Hacker News Reader

Comment by tych0 | Hacker News Reader

> In 2008 Jonathan James killed himself after being implicated in the largest personal identity hack in history.

Wrong kind of hacker.

He claimed he was innocent in his suicide note. Maybe a suicide note is a great place to lie in attempt to clear your name. But I think he's probably being honest to an extent.

Note that he was charged and found guilty of hacking NASA (essentially), but his suicide related to the identity theft.

From Wikipedia on the identity theft investigation: "Though he denied having done anything, James—who was friends with some of the hackers involved—was investigated by the Secret Service, who raided James', his brother's, and his girlfriend's houses [...] they apparently discovered no connection to the intrusion".

The article goes on that he was mentioned as a conspirator in another defendant's case for the identity theft, but James hadn't (yet?) been indicted.

Yeah, I don't disagree that he probably was innocent. My point is simply that this isn't the Hacker News hacker, but the talking head hacker.

maybe, but there's a lot more to it than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_James

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/hacker/

Or, from another perspective: The same kind of hacker.

alleged credit card fraud is different from Aaron's case I would say.

In your point of view, a reasonable point of view, yes of course. To an apparently unreasonable prosecutor though?

You'd be amazed by what people will construe as a fraud worthy of prosecuting. Even the most socially accepted dishonesties all of a sudden become a serious federal crime when another crime is involved. A prosecutor will tack on multiple charges just in case they can't pin them for the primacy crime they believe the accused is guilty of. It's never about finding out the truth, but about finding the accused guilty of a crime the prosecutor believes the accused actually committed prior to reviewing the evidence and confirming that fight.

Or basically, "I personally believe the accused committed crime X, so I'm going to nail him regardless of the evidence. And just in case the evidence doesn't support what I believe or is inconclusive, I'm going to go ahead and charge him with several other crimes of little to no social consequence by themselves, since if I fail to convict of crime X, I know I can nail him for some of these minor crimes."

When prosecutors tack on every crime they can imagine, they are simply admitting that they simply want to put the person away at any cost.

That being said, without more details of what this alleged credit card fraud entails, I'm naturally skeptical of the charges. Wasn't JJ the guy who got caught, cooperated with the FBI and then was "thrown under the bus" so to speak by his handlers at the FBI?

Yeah it gives them leverage to force a plea bargain. ie the same as when they extended the charges for Aaron to 13.

It's a tough one though because it works both ways. Remember when they put the mobsters away using Tax laws because they couldn't make any murders or extortion stick.

Unfortunately ethics isn't binary.

Alleged hacker.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com