Difference between revisions of "Jeremy Hammond"

Revision as of 04:20, 23 December 2006

Jeremy Hammond is a controversial anarchist and founder of the websites Hack this Site and Root this Box which teaches people about web and internet security though a series of hacking challenges.

In March 2005, the Chicago FBI raided his apartment and seized all electronic equipment related to the right-wing website ProtestWarrior.com. Allegedly, he had gained access to the site and culled a credit card list from their online store. He was, ostensibly, involved with a group which planned to use the list to make donations to left-wing groups such as the World Hunger Foundation, as well as the ACLU, and put it into wider distribution.

Hammond, along with other members of Hack This Site, have worked on several insurrectionary anarchist projects (which he labels "hacktivism"). These include publication of the electronic civil disobedience journal Hack This Zine: Notes from the Hacker Underground, starting a private local hacking group to hold hands-on code auditing and remote intrusion workshops and helping to organize several anti-war and anti-capitalist protests around the United States.

Along with several other activists from Chicago, he was arrested in Toledo, Ohio while attempting to attend an anti-Nazi rally on December 11, 2005. They were detained for holding an "illegal assembly", due to a temporary injunction issued by the city which prohibited public gatherings in areas outside of the downtown protest zone. Jeremy and many others have had their names, addresses and phone numbers released on a racist website after their arrests. Hammond has been known to list the same information of his enemies on left-wing sites such as Indymedia.

Hammond was arrested in March of 2004 for allegedly refusing to stay out of the street and throwing a bottle into a crowd, striking a Chicago Police officer during a clash between anarchists, protesters, and police during a Gay Pride Parade. The charges were reduced to misdemeanors and all of the arrestees were sentenced to one year probation.

Hammond was arrested in September of 2005 after disrupting local businesses and traffic with a "Pirate Day" parade, then refusing police officers' request to move the gathering out of traffic, citing the First Amendment as "the only permit he needed". These disorderly conduct charges were dropped.

Hammond was ejected from the Crimethinc Convergence in Bloomington, IN during the summer of 2005 on the grounds that he is a security risk. He later joined the gathering's parade through the town and ordered the group to disperse as soon as they reached the University's gate. This prompted unwanted attention from the police, as they chased and detained innocent parade participators. Jeremy himself was detained, and consequently turned over a copy of the Crew Change (a booklet for trainhoppers; states where and when to take trains) to the local police, endangering all who planned on hopping out of the town. The Crew Change wasn't his to begin with, he had offered to scam free copies of it in order to get a copy for himself.

Hammond's various projects and actions have drawn a number of supporters. The website HackThisSite.org has grown into a large collective and has produced several hacking projects including radio, zines, and competitions, and have met up at national protests and conventions to spread the word about insurrectionary anarchism (as hacktivism). Following the FBI raid, supporters put together the website FreeJeremy.com (since shut down for invalid WHOIS contact details) which gathered hundreds of online "signatures"/comments expressing various opinions both in support of and opposed to Jeremy.

On the other hand, Hammond has numerous detractors who hold ideologies opposite to his. Others are from groups who aren't thrilled with Jeremy's political agenda and the means he uses to forward it. Most unfortunately, he has many detractors within the various communities he claims to represent.

Some of this stems from the opinion that Jeremy engages in activites that directly undermine his credibility (and, by association, those people and organizations supporting him). At times these activities can result in unnecessary trouble for himself and others. Others find him intolerant of ideologies other than his own, which could alienate otherwise sympathetic individuals and organizations. Some damn him as a "snitch" for releasing a videotape of the March 2004 gay pride parade which had a possibility of implicating fellow anarchists. Whether this was truly "snitching" or simply poor security culture is mostly a matter of opinion. Fortunately for Jeremy, the charges against the three defendents were reduced to misdemeanors and everyone was giving probation. At this time, no additional people have, yet, been implicated by the release of the video.

Ironically, the individual who prompted the FBI investigation (and the subsequent raid) was a disaffected fellow administrator of Hack This Site who was allegedly working with Jeremy on the ProtestWarrior.com hack. This individual was responsible for handing over log conversations to Kfir, the owner of ProtestWarrior.com, out of fear of being prosecuted himself.

Jeremy had worked at a mac repair center for nearly five years before he was fired for using company servers as demo systems and walking hackers through penetrations. A local hacker and security consultant noticed this and forwarded a copy of his logs to Hammond's employer, prompting Jeremy's termination. Jeremy is currently working at a Chicago web design company doing PHP/MySQL coding in conjunction with shopping cart systems.

Jeremy's most recent arrest was for domestic violence. Allegedly Jeremy threw or punched his roommate, Holly Laird, in the face with an empty metal can. When police arrived they witnessed visible injury to Holly and had to make an arrest despite her request not to. Jeremy spent the night in jail and got out on bond. He intends to plead "not guilty" for the charge despite his confession and physical evidence. Since Jeremy is currently on probation this or any other conviction could lead to jail time.

On December 7th, 2006, Jeremy was sentenced to 24 months in prison for his role in the in the break in and theft of credit card data from the ProtestWarrior site. Additionally, he was assigned a $5,250 fine and three years of probation, during which he may not participate in any hacking or anarchist-related communities, either personally, or online.

References

• Chicago Reader article: "But Can He Hack Prison?", covering the alleged hacking charges and some background on Jeremy's activist history
• Arrests at the protests against the Nazis: WTOL 11 Toledo Blade Infoshop
• Article criticizing Jeremy for poor security culture "The Issue of Snitches", otherwise known as, "But Can He Hack Snitching?"
• Video of Jeremy at DEFCON 2004
• Pirate Day Parade
• Gay Pride Parade Arrest
• Austin Group Complains of Hack Attack, Austin Statesman article, July 14, 2005
• Description of the ProtestWarrior hack
• Hacking Leads to Prison, Chicago Tribune article, December 8, 2006
• Protest Warriors' version of events

External links

• Hack this Site
• Root this Box
• Free Jeremy
• Protest Warrior
• Indymedia