Inexcusable
I have little sympathy for this guy. I'm subject to this type of vetting, and there is no way you can go through it without realising the gravity of the situation and the enormous trust that is being placed in you. Multiply that by 10 when you sign the official secrets act - the consequences are made very clear in black and white. They can be summarised thus: do anything naughty with your access or the information you work with and your'e fucked, you might be living rent free for a long time. As the act is UK law, it stll applies even if you dont sign it. But to be honest, I enjoyed the process - it appealed to my childish vanity, and for five minutes of my life I felt like James Bond.
What this guy did was egregious, and he fully understood that. He knew what harm he could cause, but didnt care. He did it purely out of spite and his desire for retribution. I have to say it seems a strange way to avenge your local police force though.
I understand the civil liberties concerns about revealing crypto keys, but this is way beyond a normal case, and it's him that has made it so. He's signed the OSA, shared classified nat security info, boasted about having much more extensive info on his laptop, encrypted it, travelled widely with it, and claims to have posted it to foreign embassies. He knows what he's doing and is purposely witholding the keys. Damn right he should be made to cough up the key. And damn right he should be punished severely for not doing so.
He's risked, maybe seriously harmed national security. His actions could cause serious harm or loss of life. He did it anyway, out of pure spite. Someone above claimed no evidence of harm exists. Thats not particularly relevant here though. If someone plants a bomb in a primary school do you let him go with a ticking off becuse the detonator failed? I think not. He deserves all he gets, I'd lock him up for twice as long.
Ps. To the commentard saying he might be autistic, I say ***k you pal, I resent the implication of the autistic weirdo stereotype. I'm autistic, probably half the people i work with are (seriously), we're not all like rain man and we dont have an increased proclivity to break the law. I suppose most of us are a little weird, myself included. I read maths books for fun, but so do a lot of software engineers. Anyway, if you are an engineer, the liklehood that you are, or work with, an autistic person is overwhelming. IT is full of 'em, and without us, the software teams of the big firms would be half empty. So again, ***k you pal, dont be a douche by flinging around stereotypes. Please.