Japan's Alleged Death Threat-Making, Cat-Hacking Programmer Says He's Innocent 69
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Inside the memory card in the cat's collar, authorities found a resentful message criticizing the police along with versions of the virus (iesys.exe) used to carry out the threat messages, which were made remotely, through other people's computers. If you hadn't heard about the story in the news, you'd be forgiven for confusing it with the plot of a Haruki Murakami novel. In Tokyo District Court Wednesday, the former employee of a Japanese IT company wore a black suit, a wide smile, and pleaded not guilty to 10 charges brought against him. The Japan Times explained the string of threats were directed at 'schools and kindergartens attended by the Emperor Akihito's grandchildren,' as well as a Japan Airlines jet headed for New York. The plane had to stop mid-flight, costing the airline ¥9.75 million (about $93,000)."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"The plane had to stop mid-flight" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"The plane had to stop mid-flight" (Score:5, Funny)
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I hope somebody shouted HAMMERTIME!
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This is Japan we're talking about. They are way ahead of other nations in technology.
Clearly. (Score:2)
It'll be years before we get cats with wifi...
I would have thought it costs more... (Score:1)
if a plane stops midflight, it might crash... costing waay more than a $100K...
No nekos were harmed! (Score:2)
Thankfully, the worst charge can be thrown out...
Android (Score:4, Funny)
KitKat, of course.
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Root beer and KitKat
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death threat-making? It's a threat making death?
No, it is death making a threat against someone.
Presumably it is a rather serious threat, I would not ignore him.
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That looks correct to me. "Death threat" is a phrase. It doesn't get a gratuitous hyphen stuck inside it just because there's one put at the end. Properly you'd use a different length of dash here to indicate that it's a whole phrase being hyphenated rather than just the last word, but 1) most non-copy editors don't know that, and 2) dashes on the internet tend to be more pain to figure out than they're worth.
If he's really innocent he should confess (Score:5, Informative)
In Japanese society, the police are believed to be infallible. Once arrested for something, the conviction rate is something like 98%. Police make deals with suspects to deal with things quickly and quietly if they confess, but if they don't confess, then their name will be all over the newspapers, dragging their family into disrepute. This is why two people have already confessed to the crimes that this man is accused of.
But apparently the perpetrator doesn't like others taking credit for his work, and sent coded messages on the 2ch message board which a journalist and police were able to verify as containing non-public information that proved the sender was the real culprit, and the previous two accused were released despite having confessed to the crimes. Due to this history, if he is really innocent, his best chance of proving it may be to confess to the crime.
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Or phrased another way, the U.S. 12% acquittal rate is 40x more favorable than Japan's 0.3% acquittal rate.
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And a man with 40 cents to his name is 40 times 'richer' than a man with only a penny.
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Well, in the case of the United States the difference is about 11.7% in the conviction rate (99.7% versus 88%).
And in the case of the United States one needs to be a millionaire to have competent legal aid.
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And in the case of the United States one needs to be a millionaire to have competent legal aid.
Everyone loves to say that, but in reality petty criminals - poor criminals - get it really easy in the United States.
That's how they are able to pile up these long rap sheets in the first place. Assault, rape, robbery - and they just keep getting released to do more.
O brave new world / that has such creatures in't. (Score:4, Insightful)
We have the highest incarceration rate in the world, and you're arguing that not enough people are being jailed? Poverty is causally linked to crime! Assault, rape, and robbery have been in decline for years, and prison sentences have been lengthening.
It should be a surprise to no one that statistics on the income level of incoming prisoners [wordpress.com] are heavily biased towards the lowest levels of income. Income statistics for released felons [historyisaweapon.com] are even worse. [urban.org] We stigmatize prison to such a degree that it destroys people's ability to earn a living afterwards, and you wonder why we have a >60% recidivision rate. [wikipedia.org] Our "corrections system" is fundamentally broken, and by all measures worsening. Isn't prison supposed to prevent people from returning to a life of crime?
I am appalled at your ignorance, and the idea of a higher incarceration rate is vile. If you have no human compassion, have at least the sense to see when a solution isn't working.
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Being linked is not the same as being causally linked. There is a massive difference, and ignoring it requires a huge leap.
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There is indeed a difference. Please pardon my rhetoric; my argument is not necessarily academically rigorous. However, if we can reverse my intention with that remark, and suggest that a criminal record is an excellent way to be unemployed or otherwise in an impoverished state, the statistics range are supportive. Some of them were even shocking; one document I read indicated a low four-figure annual income for some groups. An exaggeration, one can only hope. I also do not think it beggars belief to sugges
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So you propose that we should not jail people for assault and rape?
Personally, I think assault and rape are vile. But that's me.
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Straw man. Try what I actually said: we already have the most expansive prison program in the world, and it is objectively bad at rehabilitation. You should probably be trying to justify either the current system or your idea that somehow it's not punishing people enough. Also we might cover whether punishment or rehabilitation is the primary purpose of a prison system.
Nice soundbite though. Reactionary, fallacious and obvious: a jab to please even the most thoughtless. I hope you didn't stay up too late wr
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It's the innocent poor that get the shaft. Or become petty criminals since they're going to be doing the time anyway.
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It's the same old story, prosecutors and police railroading anyone they can. Have you already forgotten about what they did to Aaron Schwartz?
Poor example. While Aaron Schwartz had good intentions, and the punishment far exceeded the crime, there's no doubt he was guilty. In this case (based on the comments, I haven't fact checked), two innocent people had already confessed.
Even the trolls are of lesser qiality these days (Score:3)
man, if you wanna be a good troll you gotta read a bit more. Your attempted insult is applicable for the Chinese and Koreans.
Do you hear a lot of silverware crashing noise in the names Myamoto Musashi, Oda Nobunaga, Tkeshi Kitano just to name a few....
Trolls these days....what do they teach them in school?
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Luckily, I am not the US.
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However, after watching the dramatized documentary http://www.imdb.com/title/tt07... [imdb.com] a documentary of the the systemic faults of the Japanese court system which is convicting innocent people, I have some doubts that it is actu
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they found that it was mostly because the prosecutors only took cases to court in which they were absolutely sure they had enough evidence for a conviction.
At which point the question that next needs to be asked is, "how good does their evidence have to be?"
However, after watching the dramatized documentary
It may be based on a true story, but it looks like just a drama.
Don't write summaries like this! (Score:5, Informative)
Inside the memory card in the cat's collar
What cat?!
Please, please, if you can't be bothered to write your own summary, at least make sure that the paragraphs you copy and paste make sense by themselves.
Did you even read what you submitted?
Editors: at least try to look like you're doing your job.
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No kidding, I have no fucking clue what this is trying to tell me, and the headline only makes it worse.
He hacked a cat? What? The only other meaning I can get from that is even more incorrect - unless one of his charges is in regards to mutilation of cats.
Stupid summary (Score:5, Informative)
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You must be new here.
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Slashdot editors are tech grads, not literature or journalism grads.
That's the lamest excuse of them all. If they're not good at communication, maybe they're in the wrong job, aren't they? There's plenty of techies that can write intelligible sentences out there.
Ghost In The Shell (Score:1)