Man Gets 10 Year Prison Sentence for Launching Cyberattacks Against Hospitals

cageymaru

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A computer engineer was sentenced to 121 months in prison after launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against a children's hospital and a residential treatment facility. The hacker was protesting a custody battle involving a teenage patient receiving treatments at the facilities. Martin Gottesfeld was found guilty of conspiracy to damage protected computers in August, but the 34 year old was unrepentant during his sentencing . "I wish I could have done more," he said. The teenage patient was the focus of a social media movement against the government in a custody case. The activist group Anonymous got help from Gottesfeld to DDoS hospitals and deny internet services used to treat patients. Gottesfeld tried to escape a federal investigation by fleeing the USA, but his powerboat had mechanical issues near the coast of Cuba.

"Make no mistake, your crime was contemptible, invidious and loathsome," Gorton said. Assistant U.S. Attorney David D'Addio called Gottesfeld a "self-aggrandizing menace" whose cyberattacks put children's lives at risk and who could strike again once released from prison. "It is terrifying to contemplate what he will do with the next cause he adopts," D'Addio said.
 
Ok I need to make two very important points here.

1) The guy is a shitstain and I have ZERO problems with the sentence he got. He is a clear threat to society as a whole, apparently is a psychopath as he displayed absolutely no remorse or even indication that he did anything bad.

2) This is the most important. I absolutely ABHOR when DA's and the media put straight up Bullshit out to drum up support. I've worked on hospital networks and in No hospital is there a system connected to the internet that patients lives or safety depends on. Every Single One of those systems are Off line, stand alone systems that only get updated Directly. The worst he could have done is interrupt patient record transfers (unlikely because that is usually hardcopy via fax or in person), general internet, intranet, patient portals and lots of other little things that while bad, in no way represent a safety risk.
 
Just wanted to add that this guy is a real piece of work. If you search for him you can find that he's been a self entitled script kiddie for a while. He loves to brag about being a part of anonymous and the attention he gets from idiots on the internet. I hope he makes some "friends" in prison that will plunge his "lulz" out every night. Good riddance.
 
yikes 10 years and half million dollar fine .:eek: I guess he regrets getting caught lol
 
Ok I need to make two very important points here.

1) The guy is a shitstain and I have ZERO problems with the sentence he got. He is a clear threat to society as a whole, apparently is a psychopath as he displayed absolutely no remorse or even indication that he did anything bad.

2) This is the most important. I absolutely ABHOR when DA's and the media put straight up Bullshit out to drum up support. I've worked on hospital networks and in No hospital is there a system connected to the internet that patients lives or safety depends on. Every Single One of those systems are Off line, stand alone systems that only get updated Directly. The worst he could have done is interrupt patient record transfers (unlikely because that is usually hardcopy via fax or in person), general internet, intranet, patient portals and lots of other little things that while bad, in no way represent a safety risk.

Im not looking for a fight but I can confirm I had to get out of bed once because an offsite surgeon's office was down and they needed to send him high res CTs for advice on an emergency surgery. Had the hospital internet been down they couldnt have sent the scans. Its an outlier but things like that do come up.
 
It seems a bit long to me for a crime that caused no physical harm. You must have a lot of prisons there over the pond.
 

This statement seems contridictory. It says he defeated their network but he just took down the donor page? Gonna have to read up that doesnt make any sense.
 
Ok I need to make two very important points here.

1) The guy is a shitstain and I have ZERO problems with the sentence he got. He is a clear threat to society as a whole, apparently is a psychopath as he displayed absolutely no remorse or even indication that he did anything bad.

2) This is the most important. I absolutely ABHOR when DA's and the media put straight up Bullshit out to drum up support. I've worked on hospital networks and in No hospital is there a system connected to the internet that patients lives or safety depends on. Every Single One of those systems are Off line, stand alone systems that only get updated Directly. The worst he could have done is interrupt patient record transfers (unlikely because that is usually hardcopy via fax or in person), general internet, intranet, patient portals and lots of other little things that while bad, in no way represent a safety risk.
On point 2 a lot of children’s hospitals use various telepresence devices for doctors to consult each other regarding specific procedures but in general I agree with it.

It appears he didn’t take those down, just the public open wireless and their donor sign up pages... The guys a joke.
 
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Im not looking for a fight but I can confirm I had to get out of bed once because an offsite surgeon's office was down and they needed to send him high res CTs for advice on an emergency surgery. Had the hospital internet been down they couldnt have sent the scans. Its an outlier but things like that do come up.

we transfer images to other facilities using PACS, a medical image sharing program used by providers, DDOS it and you could certainly slow down a life saving treatment, but we would fall back on a courier transporting a disk if needed.
 
Ok, who was this teenager and who custody battle was it? If it was his son, what was happening?
 
Wow, there is a special parking spot in hell for this douche nozzle.

Why, because he did a DDoS? No children where in danger and we do not even know why he did it. But go ahead, keep patting yourself on the back for how much better you are. :rolleyes:
 
Ok, who was this teenager and who custody battle was it? If it was his son, what was happening?

It sounds complicated according to the huffpost article the parents are currently suing this hospital for essentially taking custody of their daughter then putting her in a wheelchair through malpractice. the doss guy is just some hacktivist type who inserted himself into the issue. Is he scum? idk, life is complicated.
 
Just prove that the human collective gene pool need a good sandblasting followed by a water steam / chlorine high pressure cleaning.
Glad i am not paying the 4.5 - 5000 USD/ Mo a inmate in a Danish prison cost the society, i can come up with much cheaper alternatives for people like that, alternatives that will also have a stronger preventive function than a little jail time.
 
I rofl to to rest if that line, "... off the coast of Cuba by a Disney Cruise Line ship after fleeing the United States amid a federal investigation."

So by his twisted logic, does anyone think he'll blame Disney and try to ddos them when he gets out?
In 10 years I’m sure the internet will have changed enough that his skills will be useless. Assuming he survives I understand most prisoners don’t take kindly to those who willingly endanger children. And this guy sounds like a real boss....
 
Ok, who was this teenager and who custody battle was it? If it was his son, what was happening?

It sounds complicated according to the huffpost article the parents are currently suing this hospital for essentially taking custody of their daughter then putting her in a wheelchair through malpractice. the doss guy is just some hacktivist type who inserted himself into the issue. Is he scum? idk, life is complicated.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/38424/exclusive-daily-wire-speaks-father-alleged-medical-frank-camp

Sounds like the hospital & doctors involved (and let's not forget the state of Massachusetts) were amazing dumbasses & thought they were all Dr. House, when in reality they were Mr. Magoo. First mistake parents made was crying to Fox News and Glenn Fucking Beck. Besides that, what the poor girl went through was inexcusable. Hope she receives millions in a settlement and the doctors are refused insurance and must retire from practice.

As far as the dipshit who went to jail, fuck him. If he really wanted to help, toss a few $$ to her parents for legal fees. The Caped Crusader he portrays himself as is laughable.
 
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“Make no mistake, your crime was contemptible, invidious and loathsome,” Gorton said.

and yet, Governments do it every day
 
This is the problem with zealots and their religions, and when I say 'religions', I mean any belief that people use to justify doing the stupid shit that they want to do anyway. Most of the zealots I know aren't Christian or Islamic, but they're either ready to commit acts of 'terrorism' because they think their beliefs absolve them, or they are accepting of a belief because they want the righteous nobility to commit a certain act of terrorism.

If I say that tolerance is down and entitlement is up it doesn't mean that I think we should tolerate the actions of the hospital. But we are not entitled to take indiscriminate action, either. If he had hacked their system and turned their hospital portal page into a giant news report on the medical kidnapping happening at Boston Children's Hospital, I would have laughed. And frankly (and this is just me, I'm kind of brutal), if he had taken a baseball bat and cracked the doctor's kneecap, I would have had more sympathy for him. But a DDoS attack against a hospital is a blind action with unknown risk, and because of his background it feels to me like he wants to aggrandize his 'activist group', a bunch of cast off, pizza-swilling keyboard militants called Anonymous (dudes, you have been reading too many comic books and watching too much Mr. Robot. Drop the keyboard and get a law degree.)

Real white knight hackers protect our electronic ecosystem. They do not commit acts of terror. Large or small.
 
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Sentence seems appropriate. What a fruitcake.
I disagree. He should be also charged with attempted homicide as impacting the hospital's systems and diagnosis collaboration could and may have killed people. So he should have a 2nd charge and server significantly more time.
 
cal me stupid, but what damage was actually caused? When someone perpetrates a DDOS, it affects internet activity.A few years ago, there was effectively no internet, yet these children and their diseases still existed. Those same care pathways are still in place and the internet has only facilitated electronic communication. When I am planning an intervention, I always call the physicians involved to discuss the case. When I see a patient in the hospital, I always speak to the nurse. I agree that such malevolent behavior is disruptive to the internet, but I am curious, how can we quantize the actual effect? When you hear 'DDOS caused billions of dollars of damage' Where do they get those numbers?

And why should we bother to quantize this damage? Well, shouldnt the punishment fit the crime? It reminds me Reagan's 5 years minimum jail time for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. A blanket quantized law that was intended to reduce litigation expenses and court delays.

I agree that such transgressions are akin to pollution and perhaps his jail time should be spent with court mandated spam filtering 8 hours a day. Manually categorizing spam into levels of intrusiveness, and perhaps mapping ip addresses. or something like that to make the internet a better place.
 


um.. wouldnt one of the first rules of being "anonymous" be.. being anonymous?


kinda like that whole fight club thing
 
Ok I need to make two very important points here.

1) The guy is a shitstain and I have ZERO problems with the sentence he got. He is a clear threat to society as a whole, apparently is a psychopath as he displayed absolutely no remorse or even indication that he did anything bad.

2) This is the most important. I absolutely ABHOR when DA's and the media put straight up Bullshit out to drum up support. I've worked on hospital networks and in No hospital is there a system connected to the internet that patients lives or safety depends on. Every Single One of those systems are Off line, stand alone systems that only get updated Directly. The worst he could have done is interrupt patient record transfers (unlikely because that is usually hardcopy via fax or in person), general internet, intranet, patient portals and lots of other little things that while bad, in no way represent a safety risk.

Gonna jump on the bandwagon with everyone else to make it clear you have no idea what you are talking about. And if you do indeed work for a medical institution and really think what you are saying is accurate...thats really F*cking scary.

Yes its correct the modalities (CT/Xray/MRI) themselves are usually never connected directly to the outside. That does not mean that your institution not having external connectivity as a whole is not a problem. Some places have their Radiologists outsourced.....meaning you have to send images from either the modality itself or your PACS system (where the images are stored) off site/external via either an VPN, direct connect, or other means. This is only 1 example of many in which this could and would absolutely be life threatening if you did not have a RAD on site at the time of the scan. Its all dependent on systems in place and workflows in place.
 
Gonna jump on the bandwagon with everyone else to make it clear you have no idea what you are talking about. And if you do indeed work for a medical institution and really think what you are saying is accurate...thats really F*cking scary.

Yes its correct the modalities (CT/Xray/MRI) themselves are usually never connected directly to the outside. That does not mean that your institution not having external connectivity as a whole is not a problem. Some places have their Radiologists outsourced.....meaning you have to send images from either the modality itself or your PACS system (where the images are stored) off site/external via either an VPN, direct connect, or other means. This is only 1 example of many in which this could and would absolutely be life threatening if you did not have a RAD on site at the time of the scan. Its all dependent on systems in place and workflows in place.

Go back and read what I said and read what they wrote. Nothing stated refutes what I wrote in the slightest. There is No hospital that has equipment that is responsible for patient safety connected to the internet...That is a flat out fact. Transferring images through PACS or remote consultations are not patient safety equipment. The hospital internet being down at no point endangers a patients life, it is simply an inconvenience. Further as to your example of radiology, it simply isn't applicable. Facilities that have things like outsourced radiology aren't going to be dealing with the type of trauma cases where that kind of timing is an issue. Critical cases like that will be routed to the correct facility in transit. Sorry but the one who doesn't know what they are talking about here is you.
 
Go back and read what I said and read what they wrote. Nothing stated refutes what I wrote in the slightest. There is No hospital that has equipment that is responsible for patient safety connected to the internet...That is a flat out fact. Transferring images through PACS or remote consultations are not patient safety equipment. The hospital internet being down at no point endangers a patients life, it is simply an inconvenience. Further as to your example of radiology, it simply isn't applicable. Facilities that have things like outsourced radiology aren't going to be dealing with the type of trauma cases where that kind of timing is an issue. Critical cases like that will be routed to the correct facility in transit. Sorry but the one who doesn't know what they are talking about here is you.

How does one route a case when in transit. You cram a CT machine into an ambulance? If you have a critical case walk in the door to your ER/ED and its a stroke patient and you cant send the study out to your outsourced RAD how is that not life threatening?
 
You guys should look up the story of Justina Pelletier before you judge this guy so harshly.
 
You guys should look up the story of Justina Pelletier before you judge this guy so harshly.
I did exactly that (post #25), and failed miserably to see what Mr. Gottesfeld was attempting to accomplish except acting like a tool. There were numerous paths to take in an effort to assist the parents in their struggle, and yet he chooses the one least likely to help, and most likely to get his sorry ass handed to him in court.
 
you slowed down our hospital's internet

"YOU ALMOST CAUSED THE DEATH OF CHILDREN, OFF TO JAIL!!!!"

meanwhile rich scummy politician/yuppy folks do much worse and their sentence is a relaxing yacht ride
 
You guys should look up the story of Justina Pelletier before you judge this guy so harshly.
I don't understand that story.. it is horrible if accurate, but it feels there is info missing, like a lot of it.
 
Now if they would put him in jail or prison and not give him any health or medical attention for his entire sentence that would be something I'd considered to be just. But as it is the moment he gets taken into custody at the prison or jail or wherever he'll have access to probably better health care than 95% of the people that aren't in his same situation.

Oh, for those people thinking that after his sentence technology will have moved on, don't forget that in jails and prisons most inmates have access to training programs and yes they do involve computers more often than not so I doubt seriously hellh skip a beat there either.

The irony of this is staggeringly bewildering.
 
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