This kid was not a silver tongued charismatic con man able to dupe and swindle victims, he was taking advantage of ignorance, incompetence, and bad management. his criminal skill consisted of being able to repeatedly and shamelessly call people and repeat a plausible script. High school drama club skills - not "hacked the school server to give everyone 4.1 GPA" skills.

I can grab a clipboard and safety vest and get almost anywhere in the world, even sounding awkward and not particularly smooth, because people expect IT and technician types to show up and be given access to nearly anywhere. "Hi, I'm from IT, I need to get to the phone line/computer in back/ network cable for the display" - people are gullible and ignorant, and the "hackers" that figure out that fact get away with outrageous things based on that alone.

They farmed out these low level social engineering tasks to dozens or even hundreds of participants whose only "skill" was to learn that "one little trick" which broke the security model of all those corporations and departments. That's how law enforcement swept this guy up, because he was not technically proficient or particularly good at what he was doing, from a security standpoint.

10 years of prison is definitely going to mature this person - all I'm saying is that I wish the best for him, because ultimately, that's what best for all of us. I hope he finds a purpose and meaning in life that obliterates the superficial exploitation of people that landed him in prison, and makes the world a better place for his family and community when he gets out. If he can still think of himself as wanting to be a good person, to be better than he was, then I think there's probably hope.

If he was completely unrepentant and unwilling to be accountable, it'd be different - No credit at all to him, I'm just hoping for the best and recognizing that possibility seems to still exist for him.

I'm not assuming the worst...that would be assuming he intends to find a way to continue managing an online gang from jail...

> the superficial exploitation of people

It wasn't superficial. He had a huge negative impact on a lot of everyday people and profited from it enormously.

> I'm just hoping for the best and recognizing that possibility seems to still exist for him.

I also hope he turns his life around and do believe there is a chance, but statements like the one quoted don't give me much hope. He pays lip service to saying what ge did was wrong and calls the community horrible, but he still wants to be friends with all the people with whom he became friends by engaging in criminal conspiracy with them.

The judge decided to throw the book at him and I think the judge was probably right. Maybe the extra years will give him time to understand the damage he caused.