a "lowly" job?

If you were a Goldman Sachs employee rapping about dealing drugs, you'd be ridiculed and quite possibly end up shot.

Every year multiple rappers lose their lives over this stuff. Not a good thing, but indisputably a part of the culture.

Obviously nobody should shoot ytracker, but in the cultural context it's totally reasonable to make fun of him for being a corporate stooge.

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