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Q. OUTSTANDING WARRANTS
If you have an outstanding warrant or charges pending in another
jurisdiction you would be wise to deal with them as soon as possible
-after- you are sentenced. If you follow the correct procedure chances are
good the warrants will be dropped (quashed). In the worst case scenario,
you will be transported to the appropriate jurisdiction, plead guilty and
have your "time run concurrent." Typically in non-violent crimes you can
serve several sentences all at the same time. Many Federal inmates have
their state time run with their Federal time. In a nutshell: concurrent is
good, consecutive bad.
This procedure is referred to as the Interstate Agreement On Detainers Act
(IADA). You may also file a "demand for speedy trial", with the appropriate
court. This starts the meter running. If they don't extradite you within a
certain period of time , the charges will have to be dropped. The "Inmates'
Self-Help Litigation Manual" that I mentioned earlier covers this topic
quite well.
R. ENCRYPTION
There are probably a few of you out there saying, "I triple DES encrypt my
hard drive and 128 character RSA public key it for safety." Well, that's
just great, but... the Feds can have a grand jury subpoena your passwords
and if you don't give them up you may be charged with obstruction of
justice. Of course who's to say otherwise if you forgot your password in
all the excitement of getting arrested. I think I heard this once or twice
before in a Senate Sub-committee hearing. "Senator, I have no recollection
of the aforementioned events at this time." But seriously, strong
encryption is great. However, it would be foolish to rely on it. If the
Feds have your computer and access to your encryption software itself, it
is likely they could break it gi ven the motivation. If you understand the
true art of code breaking you should understand this. People often overlook
the fact that your password, the one you use to access your encryption
program, is typically less than 8 characters long. By attacking the access
to your encryption program with a keyboard emulation sequencer your triple
DES/128 bit RSA crypto is worthless. Just remember, encryption may not
protect you.
S. LEGAL SUMMARY
Before I move on to the Life in Prison subpart, let me tell you what this
all means. You're going to get busted, lose everything you own, not get out
on bail, snitch on your enemies, get even more time than you expected and
have to put up with a bu nch of idiots in prison. Sound fun? Keep hacking.
And, if possible, work on those sensitive .gov sites. That way they can
hang an espionage rap on you. That will carry about 12 to 18 years for a
first time offender.
I know this may all sound a bit bleak, but the stakes for hackers have gone
up and you need to know what they are. Let's take a look at some recent
sentences:
Agent Steal (me) 41 months
Kevin Poulsen 51 months
Minor Threat 70 months
Kevin Mitnick estimated 7-9 years
As you can see, the Feds are giving out some time now. If you are young, a
first-time offender, unsophisticated (like MOD), and were just looking
around in some little company's database, you might get probation. But
chances are that if that is all you were doing, you would have been passed
over for prosecution. As a rule, the Feds won't take the case unless
$10,000 in damages are involved. The problem is who is to say what the loss
is? The company can say whatever figure it likes and it would be t ough to
prove otherwise. They may decide to, for insurance purposes, blame some
huge downtime expense on you. I can hear it now, "When we detected the
intruder, we promptly took our system off-line. It took us two weeks to
bring it up again for a loss in wasted manpower of $2 million." In some
ases you might be better off just using the company's payroll system to
cut you a couple of $10,000 checks. That way the government has a firm loss
figure. This would result in a much shorter sentence. I'm not advocating
blatant criminal actions. I just think the sentencing guidelines definitely
need some work.
PART II - FEDERAL PRISON
A. STATE v. FEDERAL
In most cases I would say that doing time in a Federal Prison is better
than doing time in the state institutions. Some state prisons are such
violent and pathetic places that it's worth doing a little more time in the
Federal system. This is going to be changing however. The public seems to
think that prisons are too comfortable and as a result Congress has passed
a few bills to toughen things up.
Federal prisons are generally going to be somewhat less crowded, cleaner,
and more laid back. The prison I was at looked a lot like a college campus
with plenty of grass and trees, rolling hills, and stucco buildings. I
spent most of my time in the library hanging out with Minor Threat. We
would argue over who was more elite. "My sentence was longer," he would
argue. "I was in more books and newspapers," I would rebut. (humor)
Exceptions to the Fed is better rule would be states that permit
televisions and word processors in your cell. As I sit here just prior to
release scribbling this article with pen and paper I yearn for even a Smith
Corona with one line display. The states have varying privileges. You could
wind up someplace where everything gets stolen from you. There are also
states that are abolishing parole, thus taking away the ability to get out
early with good behavior. That is what the Feds did.
B. SECURITY LEVELS
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has six security levels. Prisons are assigned a
security level and only prisoners with the appropriate ratings are housed
there. Often the BOP will have two or three facilities at one location.
Still, they are essentially separate prisons, divided by fences.
The lowest level facility is called a minimum, a camp, or FPC. Generally
speaking, you will find first time, non-violent offenders with less than 10
year sentences there. Camps have no fences. Your work assignment at a camp
is usually off the prison grounds at a nearby military base. Other times
camps operate as support for other nearby prisons.
The next level up is a low Federal Correctional Institution (FCI). These
are where you find a lot of people who should be in a camp but for some
technical reason didn't qualify. There is a double fence with razor wire
surrounding it. Again you will find mostly non-violent types here. You
would really have to piss someone off before they would take a swing at you.
Moving up again we get to medium and high FCI's which are often combined.
More razor wire, more guards, restricted movement and a rougher crowd. It's
also common to find people with 20 or 30+ year sentences. Fighting is much
more common. Keep to yourself, however, and people generally leave you
alone. Killings are not too terribly common. With a prison population of
1500-2000, about one or two a year leave on a stretcher and don't come back.
The United States Penatentury (U.S.P.) is where you find the murderers,
rapists, spies and the roughest gang bangers. "Leavenworth" and "Atlanta"
are the most infamous of these joints. Traditionally surrounded by a 40
foot brick wall, they take on an ominous appearance. The murder rate per
prison averages about 30 per year with well over 250 stabbings.
The highest security level in the system is Max, sometimes referred to as
"Supermax." Max custody inmates are locked down all the time. Your mail is
shown to you over a TV screen in your cell. The shower is on wheels and it
comes to your door. You rarely see other humans and if you do leave your
cell you will be handcuffed and have at least a three guard escort. Mr.
Gotti, the Mafia boss, remains in Supermax. So does Aldridge Ames, the spy. |
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