Lauri Love

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Lauri Love, 2017

Lauri Love (born December 14, 1984 in Stradishall ( Suffolk ), United Kingdom ) is a Finnish- British activist and hacker , who has been associated with the activities of the Anonymous collective and LulzSec and has been legal for various acts by the United States since 2013 is prosecuted.

Life

Lauri Love is the son of clergyman Alexander Love and Finnish national Sirkka Love, both of whom live in Stradishall and work in Highpoint North Prison .

Love has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome since he was 29 years old, but he is not restricted in his learning behavior , attention aspects or language use , he is highly gifted . He also suffers from depression . He gives television interviews to the Russian state broadcaster.

Lauri Love is a British and Finnish citizen. After accepting the additional citizenship of his mother, he performed “national service” in Finland (comparable to the German alternative military service ). He worked for six months in a laboratory researching neurodegenerative disease .

Lauri Love attended sixth form college in England, but left the institute without a degree and was then temporarily employed in turkey processing. He later attended the Universities of Nottingham and Glasgow , where he studied mathematics , physics and computer science . He had to interrupt his studies twice in total due to phases of depression, during the second phase he lived for six months in a camp of the Occupy movement. In 2016 he studied electrical engineering at the University of Suffolk and worked as an information security consultant for a commercial company.

activism

Lauri Love was a participant in the 2010 protests against tuition fees in Great Britain and was particularly active during the eight-month occupation of the Hetherington building of the University of Glasgow. After these occupations ended, he became part of the Occupy movement in Glasgow in 2011.

"I don't see Washington or the Department of Justice as my enemies, I hope that after the extradition is dealt with they don't see me as a threat but as someone that can help achieve the ends that we do share - which is." a secure world. "

“I don't see Washington and the US Justice Department as my enemies. I hope that after the extradition process is over, you will not see me as a danger, but as someone who can help achieve a common goal: a safe world. "

- Lauri Love

Love as a hacker

Background: hacktivism and computer sabotage

Since the first decade after the turn of the millennium, there has been increased public awareness of the actions of various computer viruses and worms such as Stuxnet and hacker groups such as Anonymous or LulzSec , there have also been debates among the general public on topics of IT security and hacktivism . In 2013 there were various hacktivist actions to draw attention to what was going on around Aaron Swartz , including incidents of Denial of Service and Defacement . There were computer sabotage and break-ins in computer networks .

US indictment and arrest

Love was on 25 October 2013 by the British National Crime Agency arrested after internationally because of several hacks by the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command was determined. Love is one of up to four perpetrators who were active as part of the Anonymous campaign “Last Resort” ( English : last refuge ).

The indictment alleges that Love acquired personal information about 5,000 service members and former members of the United States Armed Forces through ten separate "online attacks". Specifically, SQL injections were used via vulnerabilities in the Adobe product ColdFusion . In addition, backdoors and shells were stored in the compromised networks so that they could be penetrated again at a later point in time.

"The information he allegedly copied was never distributed anywhere, it was more a youthful prank. And the security exploit they allegedly used had been publicly disclosed months before and used by tens of thousands of people. "

“The information that he [Lauri Love] allegedly copied was never published anywhere; it was more of a youthful prank . And the exploit they allegedly used was published months earlier and used by tens of thousands of people. "

- Tor Ekeland, Loves American attorney

Love also posted a video on the United States Sentencing Commission website criticizing the level of penalties imposed on Internet-related crime . According to another source, the website of the Sentencing Commission was taken offline after the hack made it offer a version of the computer game Asteroids .

Then on Monday, October 28, charges were brought against Lauri Love and co-conspirators in a US federal court in Newark, New Jersey . They hacked into "thousands of [computer] networks, including many belonging to the US military and other government agencies." As part of their plan, “military data and personal data” that “belonged to the soldiers” would have been stolen , thereby “endangering national security and insulting those who protect the country .” The period from October 2012 to Named October 2013 for the incidents, the computer networks affected belonged to the US Army , the Missile Defense Agency , the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA .

In total, charges have been brought under the Computer Misuse Act in three US states, New Jersey, New York and Virginia . The UK authorities themselves did not bring charges.

The information on the maximum possible sentence varies between 20 and 99 years in prison . In addition, there would be reparable damages in the amount of 25,000 to 9 million US dollars .

In the course of various hearings, the motivation of the defendants was also discussed. The US prosecutor denied that the three accused had any political motivation, saying that it was about "disrupting the activities and infrastructure of the US government". In contrast, Love said that he would "lifelong striving to put the world in a better condition."

Release on parole

Love was released on parole in July 2014 . These requirements included an obligation to visit the local authority in his first place of residence twice a week, thus preventing Love from continuing his studies in Glasgow.

After Love recovered from a trial-induced depression in 2015 after ending parole in 2014, he was arrested again on July 15, 2015 by a special unit of the Metropolitan Police Service . He was brought before a court again ordered him to be released on bail. The actual extradition hearings have been postponed to 2016.

Password release

The arrest in October 2013 was followed by a house search in which all electronic devices were confiscated. The authorities secured a total of 31 devices. As of February 2014, the National Crime Agency (NCA) was unable to gain access to six devices, including two laptops and storage media. In accordance with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), the NCA then requested the access data to be handed over . According to the RIPA, non-compliance can be sanctioned with two years imprisonment. Love refused - and the NCA refrained from enforcing it.

25 confiscated devices were returned in May 2015, Love then reclaimed his remaining property by civil law in November 2015, whereupon the NCA, under threat of "Contempt of Court" (for example: means of order ), again surrendered the passwords that Love used to encrypt his Data used, requested. A court declined to oblige Love in May 2016. The judge Nina Tempia stated that the authority should have used “conventional police options”, the RIPA procedure.

Extradition proceedings

Due to the nationally different legislation, there are enormous differences in the possible penalties. In the courts of Great Britain the maximum sentence in this case is a prison term of around three years, in the United States a prison sentence of 99 years.

In addition, the judicial systems differ significantly in how they deal with persons with psychological problems. Loves supporters alleged that the attempted suicide of Chelsea Manning , who was detained in a US military prison, had been tightened. Manning was sanctioned with solitary confinement, while in the British penal system in the event of peaks in psychological stress, such as severe depression, detention would be eased.

In principle, the United States of America has shown severity towards hackers in several examples in the recent past, for example in the case of Jeremy Hammonds or Barrett Browns or Aaron Swartz .

The case of the Scottish hacker Gary McKinnon , who suffered from similar psychological symptoms , became prominent . McKinnon was able to fight in a ten-year process that he was not extradited to the United States, because the prisons there did not guarantee adequate handling of his lifelong depression and Asperger's syndrome. The British Prime Minister Theresa May , then acting Home Secretary, had ultimately denied extradition on "humanitarian grounds".

In September 2016, the competent court ruled that Lauri Love could be extradited to the United States, even though there was “a substantial risk that Love would commit suicide. There would be enough medical facilities in prisons in the United States to meet his needs. ”On November 14, it was announced that Amber Rudd had signed an extradition order after“ all relevant aspects had been taken into account. ”Lauri Love laid down Appeal to the competent court of appeal , the Court of Appeal .

Public debate

The Daily Mail was the first newspaper to take a stand against extradition. In November 2016 the British Times published an editorial in which the newspaper endorsed. The article expressed incomprehension about Amber Rudd's decision and regretted that Theresa May's government had not acted on its Home Secretary in the interests of Gary McKinnon. Asperger's syndrome, in which those affected typically have difficulties assessing the consequences of their behavior, is no reason for prosecution to be waived, but an occasion to be lenient. The interest of justice is not served by the death of Love.

Letters from supporters were published in the Times in November 2016 over the course of a week. Among the authors were the autism researcher Richard Mills alongside activists and the British MPs David Burrowes and Barry Sheerman .

114 British MPs signed a letter to Barack Obama , in which they asked the US President to intervene in the extradition process and to withdraw it.

"The UK has prosecuted at least twelve computer hackers who have hacked US-based computer systems. Indeed, Mr Love would be the first UK-based computer hacker to be extradited and denied the opportunity to face a full prosecution in the UK. The UK criminal justice system is equipped to bring justice through sentencing and rehabilitating people who are adjudged to have committed these crimes.

Many of these twelve cases did not involve individuals who have significant mental health issues, nor Asperger Syndrome and were not at a high-risk of suicide, yet they were not extradited. We would like to ask, why then is the United States insistent on Mr Love's extradition despite the UK having a proven track record of appropriately sentencing and rehabilitating individuals who have committed computer hacking offenses against the US? "

“The UK has brought at least twelve computer hackers to justice who hacked computer systems in the United States. In fact, Lauri Love would be the first UK hacker to be extradited and denied a full UK trial. The UK judicial system is equipped to bring justice through the punishment and rehabilitation of those convicted of these crimes.

Many of these twelve cases involved people who did not have significant mental health problems, were suicudal or had Asperger's syndrome, but they were not extradited. We would like to know why the United States insists on extraditing Laurie Love when the UK has a documented history of appropriate punishments and rehabilitation for individuals who started computer sabotage against the United States? "

In addition, David Burrowes used Prime Minister's Questions on October 12, 2016 to ask Theresa May about Love's extradition procedure, whether the change she introduced into British law - "Forum Bar" - had proven useful. Following the case of Gary McKinnon, the power to decide extradition on "humanitarian concerns" was given to the courts instead of the Home Secretary's remit as before. The British attorney Edward Grange, "expert on extradition proceedings", called the protection provided by the Forum Bar illusory, it would only prevent extradition in the event of a threatened death penalty .

literature

Videos

Web links

  • freelauri.com - Website for the “Free Laurie” campaign of the supporting Courage Foundation with detailed information and links to court records

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c The Government of the United States of America Requesting Judicial Authority v Lauri Love , Extradition Request to Westminster Magistrates' Court , September 16, 2016. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Cara McGoogan: The full story of Lauri Love's fight against extradition , The Daily Telegraph - Website, June 27, 2016. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  3. ↑ https://twitter.com/RTUKnews/status/1140547127661060098
  4. ^ Dani Garavelli: Insight: Lauri Love - the making of a hacker , The Scotsman - Website, November 2, 2013. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  5. ↑ Richard Chirgwin: Laurie Love investigation stretches to Australia, Sweden , The Register - Website October 30, 2013. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  6. ↑ Peter Bright: How security flaws work: SQL injection , Ars Technica , October 31, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  7. ↑ a b Josh Halliday: Briton Lauri Love faces hacking charges in US , The Guardian - Website, October 29, 2013. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  8. ↑ Jon Swaine: Vicar's son Lauri Love faces further charge of hacking FBI computers , The Daily Telegraph website, October 29, 2013. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  9. ↑ Nicola Harley: Vicar's son arrested over US hacking , The Daily Telegraph website, July 16, 2015. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  10. ↑ Jennifer Baker: Lauri Love still doesn't know if he'll be extradited to the US for alleged hacking , Ars Technica , June 30, 2016. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  11. ↑ Chris Johnston: British man accused of hacking into US government networks arrested , The Guardian - Website, July 16, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  12. ↑ Lauri Love appears in court, extradition hearing delayed , freelauri.com - website of the Courage Foundation's support campaign .
  13. ↑ a b Glyn Moody: Lauri Love case: NCA's legal backdoor for crypto keys bid rejected by judge , Ars Technica , May 10, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  14. ↑ Chris Baraniuk: NCA's bid to get Lauri Love US hack case passwords thrown out , BBC website, May 10, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  15. ↑ a b Hauke ​​Gierow: Love against the United States of America , Golem.de , January 3, 2017. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  16. ↑ a b Jennifer Baker: Lauri Love to be extradited to the US to face hacking charges, court rules , Ars Technica , September 26, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  17. ↑ a b Kevin Rawlinson: Amber Rudd orders Lauri Love extradition to US on hacking charges , The Guardian - Website, November 14, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  18. ↑ Case for Compassion - Lauri Love should be tried for his alleged crimes in this country, not America , The Times , November 19, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  19. ↑ Kelly Fiveash: Lauri Love: MPs urge Obama to halt hacking suspect's extradition to US , Ars Technica , October 24, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Love, Lauri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-Finnish hacker and activist
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1984
PLACE OF BIRTH Stradishall ( Suffolk ), United Kingdom