Twitter co-founder: Hacking not necessarily a crime

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:41:00 +0000

TechCrunch reported Thursday on an interchange between Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Lara Logan in which the former boy hacker delineates the difference between "criminal hacking" and the sort of activity that has fallen under "criminal" designations owing to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He recounted to Logan how he was hired by a software firm after he found a security flaw in its security system through hacking. TechCrunch reprinting the dialogue:

Jack Dorsey: I found a way into the website. I found a hole. I found a security hole.

Lara Logan: Is that– are you– is that the same thing as hacking?

Jack Dorsey: It’s– ha– yes. Hacking– hacking is– hacking is– is–

Lara Logan: A crime.

Jack Dorsey: Well, no. Criminal hacking is a crime. Hacking is actually a–

Lara Logan: Hacking for a job application is not a crime?

Jack Dorsey: No, no, no, no, no. No, not a crime at all. And I emailed them and I said, “You have a security hole. Here’s how to fix it. And I write dispatch software.” And–

Lara Logan: And they hired you.

Jack Dorsey: And they hired me a week later. And it was a dream come true, which is a weird dream for a kid.

Hacker Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer was this week sentenced to 41 months in prison for finding a security flaw in AT&T's server, and leaking information to Gawker. As Weev told Salon, “The government asserted that after the fact, they can declare a given access to data anyone makes public ‘unauthorized’ and have you thrown in prison." Therein lies the risks of the dangerously broad CFAA.

Hacker “Weev” gets three years for accessing AT&T data

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:48:00 +0000

Before Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer entered the Newark courtroom Monday to receive his sentence and begin a 41-month stint in prison, the loudmouthed hacker stood before gathered supporters and read from Keats' "The Fall of Hyperion - A Dream."

"Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave/ A paradise for a sect; the savage too/ From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep/ Guesses at Heaven ..." So begins the epic -- an appropriately grandiose reading for the hacker-cum-troll to choose. Keats' poem tells a story of transcendence, in which poets and dreamers are challenged, persecuted and deified. And Auernheimer (his tongue ever wedged in his cheek) is asking for a little deification too. He is the latest victim in the government's harsh crackdown on hackers -- and he wants you to know it.

Salon.com > weev

Twitter co-founder: Hacking not necessarily a crime

Hacker “Weev” gets three years for accessing AT&T data