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388 Comments
- chewbacca77, on 08/24/2009, -8/+1271Its rare you find interesting and amazing stories which are this well written. Definitely worth the read.
- cheviot, on 08/24/2009, -36/+815He's a criminal that was given second chance after second chance and still acted like an ass and committed felonies when he knew the authorities were watching.
Booo frickin' hoo! - acroyear2, on 08/24/2009, -8/+618i can't believe we're all reading this long article.
- angrytortilla, on 08/24/2009, -2/+558What makes this even better is that the digger submitted the print version of the story and probably saved us going through 4 or 5 pages. Megadugg.
- NikoKun, on 08/24/2009, -3/+520"Wait! Don't shoot, I'm blind!"
"Oh ok.."
..."Wait a minute, he saw my gun! Damn it!" - hughesj919, on 08/24/2009, -2/+423Wow, that might have been one of the most interesting stories I've read on Digg. Ever.
- Praystation, on 08/24/2009, -2/+359Teach him arabic and let him work for the CIA.
He'll have Osama's cellphone number in no time. - scriptcoder, on 08/24/2009, -17/+372Let me sum it up:
1) Fat kid is fat. He's blind and lonely.
2) Because of being lonely he makes friends in a telephone chatroom.
3) Because of being a l33t hacker he figures out how to make the phone system work for him.
4) Because of being an ***** he sends swat teams and police to innocent peoples homes.
5) He's caught and given a second chance. He goes back to being an *****.
6) Dudes now in jail. (pwned!) - WhiskeyLemur, on 08/24/2009, -0/+349For real - what's next, books? Pfft.
- RockMuncher, on 08/24/2009, -3/+276He sounds like he has strong sociopath tendencies to me, looking at his actions and interviews; I have zero sympathy or empathy for him... but I feel a little sad about seeing all that wasted talent.
Very interesting read. - EggAndMuffin, on 08/24/2009, -7/+279For those who wants to know what his 'super power' is:
"Weigman discovered at an early age that his acute hearing gave him superpowers on the telephone. He could impersonate any voice, memorize phone numbers by the sound of the buttons and decipher the inner workings of a phone system by the frequencies and clicks on a call, which he refers to as "songs." The knowledge enabled him to hack into cellphones, order phone lines disconnected and even tap home phones. "Man, it felt pretty powerful for a little kid," he says. "Anyone said something bad about me, and I'd press a button, and I'd get them.""
The article is a very good read. - tgc1, on 08/24/2009, -1/+239Great writing is easy to read.
- ThreeDee912, on 08/24/2009, -0/+228"Many of the callers were social misfits and outcasts: ex-cons and bawdy chicks and unemployed guys with nothing better to do all day than talk ***** to a bunch of complete strangers. People without a life. And that's when it hit Weigman: No one here could see each other. They were all just disembodied voices."
So it's basically what 4chan was before the internet was invented? - boomcubist, on 08/24/2009, -3/+229I'm glad I read it.
- useraccess, on 08/24/2009, -0/+212He is a bit of a denier, isn't he? "I just like playing with phones, that's all." He will likely do it again when he gets out of prison.
- DiggyWiggy, on 08/24/2009, -9/+203Very cool story. He has the potential to do incredible things, but with a tough childhood and 11 years of prison, I hope he can escape the "crime cycle".
- joshuaer, on 08/24/2009, -1/+184and it is all on one page!
- Rezistik, on 08/24/2009, -1/+180"To protect herself from attacks, she became close to another member of Rosoff's gang, eventually moving in with him and taking part in one of the Wrecking Crew's pranks."
Wow, and I thought the internet was serious business. This story is crazy. I wish I had something of substance to say but I think I'm just stunned by the gravity of the article. - rabidbob, on 08/24/2009, -8/+182Crazy and poorly managed by the authorities. The moment the FBI saw what he could do they should have had him back into school, scholarship degree and then locked into a contract with the government doing security or law enforcement work. The US wants a cyber-defence team? You need to catch people like this before they get themselves into trouble, provide them with a whole heap of discipline, structure and education and get them working for and with society not against it. I hope he manages to sort himself out and that prison does not destroy him.
- tloftxj, on 08/24/2009, -1/+171i'm proud of us.
- Rotzooi, on 08/24/2009, -0/+117WiRED has some audio of the kid getting a phone line disconnected, pretty interesting:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/06/blind-tee ... - martoq, on 08/24/2009, -0/+107Wow he makes rice AND has good advice!
- parax, on 08/24/2009, -1/+107He could have been Daredevil and Oracle combined! But the alluring path of creepy phone sex rapist was too seductive.
- Platysquirrel, on 08/24/2009, -0/+95/b/ would be proud.
- caseycoold, on 08/24/2009, -7/+101get off my digg
go back to twitter - superhoff, on 08/24/2009, -2/+94The goal of this article is not to evoke sympathy.
- Neiby, on 08/24/2009, -5/+96I don't think eleven years is long enough for a little psycho ***** like that. He could have really messed up a lot of people's lives. Swatting is extremely dangerous. He's lucky someone didn't get killed. He willfully put people in very dangerous situations and tried to ruin people's lives by spreading malicious lies about them. This kid is extremely dangerous and sociopathic. Eleven years is way too short.
- ZenFountain, on 08/24/2009, -0/+90It's the details that make a story so good.
"Last year, during the presidential campaign, Weigman heard a YouTube video of Mitt Romney's son Matt dialing his dad. Weigman listened closely to the touch tones, deciphered the candidate's cellphone number — and then made a call of his own. "Mitt Romney!" he said. "What's going on, dude? Running for president?" Weigman says Romney told him to shove the phone up his ass, and hung up." - frequentFlyer, on 08/24/2009, -12/+102"With great powers come great responsibility."
-Uncle Ben - Morchades, on 08/24/2009, -1/+87What pisses me off is how the authorities didn't want to go after him in parts of that article. He's wasting police resources, harassing innocent people, bullying women for phone sex, and they kept going "Oh, he's just a poor little blind kid."
***** him, and them. - djambo, on 08/24/2009, -0/+83This should be made a movie.
- rblancarte, on 08/24/2009, -3/+82I think this may be the most disappointing thing of the whole story. In the end, you read this and realize, man, this kid could have been such an asset. He had a talent that very few have. Used for good means, he could help so many. But only IF he had chosen the right path.
It is easy for him to play the victim card. But that is such *****. A lot of people grow up in a similar environment, and many of them chose to let it guide them in a similar direction. But many chose to overcome it and find a better way, even thought it is harder, because in the end the results are better.
It was because he was lazy, and the article so well spelled it out, that you can tell this guy was lazy. He found what he could do and dedicated only to that. He got fat, ignored everything else. Dropped out of school, etc.
He wants to sound sympathetic in the end, but he plays the victim card. No, you chose that life, it didn't choose you. You chose NOT to try, and now you have 11 years to think about that. - Briones07, on 08/24/2009, -6/+82Dugg for "John Defanno" was actually a 15-year-old boy named Matthew Weigman — a fat, lonely blind kid who lived with his mom in a working-class neighborhood of East Boston."
- eddielement, on 08/24/2009, -4/+78Good. Uber trolls like him deserve to be put in jail. (11 years is a stretch though...)
- unknamed, on 08/24/2009, -2/+74I know right? Because anything longer than 140 characters is a waste of time..... /s
(maybe this is short enough for you: UR A TARD!) - directedition, on 08/24/2009, -1/+68Indeed. Most pranking phreakers I will give leniency to, but this guy went way way over the line. I don't care what history caused him to be a criminal, the fact of the matter is that he is one.
- MuffinPatrol, on 08/24/2009, -0/+65I started reading the article with no intention of finishing but by the time I was done I was sad that there was no more to read.
- OLTP, on 08/24/2009, -8/+69I feel dirty after reading that article. What a bunch of sad, horrible people.
- onederboy, on 08/24/2009, -0/+61...the few times you see it.
Agreed though, I typically don't read articles this long, was entertained the whole way through. - DamonToo, on 08/24/2009, -0/+60It's rare that I finish reading anything I browse on the web let alone something this long. Read every word of this though. Almost stopped toward the beginning. Glad I didn't.
- WhiskeyLemur, on 08/24/2009, -6/+65Rolling Stone has always had exceptional writers.
- counterpunK, on 08/24/2009, -3/+59I'm expecting a movie about this within a year. Very interesting read. So many people under-estimate the pre-adult, but they are the ones that shine the brightest when driven - even in the wrong direction.
- Stavrosian, on 08/25/2009, -0/+48Learn what "QFT" stands for?
- wastelander, on 08/24/2009, -0/+45"Blind Bastard" would have made a great alias.
- BC200, on 08/24/2009, -4/+48BUT HE WAS BULLIED! HE WAS THE VICTIM!
- directedition, on 08/24/2009, -0/+432600 published Osama's sat phone number a few years back, but it just went straight to voice mail :(
- IphtashuFitz, on 08/24/2009, -7/+48This is an old story, but one that's well worth reading if you've not heard about it before. I think I first read about this about a year ago. I've seen it mentioned on Digg a few different times as it's been written about in a number of different magazines since the convictions in 2007. Here's one previous mention:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Should_caller_ID_spoofin ... - crilen007, on 08/24/2009, -1/+40It was a good read for once. Not much of that on the net.
- iPrinceSimba, on 08/24/2009, -8/+47It was an interesting story, but the article victimized the guy just because he was blind. He's just a whiny brat and a bully; the kind of guy who gets all high and mighty once he's on the phone and feels invulnerable because he has an idea of what he's doing. I don't feel even the slightest twinge of sympathy for that kid.
- Ezrayan, on 08/24/2009, -3/+40don't give me that "ooh he's a child victim" excuse. My father had to deal with the same abuse when he was growing up. A father, who because of fighting in the Pacific during WW2 became an alcoholic, beat the ***** out of my dad, called him a worthless p.o.s every day, scared him from the dinner table consistently, and drove him out of the house night or day. He started hanging around with drug dealers, alcoholics, and criminals, but after high school he wised up. Sure he wasn't disabled but he was hurt mentally; I still have to deal with his quirks every day, but he was able to realize, after a lifetime of difficulty to straighten himself out. People stay down because they choose to.
Hell even when his father left his family at 3 his stepfather seemed like a decent guy, which Matthew should have bonded with and turned out decent.
/rant -
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