Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Eric Lundgren Case and Similar High-Profile Plea 'Bargains' (Aaron Swartz and Marcus Hutchins)

Overview



Microsoft's Declaration of War on Recyclers



The Legal Aftermath



Pending review and research




Innocence Is Irrelevant
Reference: Innocence Is Irrelevant



Summary: Unjust and at times fatal plea 'bargain' tricks are being leveraged against people who fight 'the system'; Eric Lundgren has come to realise he's one of these people

The other day we saw Eric Lundgren replying to Marcus Hutchins; it wasn't long after Hutchins had said:

Me: "Now my case is over the stress should subside and i can fina..." My Lawyer: "Just a friendly reminder that you need to pack up your entire apartment, say bye to all your friends, then move across the fucking sea. Sometime this week would be good."


Hutchins will be walking around for the rest of his (long to go!) life with a "felony" crest/emblem/badge/mark/stamp/livery. It's a stain. It'll never go away. It's hard to find employment as in some cases it is not legal to hire people with a conviction/criminal record/felony. He's on the record as admitting guilt only after he had been blackmailed into it with the plea 'bargain' trick/machinations. We mentioned this many times in our daily links over the past couple of years.

“I was watching a documentary called "The Internet's Own Boy - The Story Of Aaron Swartz" - I wish he was still with us... I was glued to the documentary in hopes of gaining some insight that might help my plight. Then the narrator says, "And then he hung himself" and I just sat there dumbfounded...”
      --
Lundgren and Hutchins have that problem in common now. "Before I went to prison," Lundgren told me the other day, "I was watching a documentary called "The Internet's Own Boy - The Story Of Aaron Swartz" - I wish he was still with us..."

"I think I mentioned the similarity to you already," I told him, as "legal bills burdened his family, so he 'saved' them" (by killing himself).

"It was crazy," Lundgren continued, "he got hit with the exact same level of Federal Charges that I was facing and I was so eager to hear how he was going to get out of it! I was glued to the documentary in hopes of gaining some insight that might help my plight. Then the narrator says, "And then he hung himself" and I just sat there dumbfounded..."

And "they do this to other people," I interrupted him to say. "Chelsea Manning is the latest..." (they impose massive daily fines on her and her family for merely refusing to testify against Julian Assange even though she rightly sticks to her Constitutional rights).

"Assange [may] still have some savings," I said, "so I think he can cope with legal bills..."

And "then comes the plea "bargain"," I said. And "the US did this to a Brit too [...] he was released 1-2 weeks ago ("MalwareTech") [...] he has felony now [but] they gave him a "bargain" [of] time served (2 years) [...] after he helped stop the damage caused by Microsoft/NSA back doors (WannaCry)" (this is based on our latest informal conversation).

Here's a report about it, "Marcus Hutchins, malware researcher and ‘WannaCry hero,’ sentenced to supervised release" (NSA and Microsoft officials -- not Hutchins -- should have been sentenced to prison, at the very least for their WannaCry culpability; it's them who made the back doors that caused hospitals to be shut down; their actions actually killed a lot of people).

"How dare this young British man 'interfere' with WannaCry, which was mostly developed by the NSA? Stay out, little fella'! Adults only here!"The above article (from one and a half weeks ago) was written by a former Microsoft UK staffer/intern who had blocked me in Twitter. So it's not likely he'll explain the back doors nature of it all (or Windows). The state wants to 'bury' it all and 'make an example'...

How dare this young British man 'interfere' with WannaCry, which was mostly developed by the NSA? Stay out, little fella'! Adults only here!

WannaCry is an exploit, a back door(ing) facility; it was leaked from the NSA and Microsoft knew about it as it's telling the NSA about zero-days without even fixing them. WannaCry is an SMB-level exploit. It killed lots of people, shut down hospitals worldwide, and caused billions of dollars in financial damage. And guess who was threatened with life in prison for it... the man who stopped it!

“No good deed shall go unpunished, especially if it hurts profit. This world be damned, we'll pollute it if there's a coin to be made outta this.”
      --Anonymous
In the case of Lundgren, who got arrested and was threatened with life behind bars? Not the people responsible for deadly pollution but the person who combats this pollution. As someone put it in response to our article yesterday (Microsoft employees have already 'infiltrated' these comments): "No good deed shall go unpunished, especially if it hurts profit. This world be damned, we'll pollute it if there's a coin to be made outta this."

The following old (but still viral) meme comes to mind as a rather appropriate and apt analogy:

Facebook vs WikiLeaks



There's lots more coming in the series, so stay tuned. The exact structure (outline) hasn't been determined yet. We're thinking along the lines of: 1) Silencing Media (how Microsoft gagged publishers). 2) Court Mischief (how Microsoft possibly 'bought' the outcome). 3) Legal and Financial Ramifications (the dangers of this precedent). Expect photos and legal documents (copies of them).

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Things to Like About London
Many important or "powerful" people leave near there
The Significance of the Timing of the Ridiculous Letters From Brett Wilson LLP, Acting on Behalf of People From Microsoft
A preliminary look at the timeline and what it tells us
 
The So-called 'IT' Industry Became Somewhat of a Fraud Where People Equate Usage and Power Wasted With "Value" or "Success"
When did 'IT' become a weapon rather than technology/science?
Links 23/02/2025: Democracy Backsliding and German Election
Links for the day
Joining APRIL(.org), AGM weekend, Paris, 15-16 March 2025
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/02/2025: Zuckerberg Despised, US Government Does Not Obey Judges, France Grapples With Terrorism
Links for the day
Links 23/02/2025: Apple Back Doors, Ukraine Updates, and Gemini Leftovers
Links for the day
Recent Improvements in Techrights
minimalism works fine when the main goal is to relay information
Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Brittany Day (linuxsecurity.com), and Microsoft Misinformation, False Marketing
Serial Sloppers
Censored: Debian Zizian transgender vigilante comparisons in open source Linux communities
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 22, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 22, 2025
Links 22/02/2025: OpenAI Plans to Possibly Abandon Microsoft, Facebook Doubles Execs' Bonuses While Sacking Thousands
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/02/2025: Weekend Chill and Programming Thoughts
Links for the day
Politicians Ought to Invite Dr. Richard Stallman and Prof. Eben Moglen to Speak About Policies, Licensing, Digital Sovereignty
Is there something in Europe other than RMS' talk this coming Monday (that we're not yet aware of)?
Good Explanation of Why IBM Has Chosen to Conceal Mass Layoffs (of 'Expensive' Staff) as "R.T.O." (Even For People Who Never Worked at the Office to Which They're Ordered to "Return")
Many remaining IBM (or Red Hat) workers in Europe are in "cheaper" places such as Brno
Microsoft's Serial Strangler and Matthew J. Garrett Join Forces in Trying to Gag Techrights (for Exposing Microsoft Corruption and Crimes Against Women)
Whose terrible idea was it?
Links 22/02/2025: Labour Department Investigates Microsoft Infosys Amid Mass Layoffs, Large Law Firms Caught Red Handed With LLM Slop (Defrauding Clients and Courts)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/02/2025: Analog Stuff, Sigil, and SSGs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Market Share in Cameroon Falls to New Lows
This means a lot of Android users (iOS is about 4 times smaller), but Android does not mean freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 21, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 21, 2025
The Streisand Effect is Real
So don't be evil. Also, don't strangle women.
Links 21/02/2025: Linux Foundation Openwashing, Microsoft Copilot Goes Down
Links for the day
Links 21/02/2025: Doomscrolling and European Ham Radio Show
Links for the day
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano Proud to Host Free Software Talk by Richard Stallman
ahead of Monday's talk
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Machine-Generated FUD (LLM Slop) From GBHackers, CybersecurityNews, and Guardian Digital, Inc (Google News Promotes Slop Plagiarism, Misinformation)
Companies that lie try to drown out the signal with falsehoods
Links 21/02/2025: TikTok Layoffs, WebOS Software Patents in Bad Hands
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/02/2025: Web Browsers, Mechanical Shortcuts, and Internet Hygiene
Links for the day
Richard Stallman 'Only' Founded the FSF
there's no reason to be upset at the FSF for keeping their founder in the Board
Techrights Disconnected From the United States Two Years Ago
Did people really need to wait for the US government to become this hostile towards the media before recognising the threat?
Before Trying Censorship by Extortion the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Literally Begged Us to Delete Pages
This is very clearly just a broad campaign of intimidation
Hype Watch: Weeks After Microsoft Disappointed Investors With "Hey Hi" It's Trying Some "Quantum" Hype (Adding Impractical Vapourware to Accompany This Hype and Even LLM Slop in 'News' Clothing)
Remember "metaverse"? What happened to media hype about "blockchain" and "IoT"?
Report About February Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in 2025) Comes Back From the Dead
Yesterday we wrote about an article in CRN (reporting Microsoft layoffs) being removed without any reasons specified
Links 21/02/2025: Myanmar Scam Centre and Disruptions at USPTO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 20, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 20, 2025