The Autistic Hacker: is He at Fault?

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WorldCritic

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Asperger's isn't as severe as actual autism, and I know people who have Asperger's, so no, I don't think his condition should be used as an excuse.
 

Wintermoot

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daltonlaffs said:
Frankly, yes, he should still be charged.

I don't care if you have ADHD or autism or Asperger's Syndrome, that should not be a free pass for anything at all. None of those conditions are untreatable, nor are they even remotely difficult to treat. We as a culture need to stop feeling bad for these sorts of people with extremely minor mental disorders, and stop letting them use it as an excuse or scapegoat.

Schizophrenia, maybe, would be another story. But certainly not Asperger's.
actually ADHD and Aspergers are untreatable (Ritalin only combat,s the "symptoms")
but I agree people should stop using scape goats when they do stuff.
 

StBishop

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If he is that incapable of making judgements then he needs to be cared for permanently and possibly, denied access to any terminals with Internet access for the safety of others.

Technically, if the entire US defence force lost access to files of import terrible things could have happened to US citizens or citizens or their ally nations. Sure it obviously didn't happen, and was unlikely, but it could have and as I'm a citizen of two of the US's ally nations and resident of one of those, I'm keen on them having a fully operational defence force. For all my pissing and moaning about the terrible things in the US (WBC anyone?), I like being friends with the biggest kid in the play ground.

He also cost tax payers a large sum, he needs to be held accountable for that. Someone does.

Kiraxa said:
assburgers people are just a bunch of attention-whoring dickshits. The proper term for their "illness" is Autistic Psychopathy. Any other group of psychopaths are locked up for the good of mankind, but assburgers have convinced the world they're special. Lock him up for life. And then pass a law that requires euthanization of anyone who uses assburgers as an excuse.
Don't be obnoxious and generalise so much. One of the posters in this very thread has said that they have Asperger's so stop being a prick.

Note how I took exception to your actions, not you or anything over which you have no control. This is how to be civil (and bonus points for being pretentious) try it some time.
 

Hybridwolf

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On the one hand, yes he caused a great deal of damage, turned off several military systems post 9/11 and caused alot of damage. But on the other, if you belive the man himself, he found a system with no protection leaving notes informing the US goverment. Considering he'll stuggle to prove that one, it seems the US has the upperhand here. Except that their attempts to move a person who has known mental problems and who would more then likely commit sucide if extridated are bizarrely zealous and their disregard for the British Legal System is very insulting. Also, it's been ten years since this happened. America are still pushing to get a single person to America, whilst groups like LOLsec and anon are still running amock. The worlds police my arse.

I'd also like to point out the reason why he's arguing is because he is suicidal.

McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp, claimed that he was suicidal and that he would not survive a U.S. prison incarceration...

Mitting distinguished two issues which were arguable, the first being whether Professor Turk's opinion that McKinnon would certainly commit suicide if extradited means that the Home Secretary must refuse extradition under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (which prevents a public authority from acting in a way incompatible with convention rights).

The autistic part of this arguement is not important, it's the issue that he may take his life.
 

Dirkie

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Basically he knew what he was doing, and aspergers syndrome is as much an argument to get him free as left handedness or having red hair.
It does not relieve you from any kind of responsebility, because the person with asperger is by no means insane or crazy, just a little bit different in his or her perception.

*small note, i was diagnosed with it as well 5 years ago, and it explained a lot of trouble, but it never, ever occured to me that i was allowed to break any rule whatsoever because i'm looking at things in a different way.
 

TheLastSamurai14

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Mar 23, 2011
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henritje said:
I have aspergers and some of us are attention whores but so are "normal" people (for example: Charlie Sheen or Paris Hilton) and unlike Chris Chandler most of us are mentally stable and form no threat to the society.
Implying Chris is a threat to society? If you know him at all, you'd know he just sits in his room playing video games all day. He's only tried once to hit-and-run a man he deeply loathed.

OT: He shouldn't be let off the hook. Asperger's doesn't determine the entirety or even the majority of one's actions.
 

Wintermoot

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Gametek said:
Excuse me, my question is different. Did he even found anything on the UFO matter?

As for the prison, it's -tecnically- impossible. Gary is british, and last time I checked, US stand for United State. The USA are powerfull, but not to the point of arrest a citizen of another country. And I think that the England government will be all over Gary information, trying to steal any single private file of USA. They will obviusly try to stop, or at least buy some time, to take a look to any single Data in Gary's Harddisks...
maybe the US put INTERPOL on him (hacking into a government database is allot more serious then hacking a game development studio for beta,s)
also I don,t think they would find anything on his HDD,s (assuming the US has information on extraterrestrial life they wouldn't keep it in a obvious place like the Pentagon or wherever he hacked into it would be hidden in something like a porn stash or family photos of a government official)
 

Wintermoot

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TLS14 said:
henritje said:
I have aspergers and some of us are attention whores but so are "normal" people (for example: Charlie Sheen or Paris Hilton) and unlike Chris Chandler most of us are mentally stable and form no threat to the society.
Implying Chris is a threat to society? If you know him at all, you'd know he just sits in his room playing video games all day. He's only tried once to hit-and-run a man he deeply loathed.
You are right but like you said he almost ran his boss over for I think it was getting fired.
 

DevilWithaHalo

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To my knowledge, Aspergers is not a *compulsion* problem, like say; Narcolepsy. One is entirely beyond the control of the individual while the other is a? behavioral limitation. Aspergers no more demands someone hack into a government agency for curiosity then being male demands raping a woman for sex?s sake.

There's a big difference in not understanding social cues and outright ignoring consequential provisions. In other words, you might not know to shake my hand when I greet you, but you do know not to walk into traffic.

Take his condition with as much consideration as it deserves; not much if any.
 

Wintermoot

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Kiraxa said:
henritje said:
daltonlaffs said:
Frankly, yes, he should still be charged.

I don't care if you have ADHD or autism or Asperger's Syndrome, that should not be a free pass for anything at all. None of those conditions are untreatable, nor are they even remotely difficult to treat. We as a culture need to stop feeling bad for these sorts of people with extremely minor mental disorders, and stop letting them use it as an excuse or scapegoat.

Schizophrenia, maybe, would be another story. But certainly not Asperger's.
actually ADHD and Aspergers are untreatable (Ritalin only combat,s the "symptoms")
but I agree people should stop using scape goats when they do stuff.
Assburgers is treatable. A bullet to the head, or locked in a padded room for the rest of your life. Society doesn't tolerate any form of psychopathy other than autistic psychopathy, and that makes no sense. Lock em up. All of em.
I actually have asspergers and as you might see I,m perfectly fine it,s idiots like Chris Chandler that makes us all look insane.
also I don,t defend the hacker he should be treated as any other person regardless of race/heritage/autism.
 

Gametek

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Kiraxa said:
Let him suicide. One less psychopath in the world.
This is the fird post where you cry for the death of another man due to some mental problem. I don't know your problem, but this is way over the top, Kiraxa.
 

TakerFoxx

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Kiraxa said:
Correct good sir. Assburgers is what happens when you have an "intelligent" autistic mixed with psychopathy. By definition. "Autistischen Psychopathen" is the name of it. Of course no one calls it that because they'd rather hide under the name of the doctor who outlined it.
Dude, you best be trolling.

Anyway, I don't see why it's even considered an issue. Like many people here, I've also been diagnosed with Asperger's, and unless this guy has a particularly severe case or something else on top of it, he would be perfectly capable of telling right from wrong.
 

ElNeroDiablo

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I have (genetic) Asperger's Syndrome, and whilst I call BS on the US govo (hell, pretty much ANY govo at the moment since they all seem to want to fuck over their citizens and then the world in their own way) with those figures, I do ~NOT~ believe that this "hacker" (gawd I hate that term being thrown around these days) should try and use AS as a "get out of jail free" card nor should he get pulled out of Britain (which has it's own fucking laws that don't kowtow to your own, United States) and dragged over the coals over this hyped-up BS.

AS is a "condition" that can be helped and trained around (not "cured" or any other magic-bullet fix-all people think science can provide), but most forms of medication for disabilities like ADD or ADHD can actually make things WORSE for someone with AS (or another Autism Spectrum Disorder that isn't ADD/ADHD).
 

Gametek

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henritje said:
Gametek said:
Excuse me, my question is different. Did he even found anything on the UFO matter?

As for the prison, it's -tecnically- impossible. Gary is british, and last time I checked, US stand for United State. The USA are powerfull, but not to the point of arrest a citizen of another country. And I think that the England government will be all over Gary information, trying to steal any single private file of USA. They will obviusly try to stop, or at least buy some time, to take a look to any single Data in Gary's Harddisks...
maybe the US put INTERPOL on him (hacking into a government database is allot more serious then hacking a game development studio for beta,s)
also I don,t think they would find anything on his HDD,s (assuming the US has information on extraterrestrial life they wouldn't keep it in a obvious place like the Pentagon or wherever he hacked into it would be hidden in something like a porn stash or family photos of a government official)
It's not important the fact that it's UFO Data or not. Any military, social study, spy location, future war plane, etc. is of vital interest for another state government. It's for this reason that organization like CIA and MK5 have born. The fact that he had steal even only a giga of their data can turn out in an hundred of reserved information.
 

Thamian

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Soviet Heavy said:
Thamian said:
The fact that this is still being talked about atleast means he hasn't been extradited (yet I know but...) which as far as I'm concerned is a good thing. That particular extradition treaty really sticks in my craw.
Probably bothers him as well. Guess he should have thought about the consequences before he started acting like an asshole.
Ok, first, I'm going to remember that I'm on the Escapist and trust that as such I'm not being trolled.

Second, I am in no way defending what he did. He should be charged and convicted, because, frankly, at this point it's pretty much a given that he's guilty and what not, maybe with some mitigation of sentence due to his condition but that's it.

No, no, my problem is with the terms of an extradition treaty between two countries which is heavily biased in favour of one or other of them (to the point where it's relatively easy for one of them to extradite the other's citizens, yet virtually impossible for the opposite to happen in anything other less serious than murder or rape). If the media hadn't picked up on this story (partly for the smugness of a brit in his bedroom going to town on the US military's networks, and partly for the opportunity to beat the government round the head on the treaty issue a bit more), then this guy would have long since been extradited.

Yes, ok there's the more complex issue of policing internet crime and what laws they should be tried under when carried out over international boundaries which this case also raises (he was in the UK whe he did it, but the harm was done in the USA, so where was the crime carried out?) and I would love it if some of these idiot journos would actually talk about that (a really important topic) for a change instead of all this tabloid shock BS about the treaty (important, but beaten to death and framed in tabloid terms most of the time that subsequently demeans the whole shebang) or his asberger's (which really isn't that important in the grand scheme of things, though of course I suppose, is in this case).

Wow, I may have gone on a bit there....
 

aba1

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Mar 18, 2010
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henritje said:
daltonlaffs said:
Frankly, yes, he should still be charged.

I don't care if you have ADHD or autism or Asperger's Syndrome, that should not be a free pass for anything at all. None of those conditions are untreatable, nor are they even remotely difficult to treat. We as a culture need to stop feeling bad for these sorts of people with extremely minor mental disorders, and stop letting them use it as an excuse or scapegoat.

Schizophrenia, maybe, would be another story. But certainly not Asperger's.
actually ADHD and Aspergers are untreatable (Ritalin only combat,s the "symptoms")
but I agree people should stop using scape goats when they do stuff.
huh funny people keep telling me that I need to tell MORE people I have ADD because I I am constantly not catching things in classes and dazing off in lectures so I miss important things and end up failing assignments but I guess your right its my fault...
 

Dogstile

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Kiraxa said:
Hybridwolf said:
On the one hand, yes he caused a great deal of damage, turned off several military systems post 9/11 and caused alot of damage. But on the other, if you belive the man himself, he found a system with no protection leaving notes informing the US goverment. Considering he'll stuggle to prove that one, it seems the US has the upperhand here. Except that their attempts to move a person who has known mental problems and who would more then likely commit sucide if extridated are bizarrely zealous and their disregard for the British Legal System is very insulting. Also, it's been ten years since this happened. America are still pushing to get a single person to America, whilst groups like LOLsec and anon are still running amock. The worlds police my arse.
Let him suicide. One less psychopath in the world.
Psychopath? I got an autistic guy to explain why he was so obsessed with cars and he told me "its like an annoying nag, I just want to know or it bothers me, much like you people get with random facts or trivia".

Doesn't sound psychopathic to me at all.
 

Dexiro

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Reduced charge + mandatory support. The amount his charge is reduced by should be based on how bad his aspergers is.