Adrian Lamo

Adrian Lamo is a Colombian-American threat analyst and "grey hat" hacker.
He first gained media attention for breaking into several high-profile computer
networks, including those of The New York Times, Yahoo!, and Microsoft,
culminating in his 2003 arrest. In 2010, Lamo reported U.S. serviceman Bradley
Manning to federal authorities, claiming that Manning had leaked hundreds of
thousands of sensitive U.S. government documents to WikiLeaks. Manning was arrested
and incarcerated in the U.S. military justice system.
Lamo was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Mario Lamo-Jiménez and Mary Lamo-Atwood in 1981.
Popularly called the "homeless hacker" for his transient lifestyle, Lamo spent most of his
travels couch-surfing, squatting in abandoned buildings and traveling to Internet cafes,
libraries and universities to investigate networks, and sometimes exploiting security holes.

I chose Adrian Lamo to be my favourite hacker because he was did the right thing to the society
which is morally good and and he doesnt deserve to be be prosecuted when he broke the law.
Because he did a lot of good thing many well known companies in the United States of America.
 
Earlier on in his hacking career, Adrian Lamo was something of a good Samaritan,
known by the moniker "the homeless hacker" because he sometimes took up residence
in abandoned buildings. As a hacker, Lamo broke into the networks of a number of
major companies -- Excite@Home, MCI WorldCom, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google --
After cracking through the companies' security systems, Lamo informed them of their
vulnerabilities, and helped them close the holes, free of charge.
In some cases, he also helped them fix these holes without accepting any compensation.
Apperently, he is helping these companies and even the society by telling the companies
how they were hacked and helping them fix it.

He was arrested for unauthorized access to networks belonging the New York Times and Reed Elsevier's Lexis-Nexis' site in violation of 18 U.S.C.1030(a)(5)(A)(ii) and 1029(a)(2). Included as 'relevant conduct' in the complaint (conduct that is alleged and may be used to show that the defendant is generally a bad guy, but need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt) were allegations that defendant Lamo had additionally compromised other corporate networks. These allegedly included Excite@Home, Yahoo, Microsoft, MCI Worldcom, SBC and Cingular... In the ultimate proceedings in USA v. Lamo, a conviction was secured only for the intrusions against the NYT, Lexis-Nexis, and Microsoft. All three were amalgamated in a single count.
He found some valuable information there, including personal
details on thousands of people who had written for the paper, including celebrities
and ex-presidents. To avoid jail time, he negotiated a plea bargain that included six
months of house arrest. Due to that i think he is doing the right thing to the society positively. It's 'the notion among hackers that something is worth doing or is interesting. This is something that hackers often feel intuitively about a problem or solution; the feeling approaches the mystical for some. It's not that it's about the information, it's always been for about the process, which is why he used a published or unpublished 'exploit' in that extend  he wasn't looking for buffer overflows or flaws in the software. He was just trying to take normal every day information resources and arrange them in improbable ways. Actually he didn't spend time downloading databases of customer information.
One example is Excite@Home, as stated in one of his interviews which of course no longer exists per se. "When I compromised them I had full access to the customer data, including credit card data in full text. That was of no interest to me. What I thought was really cool, what had hack value to me was that I could log in to support accounts that they didn't check anymore and answer help desk requests from users who otherwise would never get an answer.

In recent years, Lamo has been in the news for reporting Bradley Manning to police.
Manning, a U.S. Army private first class, allegedly funneled thousands of classified
documents to the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks and then contacted Lamo, who
said that Manning boasted about his actions. Lamo's role in the affair, in which he
presented himself as a journalist, has attracted some controversy.

The moral philosophy comparing Adrian Lamo to Socrate is that he suggests that what is to be considered a good act is not good because gods say it is, but is good because it is useful to us in our efforts to be better and happier people. In other words Adrian did good that made some companies and even individuals who information was at hand happy by not revealing them to the public. He even helped solve these companies problems that could cost thousands for free.

To conclude  i will say that Adrian Lamo is not publicly harmful. His activities has even helped a lot of big tech companies .