Here comes some news in the good variety

Hi folks, welcome here to another blog post and this blog post will cover some good news items that I thought I’d pass along.

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California man gets 3 years in prison for hacking Nintendo, collecting child pornography

Yes, this is definitely some good news. Its about time we’ve started getting some good news, because this year has definitely full of bad news. The 21 year old gentleman in this case did quite a bit of hacking although I think it is not fitting for only 3 years of prison time.

A 21-year-old California man has been sentenced to three years in prison and seven years of supervised release for a hacking scheme that stole proprietary Nintendo information, and for possessing child pornography.

The defendant, Ryan Hernandez, will also have to pay more than $259,000 to remediate damages he allegedly caused Nintendo, U.S. prosecutors in the Western District of Washington announced Tuesday.

The sentencing comes four years after Hernandez first got in trouble with the law for alleged hacking. In 2016, as a teenager, Hernandez and an unnamed associate stole login credentials from a Nintendo employee that were used to access files on Nintendo consoles and games, according to prosecutors. FBI
agents visited Hernandez and his parents, and Hernandez pledged not to engage in anymore malicious online activity, the Justice Department said in a press release.

Not only did this guy steal by hacking, but he was also involved in child pornogrophy? I’m glad in some ways I can’t see, although I can hear, but i am sure I wouldn’t be interested in all that.

The article goes in to more detail of the piracy of video games and other types of arrests that might be of interest to you.

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Suspect in case of Mirai botnet, which knocked major sites offline in 2016, pleads guilty

You have to be kidding me, we have a second suspect that actually pleads guilty after doing stuff?

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday announced that an unnamed defendant has pleaded guilty in connection with a cyberattack that rocked the internet
in 2016.

The article talks about this botnet effecting Dyn, who is an internet Infrustructure company. It eventually made its way out on the Internet where it caused a bunch of havoc. <a href=”Here is more on the October 2016 Distributed Denial of Service Attack from the same article.

In this case, the defendant in question conspired with others in September and October 2016 to leverage an offshoot of an army of hackers computers known
as the Mirai botnet, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The malicious tool relied on connected video cameras, recorders and other devices to carry
out the incident.

Authorities withheld the name of the defendant because they were a juvenile at the time of the offense. The guilty plea took place in a closed hearing
the the District of New Hampshire. The presiding judge scheduled sentencing for Jan. 7, 2021.

They pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit computer fraud and abuse by operating a botnet and by intentionally damaging a computer.

There is much more to this complicated story, I just can’t seem to cover this one without doing a lot of linking.

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Former NSA contractor Reality Winner loses appeal, will remain imprisoned

I thought I wrote or even covered the Reality Winner case, but it looks like I’ve not. Well, there is a first time for everything as this particular case got really interesting as she was part of the NSA. Apparently, she along with others have been caught doing things they’re not supposed to do.

The former National Security Agency contractor convicted in 2018 of illegally leaking top secret information to a news organization will remain in federal
prison after an appeals court upheld a ruling against a compassionate release amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

While some cases according to the article have been allowed to be overturned because of Covid, not every one can and there may be things that we just don’t know about. It links to an 8 page opinion piece and there’s more to this really interesting story.

“After careful consideration and with the benefit of oral argument, we conclude that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying Ms. Winner’s
motion,” Monday’s opinion says. “Because we resolve her appeal on this basis alone, we need not (and do not) address Ms. Winner’s other arguments.”

In early April, Winner, now 29, had filed a motion for compassionate release with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, saying
that she suffers from depression and an eating disorder, and that COVID-19 related prison lockdowns affected her ability to cope with those conditions,
thus making her more susceptible to further illness. The district court rejected Winner’s motion without holding an evidentiary hearing.

Winner was working as a linguist for Pluribus International Corp., a government contractor, when she was accused of leaking leaking a report on Russian
interference in U.S. elections. The Intercept published details from the document but says it did not know the exact source. Afterward, Winner was arrested
and pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act.

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“Winner has not carried the burden of demonstrating that her specific medical conditions under the particular conditions of confinement at FMC Carswell
place her at a risk substantial enough to justify early release,” U.S. District Judge J. Randal Hall wrote in April, in rejecting Winner’s motion. “In
fact, the court is constrained to observe that Winner is in a medical prison, which is presumably better equipped than most to deal with any onset of COVID-19
in its inmates.”

There’s more, click on the link for more. Hope everyone finds this of interest and comment on some great news.