British man Lauri Love was arrested in Suffolk for hacking into U.S. government servers.
Hacking is getting harder to control, if the US Army, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, NASA, the U.S. federal reserve, the Department of Health and Human Services, the US Sentencing Commission, the Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory and the US Department of Energy gets hacked by one guy and a couple of accomplices. Lauri Love who is 28 years old, hacked into Federal Reserve computers, stole personal information, and put it all online for others to use. The information included personal identification information of people authorized to use the network, names, email addresses, and phone numbers. After putting all this sensitive information on a website Love controlled, it was believed a faction of the hacking group Anonymous hacked into the website and posted around the same time the information was put on the site this.
Yes we posted over 4000 U.S. bank executive credentials http://t.co/kDmgH8dN
Yes we posted over 4000 U.S. bank executive credentials http://t.co/kDmgH8dN
— OpLastResort (@OpLastResort) February 4, 2013
Nothing of significance was shown by the hackers however said some bank officials, no passwords or accounts were compromised, like you would think.
"The information that was on the contact system was the same thing that was on my business card, so it wasn't like it was anything that could do any harm to me or the bank." Illinois' Community First Bank President and CEO Jo David Cummins told Reuters.
Still the hack ordeal collectively still cost millions of dollars of damages to government victims and dozens of computer servers' functions were substantially impaired. Love isn't charged in the U.K. yet, and is on bail at the moment but he was ordered to hand over his personal encryption keys to the local government under Britain’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 by Feb. 7 or face repercussions, including possible jail time. If he is tried in the U.S. and found guilty Love faces a maximum of 12 years in prison. Prosecutors in New York, New Jersey and Virginia have all accused Love, of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act like Aaron Swartz a hacker and computer prodigy, committed suicide while waiting to stand trial for his hacking charges. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is the same hacking law that OpLastResort rallied to reform last year.
Though hacking may be a crime, I agree with OpLastResort and Lauri Love's parents in that Lauri love shouldn't be prosecuted in the U.S. under the act, because he isn't a serious criminal that should be put in the same prison with other United States criminals. I assume that the United Kingdom is more forgiving for hackers and that's why BBC would rather he be convicted in the U.K.'s justice system, and I agree. The U.S. is tough on criminals, and for Lauri Love who may have hacked into several government websites just didn't do a lot of serious harm on the United States government the sentence may just be harsh. I think hackers shouldn't face a similar sentence as other serious criminals such as bank robbers, rapists, and violent criminals , because they are pretty much computer geeks and wouldn't survive in a prison setting like that. Depending on the hack, I think hackers should just work for the government under a period of time in a better facility than prison, some hackers are spared from harsher punishments because of their skills already. They should be closely watched on computers, and limited to what they can do that can lead to hacking on computers for a long period of time. I think hackers, graffiti artists, and other minor criminals that pose little harm to people should be allowed more freedoms if they get imprisoned. I also think there should be programs that could help them learn new ways to use their skilled to do good, many graffiti artists do commissioned mural art or learn to use their art in new ways, hackers are the same, they have a skill that they can do something else with.
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