Former hacker Adrian Lamo has passed away

Adrian Lamo has passed away at the age of 37. He lived in Wichita, Kansas, USA. Lamo rose to prominence at the turn of this millennium for breaking into the New York Times’ systems. He was also a tipster about Chelsea Manning.

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Lamo’s father, among others, has spread the message of his death via Facebook and ZDNet writes that it has received confirmation of his death. The circumstances of his death are unclear at this time. Lamo was born in Boston in the early 1980s and was of Colombian descent.

He gained notoriety as a hacker by breaking into the New York Times’ systems in 2002 and using their information service LexisNexis. The newspaper filed a complaint after he spoke about his activities in an interview. He was subsequently sentenced to six months of house arrest in 2004 and had to pay back $65,000. He also confessed to targeting Microsoft and Yahoo. Lamo later said he regretted his actions.

Lamo also played a role in the conviction of Chelsea Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013 for passing on stolen military and diplomatic information to WikiLeaks. Lamo was in contact with Manning via online chats and tipped the US government about the information leak. Manning was arrested in 2010. In January of last year, then-US President Barack Obama pardoned her, after which she was released in May.