Box cutter case suspect charged, released

AP | 10/21/03

[Modernman]

This young man is unquestionably guilty a very serious crime

Yes, medieval monarchs were at leat honest about it- it was a crime to commit lese majeste. Our rulers have to be more subtle about it.

[wideminded]

I have to say that I am really impressed that no one in this thread has yet taken the narrow-minded authoritarian side espoused by the prosecutor.

[tdadams]

"Amateur testing of our systems do not show us in any way our flaws," McHale said. "We know where the vulnerabilities are and we are testing them. ... This does not help."

While I don't condone this guy's freelance security analyst work, the above statement is hogwash. An embarassing high-profile breach of security isn't going to help clamp down on the holes? When ABC News shipped uranium from Indonesia, that didn't get someone's attention at homeland security?

I can understand the feds' foul mood over this. They got a big black eye. I can understand their terse response to try to discourage this kind of thing from happening again. But don't tell me what this kid did hasn't put some heat on the TSA to fix some problems.

[tdadams]

Isnt' that the lead singer of the Foo Fighters?

[Plumrodimus]

TSA's inbox is probably clogged with spam.

[RiflemanSharpe]

prosecutor said he committed a "very serious and foolish action."

Yup - he embarassed the federales.


That in their eyes is one of the most serious crime possible.

[Cboldt]

TSA's inbox is probably clogged with spam.

Perhaps. But not to the point that the kids e-mail was lost in a flood of spam. The TSA was able to produce the e-mail some 40 days after they got it, in response to a particular discovery by airline employees.