In lieu of writing a big post about the recent sentencing of Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer, I am going to link to a very comprehensive post from Attrition.Org, with just a few comments.

In The Beginning, There Were Hackers

There has always been a prejudice against hackers - hacking is seen as the witchcraft of the digital era. But the truth is, basic hacking is just an expression of simple curiosity.

If someone builds something and gives it to you, are you not curious about how it works? That is the persistent nudge of the hacker mindset.

This curiosity is what causes someone to see a URL like "http://slackertalk.com/index.php?board_id=16666" and think "Hey, what happens if I change that to http://slackertalk.com/index.php?board_id=16667". This is the core of what Weev was sentenced for; he just did it 114,000 times and released the info to the media. Not even for profit.

And Reagan Saw The Hackers, And He Said "Let There Be Cybercriminals"

The truth of the matter is, hacking is a carefully honed set of skills, just like lockpicking. But locksmiths also use lockpicking as part of their professional skill set, as many computer professionals use hacking.

No great skill was required for this "hack". It wasn't even a penetration of the system - AT&T built the system in such a way that ANYONE ON THE INTERNET could ask it "Give me information about Customer X", and the system would happily say "Here you go!"

Weev was the one who asked. AT&T is the one who shouldn't have answered.

Weev is essentially an internet performance artist - what happened at his trial and sentencing is loosely analogous to Harry Houdini being put in federal prison for three years because he happened to pick the wrong vendor's lock. And the vendor's lock was little more than a poorly-knotted piece of string with no indication that it should not be untied.

I'd suggest that AT&T harbors the true blame for this incident, at least in accordance with the Pareto Principle (AT&T being 80% to blame, Weev 20%). I rather suspect that they may have pressured the DOJ to pursue this with a vengeance on their behalf; but, we know from the Aaron Swartz incident that the DOJ itself is more than happy to be overzealous in their witch-hunts.

The Lesser Of Two Weevs

The Lesser of Two Weevs - bit.ly/WDmQho (because you needed more commentary on it)

— attrition.org (@attritionorg) March 19, 2013