Alleged eBay Hacker Goofs up and Goes to Jail

juliao writes "SecurityFocus is reporting that alleged eBay hacker Jerome Heckenkamp was jailed after his first solo court appearance." It's pretty funny actually, stuff like challenging the indictment on the grounds that they typed his name in all capital letters, demanding to immediately testify (even tho they were only there to schedule the trial), threatening the judge and so on. He would know better if he watched a couple episodes of Law & Order. Note that I base all court proceedings on the wisdom of Sam Watterston.

Mind-Altering Substances?

[jeek (37349)]

I seriously doubt anyone is stupid enough to pull those kinda tricks when their mind is clear.

Federal Judges: Be VERY VERY Careful !!!!!!!!!

[justanyone (308934)]

Don't piss off Federal Judges. Municipal judges, maybe. State court judges, work real hard to be nice to 'em. Federal Judges - um, pretend they're God and remember you aren't.

Federal Judges are appointed by the President and approved by the senate. We have a lot of unfilled judgeships because it takes so long to put through the appointments. Congress, the President, the Supremes, the FBI, INS, and basically The Entire Federal Bureaucracy know many of their names personally and like to be in their good graces. They Get Things Done and they Dispense Justice to BAD GUYS.

I know, they probably eat cheesburgers and fart like the rest of us, but it's a very BAD thing to piss them off. These kind of courtroom stunts will get you put in small rooms with Bad Guys and your anatomy will never be the same.

"Don't play games with these guys! They can lock you up in a room and throw away the Room!" -Lithgow in 'Manhattan Project'.

Funny article

[Anixamander (448308)]

Sounds like this kid is in way over his head, and maybe watched a few too many movies.

Plus, you can tell he is a UNIX geek, since he seems to think the indictment is case sensitive.

Re:Funny article

[ptrourke (529610)]

Plus, you can tell he is a UNIX geek, since he seems to think the indictment is case sensitive.

HIHLUC: Head-in-hands, laughing-uncontrollably.

Anyway, you know what they say, that anyone who appears pro se has an idiot for a client.

Perhaps some fine parenting...

[sterno (16320)]

To quote from the article:

In a telephone interview after the appearance, Heckenkamp's father, Thomas Heckenkamp, said his son is only trying to protect his rights . "They've overstepped their bounds, and they're keeping him from defending himself," he said.

I think this commentary speaks volumes about why this kid is there in the first place. Btw, yes, he's 22, and I say "kid" because he's acting like a child. But anyhow, if your child is acting like a tremendous idiot in the courtroom and your instinct is to criticize the court, you may have to accept that you are part of the problem. I'm not going to sit here and suggest that somehow this kid is blameless because his dad
is apparently an idiot. Just pointing out that Darwinian evolution should smite this particular mutation fast :).

I'm just hoping that we aren't going to get some stupid campaign trying to fight for this kids rights as though he's some hero of the Internet.

Re:or militia movement

[gorilla (36491)]

It wasn't a case of 'too much', early computers simply could not handle mixed case. ASCII-1963 only had defined character positions for A to Z, as did Sixbit encoding. ASCII-1963 was extended in 1967 to encode a to z as well, but sixbit simply couldn't. There were only 63 possible codes, 26 for letters, 10 for numerals, 17 for other characters, and the remaining 10 for control codes. That left no space to encode the lower case letters too.

Sixbit is ultimatly why MS-DOS had 3 name extensions and wasn't case sensitive. 3 sixbit characters fit very nicely into 18 bits, and early DEC computers were 18 bit systems. CP/M was developed to be partially a lookalike of these DEC computers, and MS-DOS was initially a clone of CP/M.

Simply Sad

[RembrandtX (240864)]

Not only is it sad that this kid was able to get rid of his council (twice) .. but he is ovbiously either REALLY moronic ..

or he is going for an insaniy plea ..

he did manage to menauver the judge into saying :
"The comments that you are making to the court lead me to suspect that either you are playing games with the court, or you're experiencing a serious lack of judgment."

its only a hop skip and a jump from there to have the judge decide that he ALWAYS shows a lack of judgement, and its a medical condition.

he will have to take lithium forever, but at least he wont do hard time. (again)

Re:two kinds of insanity

[ninewands (105734)]

Keep in mind there are two different sanity defenses:

1) being insane at the time of the act

2) being insane at the time of the trial

Errrrrmmmm ... no.

The insanity defense goes to the existence of a culpable mind state at the time of the alleged offense, ONLY. It is an affirmative defense to criminal liability (which means that even if the defendant did the deed exactly as he is accused of having done, he cannot be guilty because he was insane and, therefore, lacked a culpable mind-state).

Insanity at the time of the trial is "lack of competency to stand trial" and merely postpones the proceedings until the defendant can be rendered competent by therapy, drugs, ECT, whatever the psychiatric community's "silver bullet du jour" might be. It does nothing to keep you from going to prison.

As I see it, this guy is merely showing his complete contempt for the law, the proceedings and the court. That being said, I hope he likes coveralls, because the attitude he seems to display is going to have him wearing them for quite a while.

Sam Watterson?

[TheGreenLantern (537864)]

Note that I base all court proceedings on the wisdom of Sam Watterson.

Heathen. Michael Moriarty would lawyer the fuck out of Sam Watterson. All Watterson has going for him is hotter assistants.

Hmmmm???

[BoyPlankton (93817)]

In a telephone interview after the appearance, Heckenkamp's father, Thomas Heckenkamp, said his son is only trying to protect his rights . "They've overstepped their bounds, and they're keeping him from defending himself," he said.

I wish the article went into more detail about this statement. I don't understand why the father feels that they are keeping him from being able to defend himself. He's getting his day in court and all. It appears to me that he's doing everything he can to screw up the trial instead of taking it seriously.

AKA - MagicFX

[keep_it_simple_stupi (562690)]

Jerome Heckenkamp, aka MagicFX, also brought down a major porn site [ourfirsttime.com] not too long ago, redirecting visitors to Disney's website [disney.com].

I like his style!

More info here [wired.com].

QMail? Qualcomm?

[fruey (563914)]

Perhaps he would not even be in this mess if he did not tell Qualcomm. ( The company who owns the secure mail deamon Qmail) After all they were the ones who went to the FBI after machines were getting owned with a 0-day exploit for qpop. In his post to BugTraq he did say "I found this overflow myself earlier this month. Seems someone else recently found it before Qualcomm was able to issue a patch." But lets not be naive, he is a smart kid.

Isn't Qmail open source, and Qpopper what he is talking about really?

Qmail, as I understood it, has NEVER been hacked.

Imagine the court reporter

[Geek In Training (12075)]

Can you imagine the court reporter, trying to type out the 'leet-speak?

"1 0wn j00, y0 h0noR!!! m3 w1ll h4x0r joo and l3gAl 5y5t3mz!!!"

Standard cracker tactics

[jquiroga (94119)]

He mistook the judge for a server, and was trying to find his security holes, to sneak in and become root. It seems he didn't find any.

New slashdot poll

[iceT (68610)]

Jerome Heckenkamp should:

0) never be referred to as a hacker again.
0) never be allowed to open his mouth.
0) never have an article posted about him again.
0) be praised for going out in a true blaze of stupidity.
0) Cowboy Neal

Re:New slashdot poll

[Alsee (515537)]

0) Given ample opportunity to earn himself a Darwin Award.

-

Re:New slashdot poll

[Cruciform (42896)]

Don't worry, after he continues to represent himself he'll find that he's going to end up in jail for a long long time... Where someone will exploit his security hole if he's not careful.

Re:New slashdot poll

[Catbeller (118204)]

Ah yes, rape as a just form of punishment for hacking.

America, America, God shed his grace on thee...

Why is rape tolerated, other than it's amusing for good citizens to think about?

I mean really, is it too much to have the right to not contract AIDS as a prison bonus?

Back on the thread, this kid was an idiot. But the punishment for being stupid shouldn't be rape. But it will be, won't it?

Funny double meaning

[GigsVT (208848)]

Heckenkamp said he wanted to subpoena Nadel's "client" to appear in court, and Ware asked him who, exactly, he wanted to bring into the courtroom.
When Heckenkamp replied, "The United States of America," Ware ordered him taken into custody.

I think they meant at this point the judge ordered the defendant to be taken into custody, but it could equally mean he ordered the United States to be taken into custody. :)

Hacking the Court System?

[KevinGale (537574)]

He seems to be trying to hack the court system. "Hmmm, if I feed it garbage inputs maybe it will crash and I can escape." Next he will try stealing robes in an attempt to fool the system into thinking he's a judge.

Proof

[rjamestaylor (117847)]

Proof that IANAL is more than a slogan, it's a way of life.

Doesn't (er, didn't) he ever read Slashdot?

Re:Proof

[Aceticon (140883)]

Doesn't (er, didn't) he ever read Slashdot?


Judging from the mess he did, i'm sure he read Sleshdot ...

Extreme Moderation

[rjamestaylor (117847)]

Who wasted a mod point on this? It's a Score:0 AC post that would be trashed by the system once archived. Who would be distracted by a threaded 0 Score post? Isn't there some comment at 0 or 1 that is Interesting, Insightful, Funny? Or a level 2 or higher that is overrated, flamebait, or in need of further promoting? Are all the other candidate posts moderated sufficiently and this lowly, unobtrusive post was the only option remaining? Or did the moderator have too many mod points and was trying to dump them quickly (like dot.com options)?

Oh - one other thing - it arguably was on topic. It was a direct reply to a direct reply that was itself on topic.

I'm always bemused at worthless moderating.

Easy Way Out

[stoolpigeon (454276)]

Just to throw out a different spin on this, as everyone seems just to happy to jump on the bandwagon.

There is a good chance that he is acting out because he has realised that he is screwed. He has probably talked to his lawyers and realised that no one is really going to be able to help him.

People have posted "he'll get his day in court", but he probably already realises that on that day they will just go through the motions of convicting him.

caged animals can act funny.

.

Hooray!

[GeekLife.com (84577)]

First use of "alleged" in a Slashdot post ever? Maybe the subscription plot is actually causing editors (and contributors) to act more like professionals.

The capital letters issue

[zzyzx (15139)]

Believe it or not, the names in all capital letters is one of the things that conspiracy theorists try to use. A fun read is the destroyed arguments [hiwaay.net] section of the Dixieland Law Journal. That page is a conspiracy site telling other conspiracy people that they're being a little too out there. The capital letters issue is explained and debunked [hiwaay.net] at a link there.

Re:The capital letters issue

[Lionel Hutts (65507)]

Actually, this issue is raised all the time in America's funniest court: the Tax Court. Those of us who read Tax Notes Today (free trial at www.tax.org [tax.org]) see every tax case in the country, and a good 20% or so of them are totally frivolous. (10 cases so far this month have used the word "frivolous," in fact.) The claim that Social Security numbers are the Mark of the Beast is raised so often that the IRS recently sent a notice to all of its field offices, to ensure a coordinated response.

He needs to try the Chewbacca defense

[pubjames (468013)]

The Chewbacca Defense

"Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury, my accusers would certainly want you to believe I hacked eBay, and they make a good case. But Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk who carried a gun and ran from the mob. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it. That does not make sense. Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor with a bunch of two-foot-tall Ewoks. That does not make sense.

But more important, you have to ask yourself what does this have to do with this case. Nothing. Ladies and Gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case. It does not make sense. Look at me. I'm a hacker defending myself and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and Gentlemen I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.

And so you have to remember when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating this case, does it make sense? No. Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury it does not make sense. If Chewbacca lives on Endor you must acquit.

I know I seem guilty. But ladies and gentlemen this is Chewbacca. Now think about that for one minute. That does not make sense. Why am I talking about Chewbacca when my life is on the line? Why? I'll tell you why. I don't know. It doesn't make sense. If Chewbacca does not make sense you must acquit. Here look at the monkey , look at the silly monkey.

The defense rests."

Anagram Generator prophesies again

[mblase (200735)]

Jerome T Heckencamp --> A KNEE JERK COMETH

Judge Judy

[kvn299 (472563)]

Would have a field day with this one.

Truth of life

[Eric Damron (553630)]

Being that I work in a building full of lawyers and judges, I can tell you that they are just people too. You can "rub them the wrong way."

It sounds to me like this kid went in with no understanding of law and wanted to control the courtroom. This WOULD rub the judge the wrong way.

I have a friend whom, when he was young, was the same way. Once he got pulled over on a traffic violation and during the course of his conversation with the patrol officer he said: "Just how stupid do you think I think you are!"

As my friend learned, when dealing with people in authority, it is better to show respect and to play by their rules. Just a truth of life.

Dumb Idea

[clark625 (308380)]

What's the stupidest thing a person can do when placed under arrest? Not demand to talk to your lawyer or have one appointed. What's the stupidest thing you can do after that? Not allow your attorney to do his or her job.

What is the very first thing that a rich, savy lawyer would do if he were arrested? Get the best darned attorney to represent him that he can afford. But why not represent himself, I mean--the accused is a lawyer, too. Well, when you're a defendant, your job is to help your attorney and keep yourself from doing stupid things like this kid has. It's your attorney's job to handle all the legal matters.

Future note to all /.ers--if you get arrested, keep your mouth shut unless you have your attorney beside you. Let them take care of everything. And no matter what, don't ever think that you can properly defend yourself in court--it's called being railroaded for a reason. This guy's about to get the maximum sentence possible when he really could have gotten off with a slap on the wrist. Dumb.

Idiot legal arguments: capitalized name

[Brian See (11276)]

Heckencamp sounds like he's read the standard tax evader propaganda. These are the people that argue in tax court that the Sixteenth Amendment (income tax) was never properly ratified, etc.

A good link is http://www.adl.org/mwd/suss4.htm [adl.org], which collects cases smacking down defendants who, like Heckencamp, have raised an objection to their name printed in all caps. That argument is discussed in the same breath as other winning arguments like objections to a fringe on the courtroom flag or the presence of an eagle on the flagpole.

Of particular relevance may be a relatively recent case from the 10th Circuit. Pasting from the linked document:
US v. M.L. Lindsay (10th Cir 7/1/99) _F3d_, 99 USTC para 50648, 84 AFTR2d 5102; (tax evader complained of "his name being in capital letters in a prior order issued by this Court and then ... makes an incorrect reference to this form of using all capital letters as being proper only in reference to corporate entities. This is an incorrect statement of the law and ... is illustrative of [his] continued harassing and frivolous behavior." and fined under Rule 11

He's been watching . . .

[Ezubaric (464724)]

He would know better if he watched a couple episodes of Law & Order. Note that I base all court proceedings on the wisdom of Sam Watterson.

Maybe he's been watching Ally McBeal. That would make more sense. They once sued God, who is only slightly easier to get into court than the United States of America.

you've gotta play the game

[xannax (185570)]

Like any other situation in life where someone else holds your future in their hands, the key to it all is playing by their rules. Sure, you feel like a dweeb sucking up to some Judge for fifteen miniutes, but when those fifteen are up, you can go back to acting like an asshole, or a saint, or even (god forbid) somewhere in between. I'm sure this kid had his girfriend/friends/whoever out in the gallery, and he was just trying to act the badass so as to impress her/him/them. Didn't quite work out. One other thing that comes to mind . . . This is a kid we're talking about here, no? His Father sounds like he's doing his best to get this kid convicted. Never go to court without a lawyer. Keep your mouth shut except to say yessir or nosir. And play the game. It beats getting it in the rear for three or four years from some guy named Bubba. .

Proof that being Computer Smart isn't "smart"

[Shivetya (243324)]

He only proves the one thing many people here know, that most hackers are idiots.

Hollywood is who convinces the public otherwise, showing hackers to be... computer experts, spyware experts, banking experts, encryption experts, wear designer clothing, able to run a 4second 40yard dash, and swoon woman like the latest Hollywood star.

The rest of know that most people who hack do so because they don't have the attention span to hold down real jobs, don't have the skills to interact with a team of people on a face to face basis, and couldn't get a date unless they had money.

Then again, maybe Hollywood is right, and only the dumb ones get caught.

Re:Proof that being Computer Smart isn't "smart"

[telbij (465356)]

Or more specifically that 'smart' isn't a single trait.

Being 23 myself, and having significant mathematical and technical skills myself, I have always struggled with the challenges of fitting in socially with those whose interests differ from my own.

When people dismiss your knowledge and make fun of you for it, the way I see it there are 3 possible outcomes:

1) You let it roll off your back since you can't please everyone all the time anyway.
2) You become arrogant and dismiss anyone who you view as 'less intellignet' or 'not worthy of my time'.
3) You learn to communicate with everyone on their own terms, the same way that most successful professionals do.

#1 might be the easiest, but it never worked for me because I'm too sensitive. #3 is my choice, because it earns me a lot more respect.

#2 is obviously the way this kid went, and I really feel sorry for him, because that is the road to bitterness. He's probably working himself up to a frenzy right now because he can't stand all those 'idiots.' Which is hypocrisy because he isn't even able to understand the basic tenets of respectful human interaction. It's sad to think that someone who supposedly values intelligence, doesn't value all the collective knowledge that society has about all kinds of topics. This kind of arrogance would seem to be chosen against by evolution in any period of history except the last few generations...

How about that father?

[Reality Master 101 (179095)]

In a telephone interview after the appearance, Heckenkamp's father, Thomas Heckenkamp, said his son is only trying to protect his rights . "They've overstepped their bounds, and they're keeping him from defending himself," he said.

What an idiot. My first thought was, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Threatening a judge works!!

[evilpaul13 (181626)]

I did 1 1/2 years ago, and I'm planning on fulfilling that threat in about 18 1/2 (bail time, baby!)

The idiot forgot...

[Rogerborg (306625)]

... that there are seven versions of every story in court.

• Your version.
• Your opponent's version.
• Your attorney's version.
• Your opponent's attorney's version.
• The truth.
• What actually happened.

And the only one that actually matters:

• The one that the judge decides to create from the other six.

You know why judges find people guilty of contempt of court? It's because they can. If you or I could lock people up for contempt of us we'd need a heck of a lot more prisons. Dumb doesn't begin to sum this guy up. Perhaps he's trying to cop a diminished responsibility plea, or perhaps he genuinely doesn't understand that you don't kick the biggest kid in school in the pants then start reading the constitution at him.

Schizophrenic?

[MobyDisk (75490)]

IANAP (I am not a psychiatrist) but Mr. Heckenkamp sounds like he is a schizophrenic, or like he is playing to sound like one. He is about the right age (22) for this disorder to become apparent. His intelligence and criminal behavior also fit the common model for schizophrenia.

I actually interviewed him for a job once.

[nvts-NUTS (551113)]

I remember it quite vividly. It was about 6 months before the whole hacking incident at Los Alamos happened. After talking with him for about an hour I found him to be a very smart individual.

Working for a large company at the time they had all sorts of tests applicants had to go through. Apparently, he didn't score well enough on the tests for my bosses liking because despite my recommendation he didn't get the job.

I guess I'm kind of glad he didn't get the job.

what exactlly did he do?

[edrugtrader (442064)]

'hacked lycos' 'hacked ebay'....

what exactlly did he do? find? he didn't get my max-bids did he?!?!

Note the subtle use of spelling in the article

[ch-chuck (9622)]

The computer whiz then asked the court

Per dictionary.com:

Wiz - A person considered exceptionally gifted or skilled.

Whiz - To urinate.

Re:A fool for a client

[Madduck (23916)]

According to the Quotable Lawyer, edited by David Shrager and Elizabeth
Frost, New England Publishing Associates, Inc., 1986, p. 49, that saying is
a proverb apparently so old that its original author is not known. They
quote it as, "He that is his own lawyer has a fool for a client." They cite
Rosalind Fergusson, The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs, 1983.

Re:That will make the judge go easier on you

[renehollan (138013)]

I, for one think that judges should be personally liable when they err, particularly when it causes suffering to parties wrongly convicted and those that depend on them (for income, etc.). Just what the punishment for judicial error should be is a matter for debate, of course, and honest mistakes should not be treated as harshly as gross negligence, but the idea that judges are somehow not answerable to the law, or not answerable enough bothers me.

Whether that's the case here is, of course, another story, but I've become increasingly distrustful of government and law "enforcement".

I am a vocal critic of abuses of state power, engage in minor civil disobedience myself (I used a deCSS-derived program to watch DVDs that I bought on a GNU/Linux computer because I neither want to spend the money on Windows® nor trust it to be spyware-free), and fully expect to wind up in prison someday for my thoughts, when I see crap like this. I can not just shut up and live a lie.

If anything should have the t's crossed and the i's dotted, it's the criminal justice process, from investigation, arrest, prosecution, to conviction. The defendants apparent folly in angering the judge does not change this.

Re:That will make the judge go easier on you

[general_re (8883)]

I am a vocal critic of abuses of state power, engage in minor civil disobedience myself (I used a deCSS-derived program to watch DVDs that I bought on a GNU/Linux computer because I neither want to spend the money on Windows? nor trust it to be spyware-free)

And if that doesn't bring down the system, nothing will, dammit. Go, free radical, go! ;)

Re:Shower scene

[SuiteSisterMary (123932)]

...and suddenly, with a flash of tearing insight, the cracker realized how all of his victims felt when he intruded into THEIR systems through a backdoor. Yes, from that day forward, he was oVVn3d. In the most terrible way possible.

Re:Shower scene

[pogen (303331)]

I don't mean to spoil everyone's fun, but am I the only one who's disturbed by the number of (highly-moderated) prison rape jokes? Yes, humor can be found in any situation, but it seems a bit callous to me. This isn't some George Carlin-esque fictional rape scenario; we're talking about a real person who may be in for the most traumatic experience of his life. Yes, he's an idiot, and probably a criminal, but that doesn't mean he deserves to be raped.

Stop Prisoner Rape [spr.org]

Re:All capital letters as a defense....

[Lionel Hutts (65507)]

You, sir, are insane.

Either that, or I've just been trolled -- in which case, Congratulations.