This doesn't make the fundamental problem here go away: they arrested someone who was not in the United States when allegedly violated a law of the USA. The USA does not have jurisdiction over the entire world. If they thought they had a case, the right way to do this is to issue an arrest warrant and ask the UK to arrest and extradite him. If this was a thing, international travel would halt because you would need to countercheck everything you've ever done online with the laws of the country you are flying to.<p>Consider this fictionary tale: you fly to Budapest for a fun trip. You are jailed for posting the Soviet hammer and sickle on your Facebook two years ago -- it's a crime under Hungarian law to use that symbol. Do you think this is right?<p>Here's the law:<p>Any person who:
a) distributes,
b) uses before the public at large, or
c) publicly exhibits,
the swastika, the insignia of the SS, the arrow cross, the sickle and hammer, the five-pointed red star or any symbol
depicting the above so as to breach public peace - especially in a way to offend the dignity of victims of totalitarian regimes and their right to sanctity - is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by custodial arrest, insofar as the did not result in a more serious criminal offense.
Plea bargained. That's how its done in the USA folks. At least in over 90% of cases. The concept of having a fair trial and your day in court is a thing of the past. Amazing it took so long.
A few friends and myself chipped in some money for his legal defense, taking hin at his word when he said he was innocent.<p>Lesson learned, I suppose.
There is something I don't understand.<p>From the contents of the "attachment A" it seems like the FBI (or whatever other US agency) "sat" on the code they indirectly purchased for 2-3 years (the UPAS) and for several months (the KRONOS), observing the behaviour of Hutchins and "Vinny" and collecting evidence against them.<p>Shouldn't they have <i>somehow</i> acted to prevent the spreading of the malwares?
I wouldn't automatically take this at face value.<p>Hutchins took a plea deal. It's well known that there is rampant abuse of the plea deal in the US justice system [1].<p>That's not to say he's totally innocent of everything but that him pleading guilty to this single count may not be as straight forward as the article would make it seem.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocence-is-irrelevant/534171/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocen...</a>