Final Post: Hacker's Loyalty

Adrian Lamo is an ex-hacker who was also known as the “Homeless Hacker”. He was called the “Homeless Hacker” because he accessed hotspots in various locations to penetrate internal networks of high profile companies and alerted them of their vulnerabilities. He offered his services to fix it because he felt he was doing the right thing by notifying them of this security breach and the potential harm that could be done  if someone with bad intentions accessed it. Most companies took him up on his offer and did not press charges.  It wasn’t until 2002 when one of the companies NY Times, to which he hacked, didn’t think so kindly of Lamo’s actions. Instead they notified the U.S. Attorney’s office who started an investigation. He would later be found guilty and be placed on 6 months probation and also having to pay restitution. While on probation, he cleaned up his act and attended school to become a Threat Analyst.

In 2010, a U.S. Soldier by the name of Bradley Manning contacted Adrian Lamo via AOL chat room. During their chat, the two discussed Lamo’s past hacking history, Manning awaiting to be discharged due to his gender identity issue and both their experience in the IT world.  As the conversation progressed, Manning eventually confided that he had been penetrating the U.S. classified network and forwarding classified information to Wikileaks. This information he believed the public needed to know. Not believing what he was hearing, Lamo asked Manning for specific stories and Manning supplied. Lamo contacted the U.S. military and informed them of his conversation.  Manning was later arrested and charged with several offenses, with one being “aiding the enemy”, which led to a 35 year sentence.

Lamo claimed that his action for turning Manning in was to help the nation, "Mr Manning's well being was not as important as the security of our armed forces. I had never considered myself particularly patriotic, but when push came to shove the wellbeing of the nation was of paramount importance to me." (excerpt from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/15/hacker-adrian-lamo-bradley-manning-wikileaks)

I think that Lamo is a hypocrite, just as he thought that he was doing good exposing the companies whose systems he penetrated and then offering to fix it instead of doing ill will, Manning felt the same way about his actions; he felt as though the classified information needed to be known by the public so the truth would be out.  According to Wired article, there are three different types of Hackers: whitehats (employed with companies in which they hack within the law), Blackhats (penetrate networks illegally for fun), and Grayhats (hackers who protect security holes from vandals). It would seem as though Lamos is regarded as a Grayhat. Since when is a grayhats loyalty to the law enforcement?

“The distinction between obligation and loyalty might be stated schematically in terms of that with which, respectively, they are connected: obligation is displayed toward rules or requirements of more or less formalized roles and is derived from acceptance of either the legitimacy of the rules or the appropriateness of the roles, or both, whereas loyalty is shown to persons and is founded upon solidary commitment to them. (An Internet Journal of Philosophy 17- 2013, John Riser) Was Lamo obligated to his country to report Manning? Well, he did feel that it was his civic duty as an American citizen to turn Manning in for his wrongdoing. He felt like where was Manning’s loyalty to the military that he so proudly served. Did Lamo owe Manning some kind of loyalty seeing as how he’s been in Manning’s shoes before and seeing as how Manning confided in him because he had no one else to turn to? Josiah Royce stated, “Loyalty is thoroughgoing in that it is not merely a casual interest but a wholehearted commitment to a cause.” Lamo would turn around and state that he did not want to turn Manning in, but he feared what kind of punishment he could face for retaining that type of information.

So to conclude, Lamo turning Manning in, was not because he wanted to be a stand-up citizen and prove that he was totally rehabilitated. If Lamo wasn’t curious as to what would happen to such a person who knew of such a leak then he probably would’ve went on his merry way. In the end, Lamo’s loyalty was to himself and no one else.