> He was earlier sentenced to four and a half years' hard labour for trying to sell 13 grams of marijuana.<p>And people say that American drug policy is draconian.<p>Which it is. But damn. Russia's views on drugs are kind of, uh... well:<p>> Asked had he taken drugs before the hacking, he said "only beer".<p>Even my mother still views marijuana as something that's only done by hardcore criminals. I've talked to her about it, and rationally she realizes that it's probably not awful, but has told me that she will never try it - the viewpoint is just too deeply ingrained.
Ya know, the guy is just not thinking things through. He clearly could put up any video, so he could have put up a simpson's episode or one of a zillion 'can you believe this?' type videos that get posted to YouTube every day, but instead he chose to put up a porn video. That's just not smart at all.<p>I helped a guy who was doing sign art for a new billboard in Las Vegas (really basic, the sign gamut and pixel geometry needed to be taken into account in transferring his drawings from Illustrator to the sign) and after showing him what he needed to do (and about 150 lines of C code) he said "lets see" and proceeded to upload the image by calling the billboard (it had a modem), it gave him a command prompt and he uploaded his image, we drove down to see it.) I asked him if there was anything preventing me from calling the sign and uploading random stuff, his answer "Oh sure, you don't know the phone number." !?!! After I explained war dialing to him we went and had a chat with the Casino owner ...
"I decided to confess because they'd caught me".<p>Reminds me of when I was studying in china. A Pakistani student was caught doing something mildly illegal (renting an apartment off-campus without the university's permission), and was caught by the police. They posted the story on every information board in the school. The final sentence was 'after interrogation by the police, he admitted to his fault and regretted doing it'.
Found a video of the hacked billboard here: <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ca2_1263729266" rel="nofollow">http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ca2_1263729266</a> (skip to 1:20, NSFW obviously)
Funny, the same thing happened in Germany last year. The police claim not a single complaint was filed by people who saw it. (The store that owned the billboard did press charges though.)
I wouldn't be so sure they have caught the actual guy. They might have payed him off to confess just to look good in front of the public/officials. Russia's court system is corrupt and this type of behavior is especially prevalent durring the election year.
What is the perfect crime, how can you profit from it, and what does it have to do with this news story? Answers are all here (along with a good laugh, if you have the patience):<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfrNfVLWmhw&p=E8D1A7F1929421D8" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfrNfVLWmhw&p=E8D1A7F1929...</a><p>(it's a comedic podcast episode. it's pretty much 'safe for work')