We can still point you the bullshit things the US is doing like trying to say he was breaking felony gun laws going to the shooting ranges on the strip and using that as a reason to stop his bail
1. If evidence proves afterwards that the handling of the arrest was just and for good reason, then I'll admit my fault and apologize. My error in overreaction will mean nothing in the long run.
2. However, if my overreaction is correct but I withheld it, it would be far too late to point out errors by the government later on. News moves too quickly in this age to call out bad actors later. Now is the appropriate time to make as much noise about the potential abuse of power by the government.
3. The government's handing so far shows that they too understand this principle. They are acting in a way that best suits them and are using the fact that reasonable people are going to say exactly what you said to drag this out. At the very least, this practice of theirs without statement is worth calling out.
So my question for all of those who side with your stance is, will you be willing and able to drum up news in major outlets if he government turns out to have acted unjustly?
I think this is so because they are based on the archaic principle of guilt and redemption, and not an ethical system that considers the well-being of everybody involved.
It seems to me that the broader issue is one where HN readers individually writing their senators would have an impact for the time invested.
1) Legislators do not have the time to come to this situation with insight into how the cybersecurity community works. There are simply too many fields of human endeavour and people have to specialize to get things done.
2) This is not an issue like Abortion or the 2nd amendment. Senators can and do change their minds based on input from experts. See Sen. Lindsey Graham's approach to encryption[1]
3) Harm to the US ability to collaborate with its allies is a thing that senators will care about, especially hawks. Right now, they likely have two threats top-of-mind: ISIS and the Iran-Russia-Assad alliance.
What exactly do you want members of the US Congress to do? Pass a bill declaring him innocent?
The quick change in tone in the post is telling, by the way -- it goes from being skeptical that he was involved in a crime at all, to quibbling that not much money was stolen anyway, and if you're going to prosecute over such a tiny thing you should do it in a different country than the one where it was stolen.
The case seems to stem from the takedown of a website called AlphaBay, where a large amount of new cases are now entering the US justice system.
Can someone explain what this means? Is there a news article somewhere explaining the flood of cases created by AlphaBay? Why haven't I heard of other's being prosecuted?
What I personally found interesting about the whole story (which was widely covered in Dutch media, since the police is (rightfully, IMO) proud of their accomplishment) is how the Dutch police were able to keep a darknet site called Hansa running for nearly a month after the servers were seized. The German police arrested the administrators, while the Dutch police moved the servers to Dutch territory, and made them operational again. They then tried to keep the site running, so they could analyse the logs, traffic, and visitors.
Interestingly, the Canadian AlphaBay administrator was residing in Thailand and was logged in at that moment to keep the site running because there were some (artificial) technical difficulties. I'm curious how those were started. If you don't want to confiscate the server, but know where it is, it should be doable to -for example- do massive traffic shaping on the link to make it seem like there's a DoS attack.
AlphaBay was a darknet market. As you might expect, it trafficked in illegal goods. Since authorities seized it and shut it down, they've been able to read the site's data, and can now prosecute all sorts of illegal actions that happened there.
USA is famous for "You face 65248 years in jail, unless you plead guilty and agree to time served and 18 months probation."
But if he wrote the trojan and if a lot of people had their life turned upside down (identity theft and credit report issues aren't fun) I don't see why he shouldn't go to jail, for quite a while.
Please outline the rights that were denied to him. The article that we are commenting about seems to have a completely deluded sense of what his rights are, but maybe we can start the discussion around his specific rights.
Contra the original article, a 23 year-old does not have a fundamental right to talk to mommy and daddy once arrested.
Law enforcement is under no obligation to arrest you as you arrive in country so that you can become a cause celebre to the conference you are about to attend. Neither are they under any obligation to tell you ahead of time that they plan to arrest you.
While the accused has rights, the friends, family, and casual acquaintances of the accused have none. Law enforcement must give Marcus' lawyer access to him, but need not tell random strangers where he is being detained. In the first day or so it is not at all uncommon for someone who has been arrested to be moved from the initial arrest point to a location in the jurisdiction of the indictment or from a local/county holding facility to a federal facility. What Marcus needs to do is shut his mouth, repeat "I am invoking my right to remain silent and wish to speak to my attorney", and NOT SAY ANYTHING.
Oh, he didn't get to communicate immediately with his co-defendant and make sure they have their stories straight? Yeah, major violation of his rights there...
I am not sure what fantasy-land the author of the original post lives in, but even someone with only a passing familiarity with the US legal system would know some of this. Yes, he will get to speak to his attorney and such access by his counsel must be allowed, but there are strict limits on how long he can be denied such access and he should expect the feds to go right up to that limit but not beyond. As someone who apparently has an appreciation for the grey areas in law and society, I am sure we will hear from Marcus how much he appreciates law enforcement taking advantage of the differences between MUST and SHOULD in the societal protocol docs that we call laws and legal precedent.
The tech community's reaction to this is frankly laughable and embarrassing. The man has been accused of a crime. A grand jury has seen enough evidence to indict him. This is the United States of America, where as someone accused of a crime he will have more rights than he would in just about any other jurisdiction in the world.[1]
Yet so many in this forum and elsewhere are spreading ridiculous conspiracy theories and accusing law enforcement of malfeasance, without any evidence whatsoever.
[1] For example, the unqualified rights to remain silent and to a jury trial in which illegally gathered evidence is excluded, neither of which he would have in the UK.
> He has the unqualified right to remain silent and to a jury trial in which illegally gathered evidence is excluded, neither of which he would have in the UK.
Er... go easy on the patriotism, mate. We have those.
Regarding grand jury indictments, it's very, very rare for a grand jury to refuse to indict somebody, so that isn't necessarily a good measure of the quality of the case against the accused. Of roughly 162,000 federal cases brought before grand juries in 2010, indictments were returned for all but 11 of them.
In Japan, for example, one is guilty until proven innocent. They have a 99% conviction rate.
Over course, in America, where things are much better and one is innocent until proven guilty, they only have a 99.8% conviction rate in federal court.
Doesn't the US haven't the biggest prison population per head than any other country in the world?
From what I know of the US criminal justice system it is one of the worse in any democratic country.
Pretty sure that in the UK he would also have the right to remain silent, a fair trial, and also have illegally gathered evidence excluded. Quite the opposite of what happens a lot in the US.
If you want to see the community turn against him it seems all you have to do is accuse him of coincidentally agreeing with Trump on some issues --just notice how Assange's support in the community has withered since some of the things he says undermines the Russia allegations. Whereas most supported him when the same information undermined American credibility.
The US is notoriously bad in dealing with tech cases. The punishment is usually extreme, way beyond the damage caused. Things like DCMA also punish things they shouldn't. US is hardly an example of a fair judicial system.
If anybody watched what they did to Russ Ulbrecht they have a reason to be skeptical. The funny part is that they clearly didn't get the concept of the Dread Pirate Roberts.
So, if I paid someone $1 to commit murder then it wouldn't be egregious? People are judged on the crime they committed not how they benefitted off of it.
EDIT: Note the parent used to claim that $2000 for Malware isn't worth going to Jail for 40 years because its only $2000.
These "white hat" people are really amusing. They sell weapons to criminals and then sell the defense to the victims and then act all indignant when they get arrested.
UK is a high-income country so these things listed as lavish can be done on bus driver level of income. 1950gbp for 7 people is like 280gbp per night, which is less than any luxurious accommodation in London.
An employed UK citizen doesn't have to rob a bank to stay in Las Vegas for few days and rent an exotic car.
Oh and I would not take a Daily Mail article as a facts source. What it could have actually happened is that he created a proof of concept code that can do these things, not actually creating a malware to steal bank details.
[+] [-] thieving_magpie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icpmacdo|8 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/ChristyNews3LV/status/893603855266492416
[+] [-] hysan|8 years ago|reply
1. If evidence proves afterwards that the handling of the arrest was just and for good reason, then I'll admit my fault and apologize. My error in overreaction will mean nothing in the long run.
2. However, if my overreaction is correct but I withheld it, it would be far too late to point out errors by the government later on. News moves too quickly in this age to call out bad actors later. Now is the appropriate time to make as much noise about the potential abuse of power by the government.
3. The government's handing so far shows that they too understand this principle. They are acting in a way that best suits them and are using the fact that reasonable people are going to say exactly what you said to drag this out. At the very least, this practice of theirs without statement is worth calling out.
So my question for all of those who side with your stance is, will you be willing and able to drum up news in major outlets if he government turns out to have acted unjustly?
[+] [-] taneq|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barking|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mchannon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madez|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] afarrell|8 years ago|reply
1) Legislators do not have the time to come to this situation with insight into how the cybersecurity community works. There are simply too many fields of human endeavour and people have to specialize to get things done.
2) This is not an issue like Abortion or the 2nd amendment. Senators can and do change their minds based on input from experts. See Sen. Lindsey Graham's approach to encryption[1]
3) Harm to the US ability to collaborate with its allies is a thing that senators will care about, especially hawks. Right now, they likely have two threats top-of-mind: ISIS and the Iran-Russia-Assad alliance.
[+] [-] ubernostrum|8 years ago|reply
The quick change in tone in the post is telling, by the way -- it goes from being skeptical that he was involved in a crime at all, to quibbling that not much money was stolen anyway, and if you're going to prosecute over such a tiny thing you should do it in a different country than the one where it was stolen.
[+] [-] notwhiteknight|8 years ago|reply
Can someone explain what this means? Is there a news article somewhere explaining the flood of cases created by AlphaBay? Why haven't I heard of other's being prosecuted?
[+] [-] Fnoord|8 years ago|reply
See Operation Bayonet, which became public on july 20 2017:
https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/massive-blow-to-...
Wikipedia might have more information as well. Regarding AlphaBay:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaBay#Seizure_and_shutdown
What I personally found interesting about the whole story (which was widely covered in Dutch media, since the police is (rightfully, IMO) proud of their accomplishment) is how the Dutch police were able to keep a darknet site called Hansa running for nearly a month after the servers were seized. The German police arrested the administrators, while the Dutch police moved the servers to Dutch territory, and made them operational again. They then tried to keep the site running, so they could analyse the logs, traffic, and visitors.
Interestingly, the Canadian AlphaBay administrator was residing in Thailand and was logged in at that moment to keep the site running because there were some (artificial) technical difficulties. I'm curious how those were started. If you don't want to confiscate the server, but know where it is, it should be doable to -for example- do massive traffic shaping on the link to make it seem like there's a DoS attack.
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cosarara97|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tryingagainbro|8 years ago|reply
But if he wrote the trojan and if a lot of people had their life turned upside down (identity theft and credit report issues aren't fun) I don't see why he shouldn't go to jail, for quite a while.
[+] [-] kyrre|8 years ago|reply
This guy is doing 20 years.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] maaaats|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evgen|8 years ago|reply
Contra the original article, a 23 year-old does not have a fundamental right to talk to mommy and daddy once arrested.
Law enforcement is under no obligation to arrest you as you arrive in country so that you can become a cause celebre to the conference you are about to attend. Neither are they under any obligation to tell you ahead of time that they plan to arrest you.
While the accused has rights, the friends, family, and casual acquaintances of the accused have none. Law enforcement must give Marcus' lawyer access to him, but need not tell random strangers where he is being detained. In the first day or so it is not at all uncommon for someone who has been arrested to be moved from the initial arrest point to a location in the jurisdiction of the indictment or from a local/county holding facility to a federal facility. What Marcus needs to do is shut his mouth, repeat "I am invoking my right to remain silent and wish to speak to my attorney", and NOT SAY ANYTHING.
Oh, he didn't get to communicate immediately with his co-defendant and make sure they have their stories straight? Yeah, major violation of his rights there...
I am not sure what fantasy-land the author of the original post lives in, but even someone with only a passing familiarity with the US legal system would know some of this. Yes, he will get to speak to his attorney and such access by his counsel must be allowed, but there are strict limits on how long he can be denied such access and he should expect the feds to go right up to that limit but not beyond. As someone who apparently has an appreciation for the grey areas in law and society, I am sure we will hear from Marcus how much he appreciates law enforcement taking advantage of the differences between MUST and SHOULD in the societal protocol docs that we call laws and legal precedent.
[+] [-] lucaspiller|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehwebguy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] celticninja|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] wildmusings|8 years ago|reply
Yet so many in this forum and elsewhere are spreading ridiculous conspiracy theories and accusing law enforcement of malfeasance, without any evidence whatsoever.
[1] For example, the unqualified rights to remain silent and to a jury trial in which illegally gathered evidence is excluded, neither of which he would have in the UK.
[+] [-] opaque|8 years ago|reply
Er... go easy on the patriotism, mate. We have those.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_an...
The US system also has flaws not present in our system (at least for now) e.g. Plea Bargains.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/apr/27/traditional-tria...
[+] [-] teuobk|8 years ago|reply
https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/ferguson-michael-brown-i...
[+] [-] santoriv|8 years ago|reply
Over course, in America, where things are much better and one is innocent until proven guilty, they only have a 99.8% conviction rate in federal court.
Yay America.
http://justicedenied.org/wordpress/archives/3190
[+] [-] ThinkBeat|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] niujhyt|8 years ago|reply
From what I know of the US criminal justice system it is one of the worse in any democratic country.
Pretty sure that in the UK he would also have the right to remain silent, a fair trial, and also have illegally gathered evidence excluded. Quite the opposite of what happens a lot in the US.
[+] [-] mc32|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nvarsj|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 80211|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] scandox|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] LARGEGALAXY|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dexterdog|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] armitron|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] josh2600|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zitterbewegung|8 years ago|reply
EDIT: Note the parent used to claim that $2000 for Malware isn't worth going to Jail for 40 years because its only $2000.
[+] [-] nowo|8 years ago|reply
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/41-months-weev-underst...
[+] [-] _Codemonkeyism|8 years ago|reply
If I sell someone Anthrax for $1, my punishment should be based on the $1 amount?
[+] [-] cm2187|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fnoord|8 years ago|reply
I also question if the conversion of BTC worth was based on what it was worth back when the alleged crime was committed.
[+] [-] throwme_1980|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x0|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calafrax|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|8 years ago|reply
Where did he all has the money from, which he spent in Vegas? It looks very suspicious to me. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4762608/Marcus-Hutch...
* Rented a Lamborghini, and wanted to rent a helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon.
* Stayed at a £1,950-a-night mansion rented with seven friends with Vegas' largest private pool. Who paid for this?
* Didn't attend the 2 conferences there.
* Admitted in a police interview that he created the code of a malware that harvests bank details, a prosecutor said in a Las Vegas court.
[+] [-] sasas|8 years ago|reply
"He stayed in our villa for free. He didn't pay for the car. He didn't pay for a helicopter ride. He didn't pay for concert tickets..." [1]
He takes home a 6 figure salary [2]
[1] https://twitter.com/mabbssec/status/893617953530273792
[2] https://twitter.com/mabbssec/status/893624617142759425
[+] [-] mrtksn|8 years ago|reply
An employed UK citizen doesn't have to rob a bank to stay in Las Vegas for few days and rent an exotic car.
Oh and I would not take a Daily Mail article as a facts source. What it could have actually happened is that he created a proof of concept code that can do these things, not actually creating a malware to steal bank details.
[+] [-] trollied|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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