WannaCry vanquisher Marcus Hutchins pleads not guilty to flogging banking trojan Kronos Marcus Hutchins, the WannaCry kill-switch hero, has today pleaded not guilty to charges of creating and selling malware at a hearing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The court took the unusual step of relaxing the the 23-year-old's bail terms, allowing him to access the internet and work again. He will also be able to live in Los …
If you're wealthy you can pay to regain your freedom and if you aren't convicted it ultimately costs you nothing.
If you're an average Joe it costs you 10% of your bail to regain your freedom and you don't get it back. So that could be goodbye to all of your savings.
If you're poor then you're screwed. You just rot in Jail for as long as it takes the system to get around to to trying your case.
But it gets better. Even being arrested can screw you over. Even if the charges are dropped the arrest record still exists and can haunt you and continue to cause problems. You can have arrest records expunged in some states..for a price.
To be fair there are RoR schemes in most states and even schemes where the county or state will pay your bond for you. But I've always felt their whole system makes a sad mockery of 'The Land of the Free' :-/
Have had a quick look but can't see online the average number of charges brought in these cases. Just wondered if the system had some sort of benchmark for prosecution intimidation based on the number of charges brought against the accused? No idea where on the federal judiciary's system 6 gets you.
I think they're referring to the killswitch domain that Marcus himself bought to stop the vulnerable variants of WannaCrypt from propagating.
Yes, it's that f**king stupid. It's like adding insult to injury if it actually does mean this. Welcome one and all, except those who help others; f**k them, we'll treat them like terrorists and degrade them, stopping short of actually physically torturing them.
One thing I don't get. If USA and UK are such great friends, with such great collaboration between law enforcement agencies, why was it necessary to have him arrested and trialed in USA? The malware he's supposed to have written had an Internet-wide effect. FBI could have passed all the necessary information to their UK colleagues, and the trial could have been held in UK.
Don't the Americans have confidence in the UK justice system? Or was it more important for "bragging rights" to arrest Marcus in US, to remind the world how badass the Americans are?
If USA and UK are such great friends, with such great collaboration between law enforcement agencies, why was it necessary to have him arrested and trialed in USA?
Exactly. I asked that same question the moment I learned of this. I also wondered why they waited until after DEFCON instead of dragging him straight out on arrival.
.. "why was it necessary to have him arrested and trialed in USA? .. Don't the Americans have confidence in the UK justice system"?
Because: we're not a real country anyway, just a forward missile launching platform in the war against the Soviet Union Russian Federation ..
I doubt Trump is terribly concerned about this. However, the spookhauses have been embarrassed and they want blood. So, find a friendly DA in Vegas, forward some 'evidence' that was cooked up. Then wait for charges. Also, the spookhauses are not terribly fussy about who gets framed, they just want a scalp.
Geez, guys...
First of all *my* President likely had nothing to do with this (why would he?). Next, there must have been *something* which warranted (pardon the pun) an arrest. I am not for one moment saying that I believe he is guilty (I surely do not have enough information to make such a claim).
The US system of justice is surely imperfect. Is it any worse than any others on the planet? I couldn't say, but surely, the UK system is also flawed (everyone arrested is guilty over there?)...
Now, for what we really must hope, is a judge who can grasp the underlying concepts, if not the technology itself. If he *is* guilty and is not convicted, it could open the door for others to work their way out of the system. If he is *not* guilty, then this could provide the basis for improving these kinds of investigations and cases.
Finally, as to him recovering his bail expenses, he *may* be able to file suit to recover those damages and his legal expenses, *if* he can prove that his arrest and prosecution was improper, which is highly doubtful. IANAL, and I am not offering this as advice, just tossing it out for purposes of conversation.
Regarding the bail expenses: I for one don't understand why it's considered proper by some in the USA for (as in this case) a chap to get clobbered with an unrecoverable loss of $3000 just to be allowed to walk around in the open air after being arrested on what I assume is reasonable suspicion. Yes of course many people arrested are not found guilty of whatever they're arrested for in any nation with a decent judicial system - but to end up that far out of pocket just for being fingered as "maybe the one we're after" by the police seems a bit much to me.
I think they arrested Marcus in hopes of finding the co-defendant whose name is redacted in the indictment. That guy is not in custody and is supposedly from Wisconsin. It is more than likely that the other guy has a pile of evidence against him and the FBI wants him convicted.
It is possible that Marcus and the co-defendant had exchanged emails on Kronos - something that is common with hackers. Marcus did send out a tweet asking if anyone had access to the code. The other guy might be a black hat hacker known for profiting from malware or doing damage to US companies (like banks). They now have whatever Marcus knows on Kronos and what his involvement was.
Marcus says he is innocent of all charges and few people do that facing FBI felony charges - they usually go for a deal, innocent or guilty. His lawyer must see light at the end of the tunnel and is convinced that it is not an oncoming train.
"Marcus says he is innocent of all charges and few people do that facing FBI felony charges - they usually go for a deal, innocent or guilty. His lawyer must see light at the end of the tunnel and is convinced that it is not an oncoming train."
Or perhaps Marcus has a more definite sense of right and wrong and, being convinced of his innocence, is prepared to risk a trial to exonerate himself. Not everyone has been cowed by the corruption of law enforcement in the US.
What still puzzles me is what evidence they have against him. Since he is only known as someone who helped protect people against malware, normally one wouldn't think him likely to be involved with creating it. Perhaps there has been an attempt by virus writers to plant evidence against him that deceived U.S. authorities; until we know what evidence there was, it certainly appears that they moved hastily to arrest someone likely to be completely innocent.
But we don't know, it is still only an appearance.
There is a good chance that some code he once wrote was used by the authors of Kronos. Whether or not he was involved in a more direct sense is the unknown right now.
If all they have is the former, then they are about to make themselves look very silly in one of two ways:
1. They will find him innocent and release him, making them look all sorts of stupid
2. They will find him guilty anyway to save face, but will still make themselves look all sorts of stupid (and also guilty of a miscarriage of justice).
Of course, the trial might expose information that suggests he *was* involved in Kronos in some way, but we won't know until we get to the trial stage will we?
"What still puzzles me is what evidence they have against him."
One thing we do know is that he wrote a blog post explaining some coding technique. His example code then got incorporated into Kronos. I think there's a US saying about finding a button and sewing a vest on it. That would be what the FBI are doing if that code fragment is what they claim is his writing Kronos is based on.
... to plead not guilty. They'll have tried to put the frighteners on him, tried to get him to say he did just a little something ... Skyped some advice to a bad guy maybe, go on you did didn't you, took a little kickback ... only two years ... out in six months ... better than 20...
But now we'll get to know exactly what happened, exactly what he did, if anything, and what the evidence is - something that seems all too rare in cases like this. I mean are we ever going to find out what Laurie Love actually did?
It's amazing how much people just rant and complain without having any detailed facts.
First off... I've lived in the USA and in several European countries, and spent time in a lot more. If you honestly believe your justice system is better than the US's, then you don't know a dang thing about yours.... especially those in England. BTW, I believe the rights of the accused now established in most European countries was copied from the US Constitution... so really, shut up. In this case, it was a grand-jury investigation... Most countries in Europe do not have anything comparative to this.. they operate solely on a law enforcement investigation.
---Yeesh, most don't even realize why the warrant is issued from Wisconsin, let alone any other fact.
--- I'm not saying he's guilty, I'm saying... most are too ignorant to spout even the dumbest statement.
Second... the keystone pipeline isn't about trains being a safer method of transporting oil. It's about protecting an underground reservoir (Ogallala aquifer) which is more than twice the size of England. In many places, the water table is just below ground. Overall the average depth is around 20 feet from the surface. So stop; realize how many people will be affected if the water is polluted by crude oil. Considering most farms in the middle of the US irrigate their crops with this water, even those in Europe will feel it. Cost of foodstuffs will go through the roof around the world if the water is contaminated.
Third... Yes, of course Trump is responsible for this. Just like the hospital you were born in is responsible for damaging your brain.
Fourth... and really. If you think the US justice system is so judgmental; listen to the judgmental attitudes of so many who make a comment. Judgmental about the US justice system, corruption, Trump.
The only thing people aren't judging is their own life. Something which is 'supposed' to be a primary act of the British. Being a gentlemen, only judging their own former self, being helpful to others, listening well, etc. Yeap.. B.S. isn't it Brits? :)
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