How The U.S. Marshals Are Trying To Break My Hunger Strike

Re:How The U.S. Marshals Are Trying To Break My Hunger Strike by danso on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @02:31PM (#13312235)

My argument with you is that I don't think we should trust Mr. Gottesfeld's self-serving claim, at face value, that he knew that his attack wouldn't have unintended consequences. He was not an employee at BCH, he did not have inside knowledge about how their systems work, nor does he even appear to have read their incident plan. No one is arguing that a hospital folds over and dies when the Internet goes out; the argument is that a hospital operates suboptimally when under attack. I think it's a bit pretentious for an outsider to argue that crippling "non-critical" systems like appointment and prescription management is no big deal.

But the main reason why I think we should be skeptical of Gottesfeld's professed expertise is...well, the fact that we are discussing him at all. How was Mr. Gottesfeld caught so quickly? If you take Mr. Gottesfeld at his word, it's because the FBI poured thousands/millions into investigating the breach. According to the affidavit, though [0], the reasons for Mr. Gottesfeld capture were:

1. He allegedly posted a video calling for Anonymous to take action against BHC, and this video was posted on a YouTube account attached to Mr. Gottesfeld's identity.

2. He used a Twitter account attached to his name to DM other people about hacking the BHC.

3. He created a separate anonymous Twitter account to tweet about the attack, using an email address connected to his computer.

4. He bragged about the DDOS attack to his friend, who then told the FBI about it.

Since Mr. Gottesfeld, according to the FBI, initially denied his involvement -- and then was caught after he and his wife attempted to flee the country by boat but ended up being rescued, we can't make the argument that Mr. Gottesfeld was sloppy about his personal opsec because he wanted to get caught.

So Mr. Gottesfeld appears to be ignorant of how the Internet can inadvertently be linked to personal computer systems, even when such knowledge and awareness is critical to his immediate, personal well-being. But we're supposed to take his word that he can execute a hack with ninja-like precision on BCH because he happens to be an expert in BCH's systems and IT dependencies?

[0] https://www.scribd.com/doc/299575089/Gottesfeld-Martin-Affid...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbnJyK_54Jo

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Re:How The U.S. Marshals Are Trying To Break My Hunger Strike by strainer on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @04:16PM (#13313182)

You argument with me was that I don't adequately read sources and that I made an untrue statement, which was in fact not untrue, and was merely open to adjustment - which all summaries are.

My argument with you, was that you linked critical medical equipment to the accuseds website attack, which you should really be aware cannot be vulnerable to a website attack. Yet I am the one criticised for "not a lie" but "a major mistake ... made in rush to judgement"

I found neither your relevant or over-extended response to my criticism tenable. You appear to be in a rush to prosecute beyond fair assessment. Which is what years of hard prison for a temporary website protest attack that cannot threaten critical equipment presents.

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Re:How The U.S. Marshals Are Trying To Break My Hunger Strike by danso on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @05:23PM (#13313739)

> You argument with me was that I don't adequately read sources and that I made an untrue statement, which was in fact not untrue, and was merely open to adjustment - which all summaries are.

The statement in question:

> He pestered and temporarily disabled a medical company website to highlight the maltreatment of a patient, now he is facing many years in prison for the protest.

Mr. Gottesfeld's own statement:

> Almost unbelievably, they kept their donation page on the same public network as the rest of their stuff. Rookie mistake. To take it down, I’d have to knock the whole hospital off the Internet.

Christ, if that's "not untrue" in your judgment, then I won't hold out hope that you care enough about basic facts to see that even in the many words I've spent in this thread bickering about the topic, I've never stated that I support the prosecution or alleged mistreatment of Mr. Gottesfeld. My opinion has been: I am more ambivalent about this case than I was about what happened to Aaron Swartz [0]. Given how angry Swartz's case made me, me not feeling strongly about Mr. Gottesfeld by comparison does not equate to me supporting his prosecution.

But I'm not surprised you aren't able to see the distinction, if you don't see the difference between a website and the Internet.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13306401

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Re:How The U.S. Marshals Are Trying To Break My Hunger Strike by jessaustin on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @04:01PM (#13322007)

Either you are a master troll, or you need to draw a network diagram. You invoked "horrific, inexplicable tragedies" because "surgeons don't properly wash their hands or mark which limb is meant to be amputated". (Frankly I'm not sure the latter qualifies as "inexplicable".) Hand-washing and limb-marking don't require internet access. If hospitals require non-internet-enabled signs to inform surgeons of these risk factors, those are available at restaurant suppliers. (Well maybe not the limb-marking...)

Life support devices also don't require constant internet access. Diagnostic equipment also doesn't require constant internet access. Local medical procedures do not require internet access. Hospital medical records do not require constant internet access. In fact no life supporting activity requires constant internet access, because designing the system to rely on something that is unreliable would be stupid. Physicians are not stupid.

It is conceivable that telemedicine sessions might have been interrupted, but telemedicine is inappropriate when life is in jeopardy. We could imagine the future invention of remote robotic surgeries that would qualify, but if that were going on it would have been mentioned in the indictment, and also a dedicated and isolated network would have been created. In fact since every federal indictment written includes everything but the kitchen sink, and this indictment mentioned only the customary ridiculous inflated monetary damages, we know that this DDoS attack did not hurt anyone physically.

I don't think that we normal easygoing HN folks would really mind your conceptual mistakes, but the combination of those with the withering scorn you've exhibited here is probably what inspired us to keep this thread going long past the point of interest and utility. So, nice trolling!

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