15-year-old Ellis Pinsky managed to steal 23,8 million dollars worth of digital currencies. After that his life was never the same. For example, the Rolling Stone he says, that in his senior year of high school, "four men wearing masks and gloves, armed with knives, rope, and a fake 9mm handgun," were creeping around the back of his house.
Two weeks before the break-in, a lawsuit had been filed against him and rumors began circulating linking him to the hack. He knew the thieves wanted that money, the millions he had stolen, but he also knew he couldn't give it to them. He didn't have them anymore.
Rolling Stone magazine paints a portrait of an "anxious young man" who, at the age of 13, realized that the internet hid many secrets.
As he soon discovered, there were plenty of people trying to figure them out and even willing to share their methods — for a price…
Realizing that much of the information used by social engineers came from compromised databases, he began learning programming, particularly Structured Query Language injections and cross-site scripting that allowed him to attack corporate databases himself. The terabytes of databases he extracted, traded and hoarded This made him valuable to other hackers.
The article describes him as a teenager who went to high school in the morning and hacked companies at night.
Pinksky was 14 years old when he stole 10% of all trigger altcoin που κυκλοφορούσαν στην αγορά από τον ιμπρεσάριο κρυπτογράφησης Michael Terpin. Then he recruited a bunch of people so he could launder the money making millions.
Since then he has been waiting for the FBI to knock on his door, just like in the movies. But as time went on, he became less anxious… and started learning new programming languages. Go practice at soccer and started hanging out with girls on the weekend along with his friends.
Until Michael Terpin realized that Pinksky had stolen him.
Pinksky and his legal team sought a settlement, and in February 2020, he voluntarily returned all of the last digital currency he took from the Terpin robbery: 562 bitcoins, and cash he had stashed in a safe under his bed… Asked by Rolling If Stone cooperated with the FBI to help catch other hackers, he quickly changes the subject.
Pinsky was not criminally charged — in part because he was underage, but also because of his cooperation with law enforcement authorities. But Terpin filed a lawsuit seeking to recover triple the amount of the theft. His argument is that the teenager who robbed him was involved in organized crime and that he should be punished for making an example.
Last argument: "His argument (s. Michael Terpin) is that the teenager who robbed him committed organized crime and that he should be punished for setting an example."
As many minutes as I read the text, I thought that I had in front of me an all-round talented mind (the young man) that society, if it was fundamentally intelligent, would use to its advantage, including him in studies - work - why not, echelons of supervision and cyber security. I had these in mind until I reached the last word! "Example"!
There I was initially annoyed and maybe something more because - I thought - like three things. How:
A) & B) the adult Tirpin who was harmed, should have known that, (normally), the Law is not vindictive, has no "elasticity" and does not punish. He simply renders to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. Thus, since he is inflexible, he does NOT punish exemplarily, but on the contrary gives whenever necessary (in this case the accused was a 14-year-old minor) a SECOND chance, when in front of him is a teenager whose hormones are "boiling", especially when he has a powerful mind!
C) I don't hide that I was disturbed because I first read this concept (prosecution for setting an example) in the indictment of the fraudsters who ran the company I worked for for a number of years. I read it when it was against me. I read it when I was FALSELY accused by thieves of the common criminal law, fellow criminals of an organized gang, not only to throw me out of my job, not only to cause untold psychological and financial destruction, but also to They will exterminate me AND biologically!
Not wanting to expand on my own problems, I would like, if I could, to have for a little time, a minimum of time, the leeway to search (if I were a Judicial Authority) the past and who is asking for the exemplary punishment of a then 14-year-old talent, that YES, he did something bad, since he "cut" his little brain.
And I'm 99,9% sure that the fumes that would be emitted at the expense of what was found, would reach all the way to Mars...
Note: The guys with the 9's and the knives that were hanging around in the yard of the young man's house were definitely not my friends and company. But if we put the basic rule of criminology on the carpet ("who benefits") we will have our answer. And by searching, we will also have the evidence required for the documentation of their Trial.
Hyg. George, it is my honor and the joy of my mind, the sharpening of thought that you provoke, with texts that you raise, without ignoring what the rest of the iguru also offer.