Notorious hacktivist shares methods, motives

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141110/us-feds-hacked-the-hacktivist-2a73f532e8.html

Nov 10, 12:54 PM (ET)

By MARTHA MENDOZA



FILE - This March 5, 2012 file photo provided by the Cook County Sheriff's Department in Chicago shows Jeremy Hammond. Once the FBI{2019}s most-wanted cybercriminal, Hammond is serving one of the longest sentences a U.S. hacker has received, 10 years, the maximum allowed under his plea agreement last year. (AP Photo/Cook County Sheriff's Department, File)


MANCHESTER, Ky. (AP) — Cocaine dealers, bank robbers and carjackers converge at Manchester Federal Prison in rural Kentucky — and then there is Jeremy Hammond, a tousle-haired and talented hacker whose nimble fingers have clicked and tapped their way into the nation's computing systems. Among those whose data he helped expose: the husband of the federal judge who sentenced him.

"From the start, I always wanted to target government websites, but also police and corporations that profit off government contracts," he says. "I hacked lots of dot-govs."

An Associated Press report this week found the $10 billion-a-year effort to protect the federal government's extensive computer systems is struggling to keep up with a daily bombardment of cyberattacks from thieves and hostile states that grab Social Security numbers, peruse Pentagon secrets and hijack critical websites. Human error, by way of employee missteps, is often to blame.

Those behind these incidents are a motley group: foreign spies, intellectual property thieves, personal identity peddlers, and, increasingly, politically motivated hacktivists like Hammond. Once the FBI's most-wanted cybercriminal, Hammond is serving one of the longest sentences a U.S. hacker has received — 10 years, the maximum allowed under his plea agreement last year.

FULL story at link.

[al bupp]

1. IMHO, this fellow should have been given a medal, not jail time

He's absolutely right, when at the end of the article he says:

Asked about the larger danger posed by cybercriminals, he laughed at the idea that some consider such attacks as threatening to national security as terrorism.

"I mean, I didn't kill anybody," he said.

At the same time, he knows the risk of nation states or others using a computer to do harm is real.

"If I was capable of doing these things on my own or with my team, what about a well-financed team that trained for years?"