It's interesting that a lot of people sort of sympathise with him seemingly because of the context in which he carried out the crimes.

ie. If he'd been using a landline and peso's instead of BTC and the internet we'd probably attach a completely different emotional response.

I think a lot of people here sympathise with him because geeks have a libertarian bent. We believe that we know what's best for ourselves, and assume that other people do as well.