Given that there were people arguing Hans Reiser was unfairly convicted even after he confessed to murdering his wife, and suggesting that imprisonment was a waste of his talents, I am not particularly surprised by any expression of nerd supremacism any more. Saddened, but not surprised.
Allegedly, there's not actual evidence this actually happened... nor did the prosecution attempt to go after those charges... nor has anyone traced the actual people who were supposedly murdered (their identities don't exist -- they aren't real people), nor has anyone validated the bitcoin transactions that supposedly transferred $750,000
The fact that he was scammed and no one was murdered is irrelevant, completely and utterly, and only goes to show he's not as smart as he thought he was. He's still just as evil for trying and it more importantly celebrating when he was told it was successful.
Agreeing with tptacek, again, pretty sure your last statement is false.
The evidence is pretty damning.
I'm disgusted by people trying to claim he is anything but a horrible person while trying to brush away the fact that he paid for people to be murdered. Sure, no one was killed, but that's only by the grace of his stupidity, and massive ego.
HN might hate the war on drugs and love people that write code and live in the valley but its embarrassing that self described smart people could fall so low as to latch on to that while ignoring the undeniable horrible things he did. He wasn't a smart guy, he wasn't a good guy, its like people didn't read the transcripts where they went through his journal detailing everything he did.