A Convicted Hacker and an Internet Icon Join Forces to Thwart NSA Spying
wired.com
wired.com
Watt once had a lucrative Wall Street career coding software
for real-time stock-trading systems until he wrote a packet-
sniffing program for a long-time friend and found himself
embroiled in a multi-million-dollar bank card heist that
netted him a two-year prison term.
People do what they do, and that's cool - but let's not pretend he just accidentally found himself tripped up in some fraud situation, oops don't know how that happened hey look an awesome product in which trust is essential!
0. There's a slightly more complete look here, though not focused on Watt: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/sex-drugs-and-the-b...
1. Wired did a similar sympathetic piece last year in which they made Watt's past seem like a minor misdeed (some wording is essentially identical to what I quoted above): http://www.wired.com/2013/04/stephen-watt-stalked-by-past/
Patrick's job was to probe corporate networks for vulnerabilities to a malware attack known as a "sequel injection," which overwhelms the victim's system with meaningless commands until the system gives up and defaults to using the malicious code.
Holy crap.
Stephen Watt pleaded guilty to writing the sniffer code that proved key to Albert's operation but continues to insist that he never knew it was being used for illegal purposes, noting that he made no money from Albert's crimes.
In theory, but realistically very little FOSS is audited, and audits are not perfect (and we have to trust the auditor). We have to trust the authors.
Not only that, but when he was being pressured and threatened by the government, he refused to cooperate. I think that's commendable and demonstrates real integrity.
Unless there were logs or talks of them doing it for purely academic/educational purposes, which as we know Gonzalez isn't that "sort" of person, it would be unacceptable to think someone of Watt's intellect wouldn't be able to put 2-and-2 together.
He's been around the scene. He knows the scene. He's been a part of the scene.
I agree in terms of law, this all goes into a very grey and fuzzy area - if he had a better lawyer he may have came out in a different situation. Looking at the recent backlash for hackers, he may be looking at an apology (or even a payout) in the future.