Remembering back, I certainly lacked a lot of critical reasoning which could have led me to do possibly equally stupid stuff like this had I the skill in my early teens. As I remember it, life felt more like a "game" in that you do whatever it lets you, without much consideration of whether people will be (potentially very) upset with what you've done. In person activities stood high risk of getting caught, but online it seems more like a computer game and the people on the other side of your actions feel more abstract.
Many years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
These kids discovered that their actions have consequences to them in person and not just someone being upset with them remotely.
As a parent now (but oldest is only 5), it's stories like this which make me determined remain aware of the kind of stuff my kids get up to and continually explain that actions have consequences, even if those consequences are seemingly as trivial as making someone else feel shit about themselves.
I wonder if maybe 10 or so years from now, after these kids have actually reached decent emotional maturity, that they'll look back at their actions and think about how stupidly reckless and needlessly destructive they were, to both others and their own lives.
10 years and they'll be mid way into their conference talk career. You know, that sweet spot where you can keep telling the same story over and over and still get attention for it.
That makes me wonder what Frank Abagnale has been up to recently.
Not sure if you're aware already and omitted it for brevity but maybe for others who might not already know: Abignale made up everything (or nearly everything) he claimed to have done in his book and in the movie. He was still taking advantage of people during this time, but the acts were far more mundane (and slimy) than his claims. He was a con man for sure, but not the "brilliant but misguided criminal gets redemption" that he portrays.
I have found that keeping dialog open from early age on helps a lot. If kids get into trouble when they do something they're not allowed to, they're going to learn to stop telling you stuff real quick. And hide their activities. If they learn that you'll stay calm and continually prove that you trust them to handle their stuff, they might end up telling you things you wouldn't expect. But then... you don't get to blow your lid. Ever.
You can absolutely blow your lid, you just have to apologize afterwards and admit that you were wrong. This is very hard for some adults to do to a 5 year old.
I understand that some people have trouble apologizing to children, but could someone help me understand why? I’ve been a parent for almost a decade now, and I can’t count the number of important teaching and bonding moments that have started with me making a parenting mistake and apologizing for it. I rely on it pretty heavily to teach my kid about emotional regulation. It’s such an important opportunity to just throw away. Is it an ego thing? Do people struggle to see children as people? I promise those are good-faith questions. I know some people struggle more with that sort of thing, and that’s fine. We all have our strengths.
It really depends on what blowing your lid looks like. Regardless of whether you make up for it later, if you make yourself a reputation of it, others will learn to avoid the initial blow-up in the first place
> Jubair has 22 previous convictions related to hacking, fraud and harassment.
There’s more to what was going on here and none of us is really qualified to diagnose the psychology behind it from the details. I hope they can find some peace later in life because they are obviously not lacking ambition or ability
Behavior being different online than in real life is not limited to kids either. Nobody on Facebook is meaner than a 60-something year old lady with a wall full of cat pictures and minion memes. I genuinely doubt that half of them would hold the same discourse face to face.
I don't know, I was reading the article and went "well, good for them, if they could get into the system, fair play". Then I saw the part where they stole tons of data and inconvenienced people, and I can't support that.
If you hack into a system and leave a note "I got into your system, I win", more power to you. If you do damage, go to prison.
>Many years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
This is the #1 reason bots exist. We can't just punch them down anymore, we're flagged as bad people.
>Many years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
I've seen people have this opinion many times before and I don't get it. People talk shit in real life all the time and it's a much worse situation in real life because they might punch you in the face.
This is why I don't mind online shit-talking, because it isn't going to escalate into a fight. In real life it might and imo the teens are more likely to escalate it especially if they are in a group.
> As a parent now (but oldest is only 5), it's stories like this which make me determined remain aware of the kind of stuff my kids get up to and continually explain that actions have consequences, even if those consequences are seemingly as trivial as making someone else feel shit about themselves.
Weird, somehow without significant parental surveillance or explicit explanation I somehow managed to _not_ do much of the awful stuff my acquaintances with much more engaged parents did.
The article is reporting on what was discussed in court: Autism, suicidal tendencies, living with grandparents. These were all probably brought up as elements of the story meant to influence the verdict.
Autistic people are unusually good at studying patterns objectively. While each individual person is... an individual, studying a sample from a population yields patterns, and thus the justification for the "social sciences". While autistic people may struggle with in person communication and upholding norms of human interaction, they do not generally struggle with understanding game theory, motives, and other aspects of rational decision making. So they can indeed make brilliant (and ruthless) social engineers if only when hiding behind a computer keyboard.
That is not autism, that is sociopathy. Autism does not turn on and off when you can gain something from it.
In your telling, autism is an excuse when they abuse others, because they cant help themselves. But, when it is for their benefit, the same person actually displays higher social skills.
Lol, U should meet my upstairs neighbour, his coping mechanisms are curiously similar to ways of slyly molesting and aggravating other people. He's spent seven years obsessing stalking and trying to harm me psychologically, now he's trapped in a hole he can't get out of... Because he didn't like me ignoring him. I ignore him because he is absurdely vain and likes being distasteful and offputting. I'm sorry, if they don't teach kids coping mechanisms, they are doing this to them. The BBC where mentioned here as spreading FUD about artists, I did a search to find one of the many supportive and educational stories I have seen on their website - the first result is for paid Autism tests for children. It is a profitable diagnosis. It triggers a non behavioural approach that leaves adults disabled for life.
I didn't say it wasn't sociopathy; it most certainly was. Autism and sociopathy are not mutually exclusive. And as they were executing their plan, I do not see any point where their "autism was turned off".
Autistic people can be highly sociable by explicitly learning social skills. They can also learn social skills in order to manipulate others, as is the case here.
Lastly, explaining how a medical condition whose stereotypes seem to make others think those with it would not be capable of committing a crime were in fact capable of committing that crime in no ways is the same as excusing the crime.
It kept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon from being extradicted to the USA. Apparently the courts don't accept "your opsec is shit and I got in with default passwords", but they do accept "I have autism"
Let's try it in action:
- "Mr Wallace, we have several credible reports that you harrassed TV production staff by going around with no underpants on, and finding excuses to take your trousers down. What do you say to that?"
> gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.
The whole edifice was built on a helpful, possibly overworked and possibly harassed help desk worker? The end result is that two kids end up in jail. It could have been so different, and better. What they did was wrong for sure, and has real-world consequences for those whose information was leaked. But, when I look at the contingencies that led to the outcome, it really does depress me.
Like, at some point we have to start considering teens natural disasters, and put it on the company to prevent something as banal as a password reset that can be requested on a phone from compromising their _entire_ fucking system. These kids aren’t most at fault here.
> Woolwich Crown Court heard both men [...] spent most of their time online unsupervised.
Such an infantilising and surveillance-normalizing slant. Why is it worthy of mention that an adult spent time unsupervised? (Sure, one of them was 17 at the time, but that didn't stop them from waiting until he was 18 to charge him)
do you think there is a way to divert kids like this into some kind of useful programming / IT direction and if so what do you think would be the best way to handle this
(like a group that takes black hat hackers to white hat hacker projects?)
kids with like anti-social or aggressive tendencies plus maybe some tech "skillz"
I mean you can’t put a building on fire and say you should not be sentenced for the whole building burning down because the impact of the response by the fire department (if they had been faster/better the fire would not caused so bad damages)
The building owner has a degree of duty to mitigate loss. They can't go around opening doors and windows before the fire department gets there and be all "whoops not my fault"
The duty to mitigate loss is a concept in contract law, and its main use is in calculating damages (ie. you can't claim damages for a loss that you ought to have mitigated)
It would definitely come into play if TfL were suing Jubair & Flowers, but it's not really relevant in a criminal situation like this.
48 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 49.6 ms ] threadMany years back when I used to do CS for WoW, a colleague of mine liked to say that the only reason some kids shit-talk the way they do is because it's online and if they tried it in person they'd get punched in the face.
These kids discovered that their actions have consequences to them in person and not just someone being upset with them remotely.
As a parent now (but oldest is only 5), it's stories like this which make me determined remain aware of the kind of stuff my kids get up to and continually explain that actions have consequences, even if those consequences are seemingly as trivial as making someone else feel shit about themselves.
I wonder if maybe 10 or so years from now, after these kids have actually reached decent emotional maturity, that they'll look back at their actions and think about how stupidly reckless and needlessly destructive they were, to both others and their own lives.
> Jubair has 22 previous convictions related to hacking, fraud and harassment.
There’s more to what was going on here and none of us is really qualified to diagnose the psychology behind it from the details. I hope they can find some peace later in life because they are obviously not lacking ambition or ability
If you hack into a system and leave a note "I got into your system, I win", more power to you. If you do damage, go to prison.
This is the #1 reason bots exist. We can't just punch them down anymore, we're flagged as bad people.
I've seen people have this opinion many times before and I don't get it. People talk shit in real life all the time and it's a much worse situation in real life because they might punch you in the face.
This is why I don't mind online shit-talking, because it isn't going to escalate into a fight. In real life it might and imo the teens are more likely to escalate it especially if they are in a group.
Weird, somehow without significant parental surveillance or explicit explanation I somehow managed to _not_ do much of the awful stuff my acquaintances with much more engaged parents did.
Must have been my autism, I guess.
Ah.. I hate when stereotypes play out like this. It's always those single children.
What does this have to do with anything in this article.
Take it up with lawyers.
In your telling, autism is an excuse when they abuse others, because they cant help themselves. But, when it is for their benefit, the same person actually displays higher social skills.
Autistic people can be highly sociable by explicitly learning social skills. They can also learn social skills in order to manipulate others, as is the case here.
Lastly, explaining how a medical condition whose stereotypes seem to make others think those with it would not be capable of committing a crime were in fact capable of committing that crime in no ways is the same as excusing the crime.
It kept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon from being extradicted to the USA. Apparently the courts don't accept "your opsec is shit and I got in with default passwords", but they do accept "I have autism"
Let's try it in action:
- "Mr Wallace, we have several credible reports that you harrassed TV production staff by going around with no underpants on, and finding excuses to take your trousers down. What do you say to that?"
- "Did I mention I have autism?"
( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24lxl85wyo )
> gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.
The whole edifice was built on a helpful, possibly overworked and possibly harassed help desk worker? The end result is that two kids end up in jail. It could have been so different, and better. What they did was wrong for sure, and has real-world consequences for those whose information was leaked. But, when I look at the contingencies that led to the outcome, it really does depress me.
"all for the want of a nail"
Such an infantilising and surveillance-normalizing slant. Why is it worthy of mention that an adult spent time unsupervised? (Sure, one of them was 17 at the time, but that didn't stop them from waiting until he was 18 to charge him)
(like a group that takes black hat hackers to white hat hacker projects?)
kids with like anti-social or aggressive tendencies plus maybe some tech "skillz"
You don't get to argue that your crime wouldn't have been so bad if your victims weren't incompetent.
It would definitely come into play if TfL were suing Jubair & Flowers, but it's not really relevant in a criminal situation like this.
They are teenagers. They don't belong in prison, they belong in an any cybercrime agency.