Jason Calcanis:"Why I employed a felon."

[RBM]

In Jason's words: (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

Yesterday, I joined one of our Mahalo employees at Federal District Court as he was sentenced to 48 months in jail for crimes related to computer security.

Before my employee John Schiefer was sentenced, a violent career criminal was facing 60 months for beating up a prison guard. I could hear John’s breathing deepening as the judge spoke–his fiancee’s leg shaking more and more as the reality of John’s situation set in. John wound up getting 48 months in prison, a number which could be reduced if he behaves himself. He goes to jail on June 1st, and maybe he’ll be out in two or three years.

The initial source: (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. mment-6a00d8341cc33e53ef011168c62e98970c)
Good heart, but good business?

Of all the possible outcomes, I think this is more productive now, and will prove to be more productive in the fututure.

[SirJac]

It's true, alot of the best software designers and computer security specialists started out making viruses, bots and hacking. Governments have been known to offer deals to those who they catch hacking their networks employment protecting those same networks government networks instead of being sent to prison. Who knows better how to improve your network security then the person who just bypassed them, or so the theory goes.

I don't see the need for a 4 year sentence for someone who the risk of reoffending seems to be nil.

[acyckowski]

I don't see the need for a 4 year sentence for someone who the risk of reoffending seems to be nil.

Without the real threat of 4 years amongst rapists and murderers, do you think these folks would be quite so contrite?

Not saying that a hacker needs to do his time in max security, but I'm not sure that public shaming is going to make them reform their ways, either.

[schwartzie]

I know very little of this situation re John Schiefer and the firestorm probably surrounding him, except for the link you provide, RBM. And its not clear what direction you'd hoped this thread to go.

So, I'll step into the relative freedom you offer and toss out 2 cents about recidivism: notorious spammer, spamford wallace, was just ordered (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) to stay out of facebook (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.). He previously has been convicted of spamming, attacking myspace users, infecting pc, etc, and has been at this since the 1990s. He doesn't ever seem to learn.

There is a huge amount of money being made by criminals who attack via the internet (hundreds of millions) and relatively few competent people with resources to deal with it, with the result that it's getting worse, not better. I think creative sentencing would require the guy to put his resources to work busting his fellow travelers, and trying to help victims (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) who are mostly elderly, disabled, poor, immigrants or desperate. In otherwords, the criminals who do this are asshats. Makin' the guy fix it would probably be good for him--help him grow up and recover from being abused himself.

[RBM]

schwartzie

In this case, I provided direction via the second post.

Your reply provides good 'compare/contrast material though.

I have a dismal opinion on how justice is practiced in the US. In the case of the OP I think the offender behavior is remarkably different than the offender behavior you cite.

Thus, I suspect justice - has been/will be in the future - served. To me in todays age that is noteworthy ;_)