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.

From the arrival:

> 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

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.

>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.

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.

Now I have the opposite feeling. I know that if I ever do something useful that people like, I'll go to jail for it. I don't know how startup founders do it, I guess they need legal backing from an incubator.

>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.

With their skills and nowhere to go, they will be doing this for the government.

You used to do computer science for world of warcraft?! Sounds cool!

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.

> 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.

Must have been my autism, I guess.

I wish they would have turned to Russia or Belarus to do this, it would have been a lot safer for them.

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.

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.

Take it up with lawyers.

It's a magical superpower.

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 )

Schrodinger's hackers. They are simultaneously autistic and skilled at social engineering.

Autism always makes your kids into sociopathic hackers, as we all know. They are also always top of their class in maths and bad at interacting with people

/s

Helps spread memes the BBC wants you to believe. Namely, autistic people bad. See, this is why I think the BBC needs to go.

>The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the rise of young hackers in the UK as one of the biggest threats to the nation's cyber security.

Pity we can't do the same as the Russians and just point them at geopolitical adversaries. Russian viruses have been known to uninstall themselves if they detect Russian language configured on the device.

Like putting kids that get into fights into the military.

It's those hackers on steroids again ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGUIFeNo9ZU )

Those single children have too much time on their hands! I dare say

Idk about Britain, but in the US that’s exactly where they’d end up after serving their sentence.

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)

But that's part of the thing, isn't it?

You don't get to argue that your crime wouldn't have been so bad if your victims weren't incompetent.