Homeless Hacker profile in Wired

Great Wired profile of Adrian Lamo, the Homeless Hacker who got busted for using the NYT's Lexis-Nexus account.

In theory, it's easy to see Lamo as a good guy. Unlike many hackers – even whitehats – he never uses a pseudonym and makes no effort to hide his identity. If the company he notifies appears grateful, he will often offer to help plug the hole he's discovered for free. Poulsen, for one, believes that Lamo "practices a style of hacking – open, brash, illegal, but carefully observant of an unwritten code of ethics – that went out of style a decade ago."

Indeed, Lamo's hacks are uncommonly witty and at times almost inspiring. Once, after tunneling into Excite@Home's customer service database, Lamo pulled the email and phone number of a customer whose complaint had gone unanswered for a year. Lamo called him up, chatted briefly, then offered to forward him all the company's internal correspondence pertaining to the original complaint.

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