Kid did a dumb thing, but from what I know of the facts (no malicious intent) this seems like a waste of public resources to send this to trial and possibly keep this guy in jail. Proportionality seems a bit out of whack here, a stiff fine seems fair enough.
You're right, I suppose I was just inferring his intent. But from the facts that have been released, it looks like he just posted screenshots of his successful "hack" on 4chan, and didn't try to do anything more nefarious like steal her identity. I could be wrong.
I think my reaction would have been the same had it been Obama, Biden, or any public figure. One big difference for me anyway, would have been if he had accessed a @whitehouse.gov address (whether Bush, Obama or other official). Being able to figure out her pet's name or whatever seems somewhat trivial to merit a jail sentence.
he is a 4channer, malicious intent comes with the territory, but yeah waste of tax payer money, only reason its being prosecuted is because he hacked a celebrity.
hell it wasn't even hacking, all he did was figure out the answer to her "secret question"...I think it was "where did you go to school" or something simple like that
It doesn't matter if the content of the emails was public, breaking into someones email account is wrong. PG: can we ban wired articles for a while? There's been a glut of them recently that have little to do with hacking or startups.
Moreover, the legal standing of privacy for e-mails is very interesting and I doubt I am the only one crious to see where this line of argument goes. For example, it speaks to the question "If I have consented for my employer to scan my email, does that mean my employer has the right to make my emails public"?
