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#kids#more#person#don#autism#online#shit#consequences#social#why

Discussion (68 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

jonathanlydallabout 2 hours ago
Remembering back, I certainly lacked a lot of critical reasoning which could have led me to do possibly equally stupid stuff like this had I the skill in my early teens. As I remember it, life felt more like a "game" in that you do whatever it lets you, without much consideration of whether people will be (potentially very) upset with what you've done. In person activities stood high risk of getting caught, but online it seems more like a computer game and the people on the other side of your actions feel more abstract.

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.

These kids discovered that their actions have consequences to them in person and not just someone being upset with them remotely.

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.

I wonder if maybe 10 or so years from now, after these kids have actually reached decent emotional maturity, that they'll look back at their actions and think about how stupidly reckless and needlessly destructive they were, to both others and their own lives.

Kichererbsenabout 2 hours ago
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.
Aeolunabout 1 hour ago
You can absolutely blow your lid, you just have to apologize afterwards and admit that you were wrong. This is very hard for some adults to do to a 5 year old.
ilinx36 minutes ago
I understand that some people have trouble apologizing to children, but could someone help me understand why? I’ve been a parent for almost a decade now, and I can’t count the number of important teaching and bonding moments that have started with me making a parenting mistake and apologizing for it. I rely on it pretty heavily to teach my kid about emotional regulation. It’s such an important opportunity to just throw away. Is it an ego thing? Do people struggle to see children as people? I promise those are good-faith questions. I know some people struggle more with that sort of thing, and that’s fine. We all have our strengths.
LoganDark21 minutes ago
It really depends on what blowing your lid looks like. Regardless of whether you make up for it later, if you make yourself a reputation of it, others will learn to avoid the initial blow-up in the first place
Aurornisabout 2 hours ago
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

harvey9about 1 hour ago
Lacking ability to cover their tracks.
illliillllabout 1 hour ago
It’s extremely easy for a kid to commit tens, or even hundreds of crimes in a matter of hours on the internet.
exe34about 1 hour ago
Or hire them into gchq on a short leash.
Aerroon32 minutes ago
>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.

LaGrange25 minutes ago
Yeah, that too. Like, being old enough to get my start largely in internet cafes means I actually _had_ in-person interactions with the type of person we're talking about - and they were _not_ nicer.

Being kinda big I might even stand a chance against one - unless they had a knife, which they probably IME did - but there was always at least 5 of the "lonely lost boys," at least one carrying a baseball bat everywhere.

1970-01-01about 1 hour ago
>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.

folkravabout 2 hours ago
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.
pixl97about 1 hour ago
With the number of 'crazy karen' and 'crazy kyle' videos online, maybe over half of them would.
thejokeisonmeabout 2 hours ago
You used to do computer science for world of warcraft?! Sounds cool!
jareklupinskiabout 1 hour ago
no they did Content Sharing for Weekend on Wednesdays
cucumber3732842about 1 hour ago
He admin'd their Counter Strike server.
jfyiabout 2 hours ago
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.
bityardabout 1 hour ago
Not sure if you're aware already and omitted it for brevity but maybe for others who might not already know: Abignale made up everything (or nearly everything) he claimed to have done in his book and in the movie. He was still taking advantage of people during this time, but the acts were far more mundane (and slimy) than his claims. He was a con man for sure, but not the "brilliant but misguided criminal gets redemption" that he portrays.
jfyi22 minutes ago
Nope, I never heard that. It doesn't surprise me one bit though. I always found his talks sort of robotic, and having caught a handful, very rote. I always thought he didn't have the demeanor of the person he claimed to be.
irishcoffee39 minutes ago
It isn't surprising though, him lying about his past. A con man is a con man, after all.
inigyouabout 2 hours ago
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.
williamdcltabout 2 hours ago
I don't understand what you mean, can you explain?
inigyouabout 2 hours ago
Let's say I invented a genius way to use cryptography to send anonymous payments, I'd go to jail for doing that (Tornado Cash). Let's say I made a secure messenger, I'd go to jail for that (Telegram, EncroChat, SkyECC) or narrowly avoid jail (Session) or be forced to add a backdoor (Anom). Let's say I made an operating system that didn't spy on you, I'd be threatened with jail for that (GrapheneOS). And of course there are more things, for which there will be more consequences (mostly jail) but for things that haven't been done yet there are obviously no examples offhand.

Basically everything that fits outside of existing patterns is illegal one way or another. Only people who are naïve to these consequences will ever be motivated to make these things.

LaGrange28 minutes ago
> 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.

grim_ioabout 2 hours ago
With their skills and nowhere to go, they will be doing this for the government.
grubbsabout 2 hours ago
I think this was true in the 90s and 2000s. When not everyone was a script kiddie. But why hire someone that literally didn't write their own exploit? Sounds like the most advanced thing they did was just social engineering and dumping a DB.
jfyiabout 2 hours ago
You remember a way different 90's than I do.

It was just simpler back then. There was no aslr, no hardware level protection from execution, traffic was all plaintext, switches didn't exist, or maybe they did but just nobody used them and everything on every network was just one giant collision domain, developers by and large didn't even think about securing software outside of DRM, and absolutely nobody understood the basic premise that someone on the phone may be lying to your business to get access to things they want.

The skillset that made you a 1337 h4x0r in the 90's makes you a mediocre sysadmin these days.

swarnieabout 2 hours ago
I doubt it, these kids are never getting clearance.

I expect to find them at an MSP with a firm equal opportunities policy.

exe34about 1 hour ago
I wish they would have turned to Russia or Belarus to do this, it would have been a lot safer for them.
stavrosabout 2 hours ago
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.

kayo_20211030about 2 hours ago
When I see this it makes me depressed.

> gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.

The whole edifice was built on a helpful, possibly overworked and possibly harassed help desk worker? The end result is that two kids end up in jail. It could have been so different, and better. What they did was wrong for sure, and has real-world consequences for those whose information was leaked. But, when I look at the contingencies that led to the outcome, it really does depress me.

"all for the want of a nail"

Aeolunabout 1 hour ago
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.
throwaway88866622 minutes ago
Britain got talent I guess.

They are teenagers. They don't belong in prison, they belong in an any cybercrime agency.

d-lowlabout 2 hours ago
>Jubair and Flowers who both have autism, gained access to the data by tricking a phone help desk worker.

What does this have to do with anything in this article.

amiga386about 1 hour ago
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 )

Aurornisabout 2 hours ago
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.

Der_Einzigeabout 2 hours ago
The chris chan special.
masfuerteabout 2 hours ago
Schrodinger's hackers. They are simultaneously autistic and skilled at social engineering.
d-us-vbabout 1 hour ago
Autistic people are unusually good at studying patterns objectively. While each individual person is... an individual, studying a sample from a population yields patterns, and thus the justification for the "social sciences". While autistic people may struggle with in person communication and upholding norms of human interaction, they do not generally struggle with understanding game theory, motives, and other aspects of rational decision making. So they can indeed make brilliant (and ruthless) social engineers if only when hiding behind a computer keyboard.
watwutabout 1 hour ago
That is not autism, that is sociopathy. Autism does not turn on and off when you can gain something from it.

In your telling, autism is an excuse when they abuse others, because they cant help themselves. But, when it is for their benefit, the same person actually displays higher social skills.

illliillll43 minutes ago
Why assume they’re skilled at social engineering? The victims tend to be trusting and helpful, they’ll just do what you ask because they want to help.
d-us-vb4 minutes ago
I'm not assuming anything. I'm explaining that they can be, because the original comment made it sound like autistic people can't understand social behavior at any level.
voidUpdateabout 2 hours ago
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

rapidaneurismabout 2 hours ago
Unless it is to trick them into resetting a password over the phone that is
inigyouabout 2 hours ago
Helps spread memes the BBC wants you to believe. Namely, autistic people bad. See, this is why I think the BBC needs to go.
Steve16384about 2 hours ago
Why on earth would the BBC want or care for people to believe that? Are they in the pay of the anti-autism league? We're through the looking glass people!
billygatesgruffabout 1 hour ago
I advise people to start looking into the case of the traitor and double agent Chris Packham
inigyouabout 2 hours ago
I don't know but they've been spreading this kind of thing for a while. See also how they report on the middle east.
erelongabout 1 hour ago
do you think there is a way to divert kids like this into some kind of useful programming / IT direction and if so what do you think would be the best way to handle this

(like a group that takes black hat hackers to white hat hacker projects?)

kids with like anti-social or aggressive tendencies plus maybe some tech "skillz"

kortillaabout 1 hour ago
Like putting kids that get into fights into the military.
VladVladikoffabout 2 hours ago
I don’t really have 16 hours to burn watching a live stream recording, but I kinda want to watch it for the lolz.
smith-kyleabout 1 hour ago
Sad that they're being sentenced based on the impact of the response by TfL's IT team
victorbjorklundabout 1 hour ago
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)
cucumber373284240 minutes ago
The building owner has a degree of duty to mitigate loss. They can't go around opening doors and windows after the fire is started but before the fire department gets there and be all "whoops not my fault blame it on the guy who started the fire" regardless of how the fire started.
roryirvine31 minutes ago
The duty to mitigate loss is a concept in contract law, and its main use is in calculating damages (ie. you can't claim damages for a loss that you ought to have mitigated)

It would definitely come into play if TfL were suing Jubair & Flowers, but it's not really relevant in a criminal situation like this.

dofmabout 1 hour ago
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.

antiheroabout 1 hour ago
Ah so a little more serious than gang rape, I guess. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cd0m38xndp3t
smallnixabout 2 hours ago
> The court heard the single child was given his first laptop at the age of 10 by his parents - carers who moved to London from Bangladesh.

Ah.. I hate when stereotypes play out like this. It's always those single children.

amiga38638 minutes ago
It's those hackers on steroids again ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGUIFeNo9ZU )
parisislesabout 1 hour ago
(the french laundry)
Retr0idabout 2 hours ago
> Woolwich Crown Court heard both men [...] spent most of their time online unsupervised.

Such an infantilising and surveillance-normalizing slant. Why is it worthy of mention that an adult spent time unsupervised? (Sure, one of them was 17 at the time, but that didn't stop them from waiting until he was 18 to charge him)

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