The New York Times has a colorful profile piece out on Hector Xavier Monsegur, who agreed to serve as an FBI informant in the LulzSec/Anonymous sting in hopes of reducing possible prison sentence of more than a hundred years.

  • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

    I can’t help but wonder if there are quietly effective hackers out there subtly making a difference while loudmouth cockwhistles get all the press.

    Then, at the very end of the article, this looks like a sly wink from one of those:

    This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:Correction: March 9, 2012An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Jeremy Hammond as Darrell Hammond.

  • http://twitter.com/trempls tré

    Talk about exploitation. If he were white and well off he probably wouldn’t have been looking at that sentence in the first place, let alone working with the feds. A sentence, maybe, but not that one.

    • That_Anonymous_Coward

       No it still would have been huge, the FBI needed a large scale takedown to help promote the cyberwarfare angle.  The found someone who was loud, cocky, arrogant and sloppy.  Apply pressure, and viola you can take out all of these “super hackers” and look like a champion.
      Besides… they are going to try and put him in Witness Protection… I say try only because it seems his ego would be to hard to hide.

    • north

      White like Kevin Mitnick? Or how about Bradley Manning or Julian Assange? How’s that white thing working out for them?

    • Mister44

       I get it – there is ‘white privilege’, but it isn’t such a bullet proof vest against incarceration that anytime something happens we have to throw out the “if he was white yadda yadda.”

      The only thing that kept my friend out of prison for phone phreaking was that he was still a minor, and his parents were as white and well-to-do as they come.

  • That_Anonymous_Coward

    How interesting they lead off with him using stolen credit cards… then later mention they belonged to a former employer, rather than the immediate expected reaction of he was ripping off everyday people whos details he got from websites.

    This dog and pony show brought to you by Director Mueller who is busily pushing the idea that cyberwarfare is the new threat and people who know how to work computers can destroy the world.  Airplanes will fall from the sky!!!!  And of course the only way to be safe is to give the FBI billions more, and to buy these products pimped by former washington insiders that can’t actually deliver what they promise but if you give us a nice generous overrun budget we can add some blinking blue leds.

  • Cowicide

    I liked the part where he found that lost wallet and got it to the neighbor.