[rdl]

I know weev personally. He's "an unsympathetic defendant", and probably the 9th level Internet Troll, but his goal was fundamentally speech -- he wanted to draw a lot of attention to the issue, and embarrass ATT (hopefully enough that they'd stop being such fuckups about security), etc.

He wasn't trying to profit from this. If that had been his goal, he would have been a lot more stealthy.

It's arguable that he had "cleaner" motives in his act than aaronsw -- some people say aaronsw wanted to release all the files he recovered to the Internet (although there's no proof of that); weev just wanted ATT to suck less.

weev has said things far worse than what's alleged in this case (that they wanted to compile a list and direct market the users); yet, if you judge him by what he's actually done, he's just an asshole at times, but basically reasonable. Fortunately just being an ass isn't a federal crime (although I guess conspiracy to be an ass is).

[subsystem]

Being an "an unsympathetic defendant" frankly makes it even more important to support him. One of the worst things with these out of proportion indictments/sentences is that they leave too much room for other factors, which can turn into things like political repression.

[aneth4]

So he committed a crime and wrote words that characterize the intent behind crime in such a way as to increase prosecutorial interest and sentencing. Now you are saying he was just joking around when he said those things?

Perhaps it's true, but it's stupid and it's hard for me imagine anyone taking that explanation seriously, certainly prosecutors and judges.

If you walk into a bank with a gun and ask the teller for money, then say "just kidding", .... Good luck.

[rdl]

Yes, weev is an idiot. Yes, weev is abrasive. Fortunately neither of those are themselves crimes.

Weev has always taken anything and turned it into drama. That's the whole Internet Troll thing. A normal defendant wouldn't, when faced with a chance to reduce his sentence by 1-3 years by "accepting responsibility", post something like this to the press. It basically screams "upward departure" to a judge, while at the same time rallying people on the Internet, which doesn't really mean so much inside a federal ass-rape prison.

[aneth4]

There is a difference between being abrasive and openly declaring unlawful intent. While the latter is not (always) illegal, it is a legitimate factor for prosecutorial discretion and sentencing.

[rsingel]

Where was he openly declaring unlawful intent? The court transcript is on the web.