weev is a criminal. He spent many years making a living for himself by stealing from other people. He gets to re-write this past of his because most of his former crew are gone. weevs defenders are people who didn't know him when he was most active (2003-2009).
This particular case is also pretty clear-cut. If you were a whitehat, why would you retrieve so much data? Why would you give the data to someone who was not with that company?
Reserve your sympathy for hackers who get set up by their businesses partners, or people who aren't thieves and backstabbers. weev is just beginning to get what he has had coming to him for ten years...
Regardless of his past, why did he pull so much information? And turning it over to gawker seems a bit wrong. He should have contacted the company. If they didn't do anything then he should have gone to the media.
It seems like he acted irresponsibily with the situation. It wasn't just one misstep, it was a few.
This particular case is also pretty clear-cut. If you were a whitehat, why would you retrieve so much data? Why would you give the data to someone who was not with that company?
Reserve your sympathy for hackers who get set up by their businesses partners, or people who aren't thieves and backstabbers. weev is just beginning to get what he has had coming to him for ten years...