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British Hacker Won't Be Extradited to the US Because American Prisons Are 'Medieval'

Lauri Love, a 32-year-old British computer hacker wanted by the FBI, will not be extradited to the United States. The ruling came down today after Love’s attorneys argued that he suffered from depression and was at risk of dying by suicide if he were placed in solitary confinement in the US, a disciplinary tactic seen by most of the developed world as torture.

gizmodo.com|Matt Novak

During a hearing in November, lawyers for Love cited a study about the unusually high risk of suicide at New York’s Metropolitan Correction Center in Brooklyn and have called the conditions in US prisons “unconscionable” and “medieval.” As The Guardian reports, Love has Asperger’s syndrome along with severe depression, two conditions which both came under consideration during the extradition hearings.

An American expert in the case plainly stated that if Love were sent to America, “his ability to make decisions would be severely compromised,” given the brutality of US jails.

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What is a Hacker?

medium.com

Genius? Vandal? Wizard? Trickster? Problem-Solver?Maker? Thief? Here’s how some special people define that radioactive word.

A hacker is someone who figures out how to get around things that get in their way.

For me, a hacker is any lazy, clever engineer who uses ingenuity to make something cool happen.

A person who loves exploring technology and the challenge of figuring their way around security obstacles to beat the system.

A hacker approaches everything in the world for what it can be, not what it is, and colors outside and over the lines.

A hacker is someone who loves to make stuff and is fascinated by complex systems, which they enjoy creating, extending and subverting.

“Hacker” is a word whose meaning forks both positively and negatively, like “fuck” — many of those who call themselves hackers are brilliant programmers with ideals, others are brilliant programmers with nefarious intent. The public will never understand. 

In June 2000, while visiting Korea, I did a fun hack that clearly illustrates the original and true meaning of the word “hacker.”

I went to lunch with some GNUfans, and was sitting down to eat some tteokpaekki (*), when a waitress set down six chopsticks right in front of me. It occurred to me that perhaps these were meant for three people, but it was more amusing to imagine that I was supposed to use all six. I did not know any way to do that, so I realized that if I could come up with a way, it would be a hack. I started thinking. After a few seconds I had an idea.

First I used my left hand to put three chopsticks into my right hand. That was not so hard, though I had to figure out where to put them so that I could control them individually. Then I used my right hand to put the other three chopsticks into my left hand. That was hard, since I had to keep the three chopsticks already in my right hand from falling out. After a couple of tries I got it done.

Then I had to figure out how to use the six chopsticks. That was harder. I did not manage well with the left hand, but I succeeded in manipulating all three in the right hand. After a couple of minutes of practice and adjustment, I managed to pick up a piece of food using three sticks converging on it from three different directions, and put it in my mouth.

It didn’t become easy — for practical purposes, using two chopsticks is completely superior. But precisely because using three in one hand is hard and ordinarily never thought of, it has “hack value”, as my lunch companions immediately recognized. Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking.

I later told the Korea story to a friend in Boston, who proceeded to put four chopsticks in one hand and use them as two pairs — picking up two different pieces of food at once, one with each pair. He had topped my hack. Was his action, too, a hack? I think so. Is he therefore a hacker? That depends on how much he likes to hack.