Hacker Faces 105 Years In Prison After Blackmailing 350+ Women 473
redletterdave writes "According to the 30-count indictment released by the Central District of California, 27-year-old hacker Karen 'Gary' Kazaryan allegedly hacked his way into hundreds of online accounts, using personal information and nude or semi-nude photos of his victims to coerce more than 350 female victims to show him their naked bodies, usually over Skype. By posing as a friend, Kazaryan allegedly tricked these women into stripping for him on camera, capturing more than 3,000 images of these women to blackmail them. Kazaryan was arrested by federal agents on Tuesday; if convicted on all 30 counts, including 15 counts of computer intrusion and 15 counts of aggravated identity theft, Kazaryan could face up to 105 years in federal prison."
Plea bargain (Score:5, Interesting)
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Last I knew, neither "computer intrusion" nor "aggravated identify theft" were considered sex crimes.
Re:Plea bargain (Score:4, Funny)
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Last I knew, neither computer intrusion nor aggravated identity theft were considered pissing in bushes.
Re:Plea bargain (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true, and it means that justice will probably be served in his case. But the problem I see is using the extortion of long sentences to force a plea bargain to avoid time in court. That is in my opinion where there is something going wrong with the system, and that we should all be worried about it.
In my opinion plea bargains are just begging to be abused by the system and creates a mockery of due process.
"begging to"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fair enough, poor choice of words. I wasn't really implying that this is a new thing.
Re:"begging to"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"begging to"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all plea deals are bad
But many of them are.
I don't believe the court system would handle everything going to trial.
When I was in the military back in the 1980s, if a defendant pleaded guilty in either an NJP [wikipedia.org] or court martial, the presiding officer or judge was required to conduct a "providency hearing" and conclude, and document, that the plea was actually in the defendants best interest. I probably conducted over a hundred NJPs, and I never once , accepted a guilty plea. Usually this was because it was not in the defendants best interest, but also because a finding of guilty in a providency hearing could be an avenue for appeal, which would be a lot more paperwork. In several of those cases, there was insufficient evidence for a conviction, and the defendant got off.
Civilian courts should have something similar. Before a judge accepts a guilty plea, they should have to review the evidence, and conclude that the defendant is probably actually guilty of what they are admitting to, although the standard would be less than "beyond a reasonable doubt". This would eliminate the most egregious plea bargins, but still allow most to go forward.
Re:"begging to"? (Score:5, Interesting)
While I was fortunate enough to never undergo NJP during my military career, I can see one major flaw with moving that system into the civilian sector : Chain of Command
In the Marines, my boss at work was also my boss overseeing my personal life (to a degree) and on up the chain. This gives us a vested interest in not crippling someone via monetary penalties or jail/brig time. I knew a few guys who got NJP'ed for a few things, and there was almost a family-type thought process in place. We'll take care of it in-house, punish the person for their stupidity, and get them back on their feet so they can keep working and stay combat ready.
A judge in civilian court doesn't know you, doesn't care if you're living on ramen noodles and sleeping in your car for the next year. That judge is never going into combat with you. You could literally step into traffic and die as soon as you leave the courthouse, and the judge would not be affected in the least. They just want to set an example of you, and bilk you for as much money as they can, because that money goes straight into the city coffers. Which brings up another major difference that hurts NJP in a civilian setting : Barracks and the Chow Hall (or BAH and comrats) No matter how much money you garnish from a Marine's paycheck, they will always have three square meals and a roof over their head.
I'd love to see some sanity instilled in the Justice system, and I think NJP might be a decent starting point ... but it's going to need some serious revisions before it works outside of the military.
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Or just remove the ability to plea bargain, it has nothing to do with justice and seems to be mostly an American thing.
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actually, a lot of countries don't even allow plea deals because it's so corrupt.
So yeah, don't assume that plea deals are to the benefit of the defendant.
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Justice served by a short sentence (one year)?
If a child was harvesting personal data and using it to blackmail people for naked pictures I would agree, but this is an adult. I would think that this would think that if I was going around in person, and making threats to see womens' naked flesh I'd be in far worse trouble, I don't see when this guy is getting off so easily.
Huh? Who said anything about 1 year? My bet is that a plea bargain will let him off easier then 105 years in jail, maybe even easier then if he goes to court. It will still be a punishment that I expect will fit the crime. My problem is with the plea bargains themselves and believe that he should be forced into court, where all such allegations (and bargaining) belong.
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If he's guilty, that's about one day for every woman that he blackmailed. That IS/would be a ridiculously light sentence, IMHO.
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On top of "hacking" this guy comitted blackmail, and what could be considered sexual assault.
I'm OK if this guy doesn't do time for hacking.
I would really like to see this guy do hard time for sexual harrassment, blackmail, and the other related crimes that have little to do with the technical aspects of computer hacking.
I'm also disgusted you'd even compare what this guy did to what aaron swartz did.
Evidence (Score:5, Funny)
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Just to the right of the text of the AP article (last link in summary), they have helpfully placed a link titled "Buy AP Photo Reprints". You may get your wish.
If that doesn't work, you could Skype the victims, posing as the prosecutor, and ask them to repeat the poses 'for evidence'.
Won't come close to that (Score:2)
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I really doubt he'll get what is effectively life in prison for this. I have a hard time believing they'll give him more than 20 years and even that might be a stretch. Although 20 years seems relatively mild, consider losing 20 years of your life. He'll be 47 by the time he gets out and be missing the stretch where most people get a family, build up wealth and the do the bulk of saving for retirement. Even if he doesn't care about that, it's still a very long time to be in prison.
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Although 20 years seems relatively mild
Are you insane?! I'd prefer death to even a year or two in prison let alone 20 years. 20 years may as well be life as far as I'm concerned.
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I've known several people with felonies on their records with real jobs. One of them was my CIO.
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In most cases business insurance does not allow companies to hire felons. Even if something completely unrelated came up that required a large payout the insurance company could discover the violation and refuse to pay out.
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True enough, they were not (well, none of us were) making nearly as much as they should have.
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Why? Then you just trivialize what he did and make it so other people can do this. If it's only going to cost $500 to make it go away, then you'd see an awful lot of people doing it.
Essentially he committed several serious crimes ("The indictment charges Kazaryan with 15 counts of computer intrusion and 15 counts of aggravated identity theft") in the process of this.
Gone ar
Re:Won't come close to that (Score:5, Insightful)
Because what he did was trivial. He tricked some girls into letting him see them naked. OMG. They are just bodies for god sake we all have them and they will all show them to hundreds of guys over the course of their life and regret many of those times. But but he LIED. Yes he lied and those same girls will no doubt have been lied to by every guy they sleep with to some degree or another. All men are willing to lie or withhold, or otherwise twist the truth to get laid.
What he did is morally reprehensible but hardly criminal. It makes him worthy of despising and calling a pig but then so would a more severe action like cheating on a girlfriend.
"a $500 fine for criminally using someone else's account? No way"
He didn't use someone's bank account. He used their social networking account in a way that results in absolutely no tangible damage to anyone. The bar for identity theft can't just be pretending to be someone else in a harmless prank and if that is going to be the bar then yes the punishments have to dropped to something appropriate for a harmless prank. What next? If he pretends to be a friend confirming his alibi to his girlfriend/wife on the phone so he can sleep around we charge him with identity theft and communications fraud?
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I like where you're going, it's interesting to compare this case to potential existing situations that mirror intent and outcome. Let's pretend he had met these girls at a bar instead of online, bought them a few drinks (social engineering) and talked the girls into flashing the crowd.
Certainly a few bar patrons would have cell phone cameras ready, and the victims would get the same exposure (if not MORE) than what actually happened.
Would he be looking at 100+ years of jailtime for such shenanigans? Absol
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If someone had done this in meatspace they would have received the same punishment, and rightly so. This was extortion, plain and simple. And although it's not sexual assault, it occupies a frighteningly close position. I can't believe any
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Information doesn't "want" to be free
Tell that to the US military or go on TPB and watch the flood of information that has freed itself. Information does want to be free and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it. And, yes, it is okay. It's just the way the world works.
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No, people want information to be free ... information in and of itself doesn't "want" anything, and it doesn't like it when you anthropomorphize it.
Information doesn't spontaneously decide it wants to be free and take steps to that end. People decide they want to liberate information and release it.
At the end of the day, what this guy did is illegal -- and while I agree they're looking at ridiculously long j
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I'm not saying that this guy shouldn't be punished. Maybe a few months in prison or monetary restitution to the victims. Something sane and civilized. Life in prison for causing embarassment is neither.
As far as information. It has a tendency to escape. Sort of like water in a tank. Water 'wants' to escape from a container. That does not mean that it is human or even alive. There is nothing anthtropomorphic about the expression. It's just an expression and this case is yet another example of its truth. Some
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Ok, but there must be some sort of middle ground there somewhere. I think a short stint in jail and a shitload of community service would be an acceptable punishment.
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Does offending a few people's sense of modesty really justify doing that to someone regardless of how many people he did it to?
See, the courts see it a little differently. If you steal something like a computer or whatever, then the person you stole it from is like, "it sucks but I can get another one". The mental harm is fairly minimal. But when you start fucking with peoples' emotions like in this case it takes on an entirely different and to the average person more serious context. This dude isn't going to get a slap on the wrist. Expect at least 10 years. And in the fed joint, he'll do 85 percent of that. There are some program
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True he will never get the max.
But would you have even bothered to read the story if the poster hadn't hype the ridiculous theoretical maximums?
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But would you have even bothered to read the story if the poster hadn't hype the ridiculous theoretical maximums?
Yes, "Blackmailing 350+ Women" was pretty much the hook for me.
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The only thing about that is they actually did away with statutory maximum and minimum sentences in the US federal courts a few years since having a set minimum was deemed unconstitutional. So now the judge can pretty much give you whatever they want, though they do generally go by the former guidelines more or less.
As far as plea bargaining to the feds, you don't get a guaranteed low sentence when you do that, what happens is if you are pretty sure you'll get convicted, you plea bargain so that the US att
Obvious moral (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like in the Anthony Wiener scandal, the clear bit of advice to come out of this: Never, ever, ever transmit pictures of yourself over a computer network with fewer clothes on than you'd wear in public.
I'm sure some people find that kind of thing fun, but the simple fact is that the damage is greater than getting many STDs.
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Not really. The only possible damage is a little embarrassment. We shouldn't be sending someone to prison over violating someone's sense of modesty and embarrassing them. There is an offense there but an action that does no more harm than potentially stirring up an emotion shouldn't result in effectively permanently destroying the life of the person doing it (which prison time does re
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"I'm sure some people find that kind of thing fun, but the simple fact is that the damage is greater than getting many STDs." Not really. The only possible damage is a little embarrassment. We shouldn't be sending someone to prison over violating someone's sense of modesty and embarrassing them. There is an offense there but an action that does no more harm than potentially stirring up an emotion shouldn't result in effectively permanently destroying the life of the person doing it (which prison time does regardless of duration).
Nude photo: Embarrassing for victim. 20 years in a federal penitentiary for the felon.
Breaking and Entering with Assault: Mental Anguish, Nightmares, Lost property or broken bones for victim. Probation for the perp.
Nice system.
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But but but but...the criminal used a COMPUTER! That makes it scary because I don't understand computers!!!
Just imagine when criminals start using robots.
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the damage depends. if you're already a xxx model there's no damage.
consider this, if you were considering between two women and the other had hiv and chlamydia and the other had stripped for a webcam and her naked gorgeous body was as result available online...
105 years though? stacking ftw.
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the damage depends. if you're already a xxx model there's no damage.
'Common those photos have economic value! They are debasing the brand of the model! There must be some type of compensation available under tort law!
</joking>
No sympathy for this one.... (Score:2)
Although 105 years is excessive and the insane US legal system is clearly broken. I think 5 years is perfectly adequate. And of course paying the rest of his life for restitution to his victims.
Re:No sympathy for this one.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Two problems there.
First, they were not posting images of themselves on the open Internet. They were storing images of themselves online, in, as they say, "the cloud," behind password access. Which the suspect allegedly hacked.
Second, your suggestion that possessing nude photos of one's self voids one's expectation of privacy is sexist and objectionable.
Re:No sympathy for this one.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, your suggestion that possessing nude photos of one's self voids one's expectation of privacy is sexist and objectionable.
How is it sexist? He could have just as easily been blackmailing men here...
Would love to see this go before a jury. (Score:2)
Because there are two worlds colliding here in the mind of the average person.
The school of thought that the victim is always at least partly responsible for being conned. There's a sense of superiority a lot of people get when they hear about scams where, because they themselves would never fall prey to a scammer, anyone who does is deficient or incautious.
Anyone charged with a crime involving a computer for more then Solitaire, porn, and recipe hunting must be guilty.
105 years (Score:2)
105 years jail for nudie pics.
If he did this in New Zealand and raped the women as well he'd be out of jail in 5 years.
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You're probably right, but I thought we were talking about the US judicial system being broken?
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105 years jail for nudie pics.
If he did this in New Zealand and raped the women as well he'd be out of jail in 5 years.
He'd still have had to spend 5 years in New Zealand though.
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Your point? None of those things warrant a life sentence. Maybe a year at most, but it would be more appropriate just to fine him and get him to pay restitution to his 'victims' (and I use that term loosely). The US justice system is insane. It's all just bloodlust and the old thrill of watching a hanging. It certainly isn't justice.
Scumbag (Score:2)
I HATE this (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate that I have to stand beside him and say this is wrong. I hate that I have to support someone so despicable. I hate that the flawed system actually makes me support people like Gary Kazaryan.
And yet it's something I must do.
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It wasn't one instance of it though - it was more than 350 women. If you steal one orange, you'll get a slap on the wrist, you steal a truckload and that's a totally different thing as far as penalty.
I would personally disagree that blackmailing even 350 people is worse than murder. Regardless, I think OP's point still stands. Things like murder are in a completely different category of crime.
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Ooo a thought experiment. How many people makes it worse than murder for you. 1000? 10,000? And murder "whom"? anyone?
Are 10,000 peoples lives being abused worse than killing the abuser?
I think that scammers and career thieves should be shot, personally. Fucking with hundreds or thousands of people could justify the death penalty in my opinion (if ones country has death penalty laws that is. It could always be argued that it
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But let's not say that just because it wasn't murder, it doesn't deserve a harsher sentence than murder.
Why not? That is exactly what I would say. I would go further and advocate that a punishment must be reasonable and fit the crime. The crimes this guy allegedly committed are minor in my view. If I were one of these women I sure as hell wouldn't want to see the guy get life in prison.
(we're talking serious crimes here, not the 'steal a thousand songs be a thousand times guilty' crap that record labels are pulling)
After what you just wrote you have absolutely no leg to stand on here. How do you define a crime as 'serious'? I dont' think this guy's crimes were serious at all. He just caused a bit of embarrassment for some women who were
Re:I HATE this (Score:4, Insightful)
What if he had blackmailed 1,000 women? 10,000 women? 100,000 women? How many blackmailed and recorded strip tease sessions would he have to have forced women into before he deserved life?
There is no number. He could 'blackmail' an infinite number of people and it wouldn't merit significantly more punishment in my view than a single one. Any other view would be consistent with hanging habitual, serial shoplifters. Something I would regard as barbaric and far, far worse than the original crimes. At some point, draconian punishments themselves become more of a crime than the original act. This is one such case. If this guy gets any significant amount of jail time I would consider him more of a victim than any of the women.
Would you feel this crime was minor if the blackmail had led to a suicide?
I would still consider the crime to be a relatively minor one, but it would become more serious with a suicide since it would show that the act, even though it was minor, resulted in serious harm to that particular individual. I would consider him partially responsible for her death.
I would still judge the girl in question badly however because having a nude picture posted to your facebook account is an unbelievably silly thing to kill yourself over. You may as well kill yourself over a broken nail. If she was that sensitive it would have been only a matter of time before she had killed herself anyway. If being seen naked by some of her friends makes her kill herself just imagine what she would do if a boyfriend that she liked broke up with her?
A teacher would be fired if such pictures get posted publicly, and there are many other companies which may do so as well.
That injustice would not be the man's fault. If you want to punish someone for harming the teacher, punish the people at the school or company responsible for such stupidity. You can't hold the guy responsible for the harmful behavior of others.
Could you not see how this could ruin various peoples lives?
No I can't. I have had far more embarrassing things happen to me and it didn't ruin my life in any way whatsoever. I was just embarrassed. It's not the end of the world. There is nothing wrong or shameful about nudity. We all have relatively similar bodies. It's just not a big deal. And I am speaking as someone ashamed of my body. I wish I had a beautiful body that I would be sufficiently proud of to post online to anyone, but I don't.
How many lives would need to be hurt and by how much before it becomes a major crime?
I don't think a 'crime' as minor as this could ever become a major crime no matter how many 'victims'.
Then again, if you don't feel inflicting emotional trauma on people can ever be serious, then I am glad you are not a lawmaker or judge, and saddened that you may serve in a jury.
Emotional trauma over being seen naked? That's almost funny. If anyone is that sensitive then they have far larger problems already. I think it would cause far greater emotional trauma to know that you were partially responsible for taking the life of another human being because you were bothered about being seen naked.
Emotional trauma can always be argued. Does a man cheating on his wife cause emotional trauma and would it be more than being accidentally seen naked? Should we be filling our prisons with cheating husbands and wives? With anyone who has ever lied to someone who loved them? How about anyone who breaks up with someone who loves them? Should we just hang them all? Put them in prison for the rest of their lives?
I still feel emotional pain over my first girlfriend breaking up with me 20 years ago. Should she be jailed for the hurt she has caused me? Okay, it would be satisfying in a way, but I wouldn't want to live in a society where every time someone is hurt emotionally the person who ca
what do you think should happen? (Score:2)
Seriously, what do you propose as a penalty, or do you propose no penalty?
At some point, when dealing with a group of people on legal issues, you have to have some comprimise. There are amongst us, people who think selling coffee that is "too hot" is criminally negligent. There are others that assume that hot coffee is hot and the buyer is responsible for taking appropriate care after the sale. The law is going to have to establish a common understanding, so that everyone knows what the rules are, even i
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Here's a hint. Start at mass murder or genocide. Work your way down to murder. Then manslaughter. Then rape. But here's the thing. Work your way down from the mass murderer. Not up.
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How much jail time would he get if he murdered 350 people? How much if he'd coerced just one person? Personally, considering the scale of his crime and the damage he's done to so many lives... I have no problem with locking him away for the rest of his life. even with intensive treatment, it's not clear he can ever be trusted to be loose in society again.
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So you propose no jail time at all for any crime except murder?
Since no matter how small a jail time you assign to any other crime someone can commit enough instances of it to have the sum of the jail time be greater than your murder jail time (let's ignore "life" as a jail time for the moment).
Or do you want caps on totals? So that after I've commited some crime X times I can commit it as many more times as I like with no additional penalty?
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Hate Soulskill. He's the one who wrote the misleading, troll headline.
"Statutory maximum of 105 years" only means he can't be sentenced to longer than that. That "maximum" word is key. I don't believe murder has a statutory maximum sentence.
Really, TFA gives no idea of what the actual sentence is likely to be. The only way I see getting to 105 years from "15 counts of computer intrusion and 15 counts of aggravated identity theft" would be if he's convicted on all charges and receives consecutive sentences [yahoo.com].
I
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Are you honestly claiming that taking off your clothes in front of a web cam is indistinguishable from someone forcing you to have sex with them? I would be willing to bet that if you polled those women a significant percentage of them would not believe it is the same as rape and would not want to see the guy get life in prison for seeing them naked. As far as the so called blackmail they should have just told the guy to fuck off. That's what I would advocate to a female friend. I mean, who gives a shit if
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Routine Naked Video Skype? (Score:2)
All he had to do is pretend to be one of their female friends? Forget the con part. He was able to find 350 women who didn't think it was all that peculiar that one of their friends wanted them to video Skype naked. Who knew?
This guy would make a perfect lamb.... (Score:2)
Re:This guy would make a perfect lamb.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pictures... (Score:2)
105 Years versus LIBOR (Score:5, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight...
This shmoe could face up to 105 years because of "XX" number of counts of the exact same crime.
By that way of thinking, each perpetrator of the LIBOR fixing scandal committed acts which affected millions or perhaps billions of people. Shouldn't THEIR sentence be something then on the order of millions of years of prison?
And yet, NOT ONE person is going to go to jail for LIBOR. Aaron committed suicide over his potential 50 years, for downloading some crap, but LIBOR guys are going to have their banks pay a small fine, they are still going to get their bonuses, corner offices, mansions, Ferraris, Yachts and hot babes in bikinis.
Dude, if your going to commit a crime, think big -- as in "too big to fail", "too big to prosecute" -- Frankly, if Lance Armstrong had just been Lance Armstrong Bank, he'd still have all his medals, and everyone would still be doing business with him, because they'd have no choice.
Re:105 Years versus LIBOR (Score:4, Interesting)
I completely agree. Yet another story that highlights how prosecutors are given entirely too much power and there's no way to hold them accountable. The most messed up part is that we're sending non-violent criminals to prison. Everyone cheered when Madoff was sent to prison, I didn't hear a single person mention the eighth amendment. No one mentioned that, as a prison inmate, he would just be a further burden to society.
Unless a person is a threat to society, I can't see the justification for putting them in prison. That's what jails should be for, they shouldn't be a camp of retribution, of societal vengeance. If a person is drunk and disorderly in public, or drinking and driving, they get thrown in the drunk tank until the next day. That makes sense, that's reasonable. They're a threat to society until they sober up. If a person kills someone and it's not in self defense, then they've proven themselves to be irrational and dangerous. They need to be kept away from the greater society.
If this guy is guilty, should be be punished? No doubt. Should he serve a single day in jail/prison? Absolutely not. That doesn't benefit anyone except the corporations that run our prison system. Community service should be the standard punishment for most crimes because it's a form of restitution to society. But no, the standard form of punishment is a fine or time. A fine that goes to paying for the out of control penal system that the U.S. employs on both a state and federal level.
Re:105 Years versus HSBC money laundering (Score:5, Informative)
The HSBC money laundering case is another good one: That bank was caught laundering billions for drug lords, and there will be no jail time for anybody involved.
"posing as a friend?" (Score:2)
Wait, he posed as a friend and convinced 350 women to send nude pictures?
That... that just doesn't seem possible.
My cheese filter is going off.
Karen, if you make bail, run! (Score:3)
This guy should run if he gets the chance. He is seriously fucked. If he was smart enough to pull this off, why was he not smart enough to do it anonymously from public or unprotected wifi or even an internet cafe? Well, unless he did and the FBI have the wrong guy.
The FBI has a huge hardon for any kind of ToS violation crime or really any sort of GeekCrime, and I bet the FBI agent assigned to this case was a pissed off female with an axe to grind. How dare he trick girls into giving him naked photos!
He'll almost certainly be found guilty of the computer intrusion and is likely to be found guilty of the extortion as well, depending on how specific the wording of the federal law is about the monetary nature of any gains. He at least didn't ask for money.
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If people exercised natural common sense on the Internet, Slashdot would be a very boring place and we wouldn't probably even be having this conversation.
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Both Parent and GP are pretty spot on, too bad they posted as AC's.
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Well the story cited is equally confusing.
How did he hack into hundreds of on line accounts from Facebook Skype, and then find enough to blackmail them?
Seems these women were already posting pictures online in many cases.
But left unexplained is how he hacked into at least three different services in the first place.
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From the few details I can gather, it's more "social engineering" than "hacking". And you're quite right about them posting the pictures online in the first place... otherwise what would he have gotten to blackmail them with? There's a lot of unanswered questions, but I think there's plenty of lessons for both sides here.
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He got the initial pictures where a lot of these kinds of creeps do. Hacking email accounts, etc.
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Am i the only one who is confused by the wording of the summary?
Far from it. From the summary, it sounds like he convinced women to strip for him in front of a camera, then used those pictures to blackmail the women into... sending him naked pictures of themselves.
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Yeah, sounds more like manipulator, not so much a hacker.
Perhaps what's scariest about this situation is the fact that Kazaryan's alleged online criminality occurred over popular online platforms that millions of people use everyday, like Skype and Facebook, which means you don't have to be deeply entrenched in technology to be taken advantage of.
That too sounds very hyperbolic... Scams happen on "popular communication platforms that billions of people use everyday, like phone and snail mail, which means you don't have to be deeply entrenched in technology to be taken advantage of..."
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Unfortunately it's extremely common (Score:3)
I have seen women get blackmailed before with the threat of their nudes being leaked by their ex bfs. I've seen women blackmail dudes over pictures they sent of their cocks, taboo perverted fantasies, or cheating on their wives. I have seen girlfriends and boyfriends use the threat of suicide to keep a leash on their partners as well as using the threat of leaking dirty secrets. These scenarios are VERY common. Why is this one guy being singled out? Because he has hundreds of victims?
There are probably mill
The Taliban blames the victim (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Taliban blames the victim (Score:5, Insightful)
You're FSM-right we don't. We're supposed to be the good guys here.
This asshole (allegedly) blackmailed 350 people. I say allegedly because he hasn't been convicted in a court of law, which again, is the way we do things around here. You know, in motherfucking civilization.
This is not the victim's fault. What the hell is wrong with you people?
Re:The Taliban blames the victim (Score:5, Insightful)
What it comes down to is this:
It is not the victim's fault that they got robbed or raped or whatever at any time.
However, society cannot prevent and cannot be responsible for preventing it from happening. There are animals out there and just telling them to respect your right to dress how you want isn't going to change the fact that they are animals and possibly mentally unbalanced.
So, it is not the victim's fault that they are a victim, but they cannot rely on that to prevent them from becoming a victim, and if they do, they are fools. Reasonable arguments only work on reasonable people. Criminals and particularly criminally insane people are not reasonable. Dress to match the environment you are in and maintain situational awareness of your environment and the dangers.
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Re:The Taliban blames the victim (Score:4, Insightful)
You can be the victim and not be innocent.
This is the problem with Black Market activities. Both sides are breaking the law, so if one side breaks the deal there is little recourse to prevent it. However at some point the crime is worth more for the victim to complain while they may get punished for their crime, but the victimizer may get a lot more.
Re:The Taliban blames the victim (Score:4, Interesting)
Nope.
Blackmail is ALWAYS the fault of the person seeking to take advantage of another person.
In this case, women took nude pictures (or videos, I guess) of themselves. Not illegal, and it's only naughty if you're a puritan, and frankly even then it's pretty pathetic to think of it as anything naughty. Do you consider yourself to be some kind of bastion of morality? If so, what gives you the right? And if not, then where the hell do you get off trying to say other people are being naughty or not in regards to things that are completely irrelevant to you?
In other, more extreme cases, people have been blackmailed for things that carry a social stigma but are, according to decent human beings, perfectly OK. Example: Secret Jews during the Nazi regime. You think they were at fault (you DID say 'ALWAYS') because unscrupulous neighbors threatened to turn them in? Example: Closeted gay folk. You think they are at fault because some people decided to threaten to out them? Example: People who believe in religion X when religion Y is the official religion of their country. Example: People who don't toe the party line in countries where the party is the law. Example: Do I really have to give you more examples, or are you able to acknowledge that maybe your hyperbole and your victim blaming are wrong?
The person at fault when it comes to blackmail is the person who chose to try and take advantage of another human being. Period. And you should damn well know better if you're old enough to be posting on the Internet unsupervised. And you should feel bad about being so stupid you didn't think your opinion through before trying to voice it with your all caps removal of any possible wiggle room in the form of 'ALWAYS.'
Re:The Taliban blames the victim (Score:5, Informative)
No, in the context of a man physically raping a woman and the Taliban punishing the woman I'm pretty sure most of us here, myself included disagree with the Taliban. I think we can all also agree that Kazaryan is the only one involved who set out to harm others (in a sense) and is the only one deserving of legal punishment.
However.. these victims ARE also at fault. They did something stupid. They sent naked pictures of themselves to someone on the internet without even verifying who it really was. It cannot be called anything else, it was STUPID. I'm sorry, but there is way to much stupid out there. It's long past time to give up on political correctness and call it what it is. STUPID! Point it out and hope that between someone somewhere's ears the lesson actually sticks. We need this because we have way too much stupid in our society.
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I can see that you aren't exactly a disinterest party in this discussion.
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Get off your high horse. The 105 years quoted is pure bs. The min/max guidelines in federal court were overturned years ago but people just keep quoting them. This guy will do some time but he'll see the light of day in plenty of time to enjoy life as an ex-felon with something like zero prospects of ever living a productive life with a decent job again. That's the real tragedy here.
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105 does sound a bit extreme but then again he did blackmail 350 people. The methods that he used and the medium really aren't all that relevant. I'm actually surprised that the maximum possible is such a small number. Even if the sentence for blackmail was only 6 months, those charges alone could add up to 175 years. Breaking into other peoples online accounts would just be gravy.
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What makes you think charges with up to 105 years in prison will result in a 1 year plea bargain? Are you a lawyer? I think it would be more reasonable to assume that the prosecutor will offer something like 20 years. Incidentally the prosecutor doesn't have to offer anything at all. If they feel the evidence is strong enough they may not offer anything or they might offer something like 40 years without possibility of parole. My understanding is that the really good bargains are only offered for weak cases
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He is exactly the kind of person that we WANT taken out of society.
Speak for yourself. I think you are the sociopath. I have empathy for everyone involved here. The girls have learned an important lesson about how information tends to escape and about trusting people too much. The guy has probably already learned his lesson, but a month in jail or restitution of, say, $200 to each victim would probably suffice for punishment.
It's amazing to me that the US is supposed to be a Christian country. Christianity is supposed to be about kindness and forgiveness. Not about hanging
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Violence against women? What the hell are you talking about? He just tricked them into showing him nude photos. That makes him a prick. Definitely not a nice person. But putting everyone who isn't a nice person in jail is not the answer.
And anti-Christian? Seriously? I thought my post was pro-Christian. I believe in the values of kindness, tolerance, forgiveness, mercy, empathy, and just being nice to others. And, yes, that does include not putting people in prison for their entire lives just for embarrassi
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You are 100% wrong in your assumptions about me. If anything I empathize with the girls more. I hate being embarrassed. I wouldn't want a nude photo of me posted anywhere on the internet. Although of course he didn't actually do that. He just threatened to. I don't like being threatened either. Of course there are a lot of things in life that I don't like.
I bet I have a better idea of how they feel than you. If I were in that situation I would do my best to speak out about what the state wants to do to him.