Fake Hacker Found Guilty Following Gutsy Mitt Romney Extortion Scheme (softpedia.com) 108
An anonymous reader writes: "Michael Mancil Brown, 37, of Franklin, Tennessee, faces up to thirty years in prison, a fine up to $250,000, and orders of restitution to victims, because of a daring stunt he pulled off in 2012 that involved fake hacking the PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting firm, and US presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Back in 2012, Brown had the bright idea to write a letter alleging to have hacked PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) servers and stolen tax documents prior to 2010 for Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann," writes Softpedia. The "hacker" asked for $1 million in Bitcoin, and after publishing details about his fake hack online, he almost received it from a "third-party," but not before the FBI arrested him and then uncovered his lie. Last Friday, Brown was found guilty and then convicted of six counts of wire fraud and six counts of using facilities of interstate commerce to commit extortion.
sentencing (in August) will be interesting (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be curious to see what kind of sentence he gets in August. The "faces up to" maximum theoretical penalties are less useful than Comcast's "up to 50 Mbps*" advertising.
* speed may be significantly lower during peak periods, business hours, evenings,nights, weekends, maintenance windows, and other times.
Re: sentencing (in August) will be interesting (Score:1)
It makes more sense when you change "up to" to "not more than".
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The password to the encrypted files were posted on pastebin 4 years ago, if anyone still has the encrypted files, why not open them up again and let us know what the tax returns actually said. The password was qGre452ohxb0JptvQIzvA7wdCS9r0vP54iVefEynM10ApLnfw6HgB9QTkR0MMRP for the files, did anyone ever write a story about what was in them? I think the password is still cached in search engines today.
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* speed may be significantly lower during peak periods, business hours, evenings, days, nights, afternoons, weekends, maintenance windows, and all other times.
FTFY
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> You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Isn't it interesting that Alzheimer's Reagan was one of the best presidents of the last 50 years. People complain about presidents Obama and Clinton not doing anything, but I'm starting to really think that's a good thing in a president; just not screwing things up and causing problems. Clinton came into office as the economy was starting to grow nicely and rather than mess with it
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"Reagan was one of the best presidents of the last 50 years"
You can't be serious. I'd put him in the bottom three of that period.
His was the most corrupt administration in my lifetime. Have you forgotten Ollie North's conviction for destruction of evidence? Have you forgotten all the pardons George H. W. Bush granted for Reagan's people, including the Secretary of State?
When he wasn't corrupt, he was just horrible. His AIDS policy ("let the queers and drug addicts die") resulted in the poisoning of the bloo
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Isn't it interesting that Alzheimer's Reagan was one of the best presidents of the last 50 years.
You're either ignorant, stupid or a troll. There is no other reasonable conclusion.
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I believe, sir, that you many be onto something.
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By your repeated use of "fake", you've demonstrated that you can be a fake-anything. Just because "hacker" is precious to you, it's not uniquely un-fakeable.
captcha: nipple. Those, my friend, are real.
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captcha: nipple. Those, my friend, are real.
Not for most of slashdot, my friend, no they are not. They are as foreign and fake as a cosplay girl who is actually pretty. (And an actual girl.)
Point of Order| Define:hacker (Score:2)
Social Engineering is a very olde hacquer trick.
In fact didn't somebody named Mitnick do a bunch of time with next to no programming skills??
(but was barred from anything better than a 10 key calculator for another several years)
Gutsy? (Score:5, Informative)
Not just "Gutsy" (Score:5, Insightful)
Committing a crime in a country with robust law enforcement takes bravery...
But this extortionist is not merely "gutsy" — the "stunt" is also described in the write-up as "daring"... Carefully selecting terms and adjectives for (not so) subtle spin — while remaining factually correct — is what they teach in journalism classes. But some people are just natural — Vladimir Putin's weaponized propaganda organization [observer.com] would be most interested.
When the subject is described as "gutsy" and "daring", the punishment seems excessive — even if only to subconsciousness. Were it "plucky" and "outrageous" and a "crime" (or, better yet, a "felony"), rather than a "stunt", you'd be less likely to develop any sympathy for the criminal.
It also helps prevent any sympathy for the victim of the crime — see, it is Mitt Romney's own fault, according to many posters here, not all of them anonymous. (Should not have worn so short a skirt, if he did not want to be raped. [rationalwiki.org])
Re:Not just "Gutsy" (Score:4, Insightful)
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Bravery and stupidity are not mutually exclusive, despite the fact that bravery has a much better connotation.
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Ballsy is the correct word for the title. Confronting Romney doesn't require any intestinal fortitude.
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Pretty much a given that the "third party" was an FBI agent.
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Yeah, especially seeing as these extortion attempts have no real way to ensure the payoff actually buys silence. There's no way to hand over the "originals" of the documents.
"Pay me 1 million dollars in Bitcoin equivalent, and I totally promise to not immediately turn around and release the data anyway. No really, I totally won't!"
Any real operative on the Romney side would probably stall for time while they try to get a strategy together for some spin, but they wouldn't believe that they "make it go away
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Republicans don't trust anyone that doesn't splash themselves with Holy Ghost water.
Mitt Romney belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The LDS Church does not make use of "holy water"; instead when our elders give blessings we anoint with consecrated olive oil.
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Plus the whole cannibalism thing. They eat bread that they lie and claim is human flesh. They are so violent. Imagine forcing children to be cannibals and telling them you're going to burn them if they refuse to be cannibals b
Hyperbole much? Get your denominations right. While Catholicism believes the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ, most denominations don't believe in transmogrification. Mitt Romney belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe the bread and water of the Lord's supper are emblems of the Lord's Atonement.
Tax documents worth $1 million? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are forgetting the news here is usually crap (Score:3, Interesting)
It said a "third party" almost paid him. That could be anyone including a wealthy member of the opposite political party.
But the news here is always misleading baiting crap these days.
There are precious few articles here these days that you can really trust the headline or summary to be exactly what it sounds like.
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And after that, I'm still wondering what presidential candidate (or one of his supporters) would...keep his financial data secret, when other candidates publish their tax returns to prove that they can look their voters in the eye.
Trump
Re:Tax documents worth $1 million? (Score:4, Insightful)
From the sound of things ("he almost received it from a "third-party,"), the victim wasn't willing to pay anything for it.
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Probably nothing to hide (Score:3)
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I thought that his net worth was supposedly $520 million, putting him on an inflation adjusted value about half of JFK's worth and just over Washington's estimated worth.
Re:Tax documents worth $1 million? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm wondering what the "victim" had to hide, to be willing to pay $1 million for it..
Apparently nothing, since Romney refused to pay and the "third party" was almost certainly an FBI trap.
Clinton 2016 (Score:1)
Clinton is a square shooter
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Hey, SuperPAC man, you're going to have to try harder than this.
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I'm wondering what the "victim" had to hide, to be willing to pay $1 million for it...
That's like, what, 1% of what Crooked Hillary! would pay to get her illegal email server back from the FBI?
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What makes you think Romeny was willing to pay? The "third party" was almost certainly an FBI agent.
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Nonsense. Beheading, despite looking spectacular, is usually about as quick and painless as possible short of being next to an exploding nuclear device (where the victim is turned into plasma faster than pain nerve impulses could travel). Now, the Blood Eagle, THAT was a good method of execution!
OTOH, too much work involved. Just feed him to pigs. That will result in a smarter class of crook, as well.
But it was just a prank! (Score:3)
Maybe he should have filmed it and put it on his youtube channel. Then it wouldn't have been a real crime, right?
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I think his real mistake was the attempted extortion. Had he claimed that a copy of the tax records fell in his lap and "boy are they juicy" - wait ... I suppose that is slander (or is it?)
"oh yeah sure I stole them" would make somebody nervous. But demanding money is still a crime.
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Twenty Five years for this (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Twenty Five years for this (Score:4, Interesting)
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Chuck Schumer didn't do us any favors when he added fuel to panic and caused a bank run on IndyMac.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.co... [latimes.com]
http://www.cnbc.com/id/2565430... [cnbc.com]
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/1... [cnn.com]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB... [wsj.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Twenty Five years for this (Score:4, Interesting)
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Extortion is a pretty serious crime. Just because someone else got away with a crime doesn't mean this guy should. He should go to jail and the law should be adjusted so the bankers do go to jail next time. The reason the laws aren't being changed should be reason for you to realize who's in the pocket of the bankers because there is a large number of politicians who defend those bankers for additional oversight and legal responsibility for their actions.
Reminds me of Joe Biden talking (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Reminds me of Joe Biden talking (Score:2)
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If you didn't know the names or government positions of anyone in this picture [wikimedia.org] and I were to ask you who is in charge, how would you answer? This is the single most revealing picture of the entire Obama (the guy who showed up late to meeting he wasn't invited to) presidency.
Slashdot link? (Score:2)
Didn't slashdot cover this when it happened? Where's the link to the original slashdot story?
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