AT&T Hacker 'weev' Demands One Bitcoin For Each Hour He Spent In Jail 449
Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "The notorious troll and hacker known as Andrew 'weev' Auernheimer spent 13 months in jail for exposing an AT&T security flaw. He was recently released when a federal court overturned the conviction on grounds of improper venue. Now, Auernheimer has penned an open letter to the Department of Justice in which he demands reparations for acts of 'fraud' and 'violence' carried out against him over the past three years. Those reparations must be paid in Bitcoin, he says — 28,296, to be exact. At current market value, that comes out to $13.7 million. The bombastic letter is titled 'Open letter to federal scum,' and was allegedly bcc'd to 'a few hundred journalists.' In it, 28-year-old Auernheimer writes that he calculated the sum owed to him based on his market value:"
A gem: "Know that all this wealth will be directed towards a good and charitable cause. I am building a series of memorial groves for the greatest patriots of our generation: Timothy McVeigh, Andrew Stack, and Marvin Heemeyer. You see, In the 'Special Housing Unit,' which is Bureau of Prisons codespeak for 'solitary confinement' and 'torture,' I had enough time to think about the current state of federal government. "
A fifth horseman (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we can watch our rights be taken away in order to punish assholes, on top of drug users, pedos, terrorists, and hackers.
Remember folks, what the government does to weev, it can do to everyone else.
Bitcoin ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why Bitcoin and not Dogecoin (or any other e-currency) ?
Timothy McVeigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow.. good role model there.. Timothy McVeigh. I repeat.. Wow.
Re:Timothy McVeigh (Score:4, Insightful)
Um... McVeigh a hero? You lost me pal (Score:4, Insightful)
I absolutely detest the state of things right now, the NSA/Snowden revelations, corporations/lobbyists running the gov't, rights being ignored, etc. BUT that said, TImothy McVeigh was a murderer... including 18 children:
Peachlyn Bradley, 3, Oklahoma City
Gabreon D.L. Bruce, 3 months, Oklahoma City
Ashley Megan Eckles, 4, Guthrie
Baylee Almon, 1, Oklahoma City
Danielle Nicole Bell, 15 months, Oklahoma City
Zachary Taylor Chavez, 3, Oklahoma City
Anthony Christopher Cooper II, 2, Moore
Antonio Ansara Cooper Jr., 6 months, Midwest City
Aaron M. Coverdale, 5 1/2, Oklahoma City
Elijah S. Coverdale, 2 1/2, Oklahoma City
Jaci Rae Coyne, 14 months, Moore
Taylor Santoi Eaves, 8 months, Midwest City
Tevin D'Aundrae Garrett, 16 months, Midwest City
Kevin "Lee" Gottshall II, 6 months, Norman
Blake Ryan Kennedy, 1 1/2, Amber
Dominique Ravae (Johnson)-London, 2, Oklahoma City
Chase Dalton Smith, 3, Oklahoma City
Colton Wade Smith, 2, Oklahoma City
Many people are angry and frustrated, but please read those names and ages and tell me again about his 'heroism'?
Re:Clearly they've broken him and... (Score:4, Insightful)
His reference to solitary confinement caught my attention. There was a recent Frontline on solitary confinement [pbs.org]. It is scary. It is a modern-day dungeon. These guys are so messed up there is nothing to do but lock them up and throw away the key, which messes them up even further. The convicts certainly aren't blameless to begin with, but we are over-doing it. I non-violent hacker (if that's what "weev" is/was) should not be there.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Clearly they've broken him and... (Score:4, Insightful)
We all know this, but no one cares enough to actually do anything about it...
A government powerful enough to give you everything you need is powerful enough to take everything you have...
That isn't something taught in public schools of course, but it should be...
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:5, Insightful)
His "troops" that is, people who think the likes of McVeigh, Stack, and Heemeyer as heroes probably doesn't need any more reason to rally. Most normal law-abiding citizens aren't going to rally behind the banner of McVeigh. He should have played the game and named a couple random founding fathers. Now he's allied himself with only those who find murdering innocent people a valid way to change the federal government (worked well didn't it?). I don't see him gaining much support.
And why does he include Heemeyer in when speaking of federal government? Heemeyer's problem was with the local town council not the feds. He agreed to sell his property to a cement manufacturer for $250K then reneged and demanded $375K then a million. Obviously, the cement folks said fuck you and petitioned the town council to rezone an adjacent piece of land for their plant. The whole reason for Heemeyer's rampage was his own stupidity and greed. We're supposed to rally around that guy? You really want the law to allow you to go on a rampage if you, by your own greed, refuse a deal then get cut out of the final deal?
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:5, Insightful)
The government has created a martyr.
No, they have created a kook. Anyone that considers mass murders to be "patriots", and thinks that the likes of McVeigh, Stack and Heemeyer are admirable, has lost all credibility. Rather than making the government more accountable, people like this give everyone that opposes authoritarianism a bad name.
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:5, Insightful)
Karl: "Asian Dawn?"
Hans: "I read about them in Time Magazine"
Weev always was a piece of shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because his conviction wasn't proper, doesn't mean he's not an asshat, or even that he didn't break the law. Note that his conviction was overturned because of the venue (meaning it was tried in the wrong court) not because of a problem with the charge or evidence. Now that's a good thing, the state needs to do everything properly in a trial, and if they fail to do so, the defendant gets to walk. That is a cornerstone of the American justice system.
This is just him showing more asshattery, and a pretty good indication that his time free is likely to be only temporary. Anyone with that level of delusion and self grandeur is likely to do something illegal again, and sooner rather than later, and the state will probably make sure to do everything right the second time around.
Like a friend of mine used to work in the PD's office. He got a client who had been arrested for tagging (graffiti) since a cop stopped him and found sharpie markers in his pockets. The kid had sure as shit been tagging and had used said markers to do it, but the cop hadn't seen that, and had no reason to search him, so my friend got it tossed out. So what happened? Same kid went and tagged again, but this time the cops watched him do it and caught him in the act. The kid was miffed my friend couldn't do anything the second time.
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Clearly they've broken him and... (Score:2, Insightful)
There's plenty of things wrong with our prison systems. There should be less effort spent on "punishment" and more time spent on education and reform. I'm not talking about Clockwork Orange type of reform; I'm talking about getting these criminals into a class room and teaching them something. Not just the basics like reading, math, and history, but also a trade.
This is critically important. Imagine some guy who had a hard time making a living. He held up a as station at gunpoint to grab a few hundred bucks to pay the bills or whatever. The judge sends him to prison for 5 years.
What happens when this guy gets out? He had a hard time finding legitimate work before and he'll have a really hard time finding it now. So what happens? Desperation sets in. Another robbery. Maybe drug peddling. Whatever. The cycle continues.
We need to spend time on breaking this cycle and that means training these guys and getting them prepared - especially mentally and socially - for a life after prison. What we do to inmates right now is in and of itself a crime. Is it any wonder our prisons are so full?
Re:Um... McVeigh a hero? You lost me pal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Timothy McVeigh (Score:2, Insightful)
>Even the 'bravest' of men shy away from the thought of hurting themselves.
Yet teenage girls cut themselves all the time
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:1, Insightful)
US government drone strikes and bombings have killed thousands of people in the middle-east. In fact, thousands more than were killed in 9/11. Often, civilian "collateral damage" is considered perfectly OK.
That is mass murder, and considered by the people doing it to be a patriotic thing.
Thomas Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.".
Seems like mass murder is more or less part of the national character in the US.
Kook is a matter of historical perspective, and something the US (and in fact the world) has had in abundance for a VERY long time.
Timothy McVeigh (Score:4, Insightful)
was a coward.
Re:Timothy McVeigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Clearly they've broken him and... (Score:4, Insightful)
That really makes sense. If you're unemployed, instead of getting a job commit a crime, do some time in prison, then decide, ok - now I want to get a job and I bring a tax break, you just have to accept that I'm an ex-con.
Talk about a straw man...
Wow, uhm, uh... Jeez... (Score:4, Insightful)
Man, having never heard of this guy before, I was rather sympathetic and thinking "Man, finally a use for all those FBI-confiscated Bitcoins" until that last part about Tim McVeigh... Then all I could think was "Uh...wow, screw this asshat."
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:5, Insightful)
How many billions have been spent on the war on drugs?
Clearly someone thinks so. And has for a very long time.
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeap, this guy had a golden chance to make a cause and blew it by standing by people who kill other innocent people. Having a cause is one part knowing what to do and three parts getting the general public to like your cause. Using people who kill that general public tends to make them not like you all that much.
Re:Um... McVeigh a hero? You lost me pal (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't say the adults lives weren't valuable, so don't put words into my mouth. There is NO way an infant or toddler could make ANY choice or cause ANY action that could in any way be a threat to McVeigh. Hence my pointing them out. It's not a prop or news-speak, sorry you're so cynical.
While I don't in any sense condone ANYTHING he did, he could try to argue adults can make choices or actions that in some whacky way he could attempt to rationalize as a threat -- my point of bringing up the kids, is that they had ZERO, absolutely ZERO to do with whatever beef he had in his twisted mind.
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:4, Insightful)
>> The government has created a martyr.
> No, they have created a kook.
No, they have created a radical [wikipedia.org].
Using the term "martyr" or "kook" is a judgment of merit. I agree with the latter, he's batshit looney, but it's not objective. Casting aspersions is all well and good in the popular media, but aren't we here to try to scratch a little deeper? Fine, he's a shitbag who's trying to get his ten minutes of fame and maybe ought to be back behind bars. But is he really the interesting part of the story in any sense other than lurid sensationalism?
What we sane and self-aware citizens should be asking ourselves is not whether a lowlife deserves to be treated like scum -- of course he does, like terrorists deserve to be assassinated and child abusers deserve to be beaten. The question for us is whether we should do what we did -- not because he deserves better, but because we may have done something that is beneath us.
Re:Clearly they've broken him and... (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to stop letting sociopaths run our prisons. We should be giving all candidates psychological tests to make sure they're all compassionate people interested in keeping their prisoners safe and rehabilitating them so they can turn their lives around. Of course if you push for this, there are a ton of right-wing lunatics that will embarrass themselves by calling you "a bleeding-heart liberal." It's hard to reform society when many terrible people vote.
Not gonna help. We know now from sociological experiments [wikipedia.org] that the environment turns nearly all the guards into sociopaths. It's a structural problem, not a people problem.
But the most pressing issue with our prison industrial complex is the sheer volume of citizens that are subjected to it. The US has the largest prison population by far in the entire world, both by numbers and proportion of the population. And that is directly attributable to the police-state infrastructure created and perpetuated by the Federal government, just like Weev has stated.