Prez Obama sends Iranian defense hacker home in prisoner swap

An Iranian hacker who attempted to steal military secrets from an American company has been sent back to the Islamic republic with a pardon, as part of a prisoner exchange program. Nima Golestaneh, 30, was extradited to the US from Turkey last year after being fingered for a hacking attack against US defense contractor Arrow …

[Charles Manning]

Hack the Casino

Not a bad idea....

That could identify people worth manipulating either because they have a huge need for money for gambling and can readily be bought or can be blackmailed.

[veti]

Re: Hack the Casino

Also a promising vector for social engineering attacks, I would have thought. Hack the email system - monitor for targets contacting the casino (making reservations, whatever) - then write those targets back, from the casino's own mail server, asking them to do (compromising thing) to claim their special offer.

It'd work on most people I know.

[Mark 85]

A pardon? WTF? I can see sending him back... but a pardon? I suppose that legally, if he does it again, he can be re-arrested. Seems the pardon is revocable but still.... it just seems wrong.

[The bigger, blacker box.]

Fair?

He hacked in order to get access to technology that was blocked to Iran by trade agreements, it wasn't stealing for profit (OK, he obviously got paid), i.e. he committed a crime that was only perpetrated because there was no legal way of getting the information, in fact all of the Iranians in the swap were found guilty of trade embargo contraventions, some of which involved other direct fraud (it's difficult to legally pay for illegal goods, services and technology).

I *think* the argument goes something like this; we made it illegal for you to do X, other countries can do X, so for you to do X you had to commit other crimes, if X was legal, you wouldn't have done the crime, so we will let you off (obviously the context is the new nuclear deal, which makes these embargo's somewhat moot anyway).

And don't forget, this wasn't free, the Iranians released four U.S. citizens (all dual Iranian) with similar pardons for their actions, and this is off the back of releasing the 10 U.S. sailors that (allegedly) violated Iranian waters, if Iran violated U.S. waters, would you expect the same?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fair?

So, you say

"He hacked in order to get access to technology that was blocked to Iran by trade agreements, it wasn't stealing for profit (OK, he obviously got paid), i.e. he committed a crime that was only perpetrated because there was no legal way of getting the information".

I guess in your mind that makes it okay, huh? There is a reason the technology was blocked from these guys.

The Iranians mean to destroy the west. They support terrorism and are working on their own processes to that end. There is nothing 'fair' about the way they operate, and if you don't understand that, you need to spend some hours learning about the current state of affairs there.