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* DE WeeRLY | SIWECKLY.COM | INGWS . CoaLULG aruLy ty ttawmys masses armen v a decisions that may save or cost lives is hard.” themselves. be like a bull in a china shop.” says. the Swiss Army Knife of electronic devices.” schedule (or lack thereof) has been harder on him Dew Code Red. hittp://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2003 -04-16/feature.html/2/index.html 3 *don't know* what you'd do in someone else's shoes until you actually have to face their decisions. Moralization is easy. Making There are many in the computer security industry who, while freely admitting they find some form of nobility in Lamo's peculiar brand of hacking, worry that those who follow his lead may do so n they admire his spirit, but because they want to grab some headlines “Benevolent hackers have been a piece of the computer underground for years," says Skoudis of Predictive Systems. "Adrian doesn't leave me ifl at ease ... he's too smart. My fear is that it’s not reproducible. Adrian does his thing, but Adrian is pretty decent about what he does; someone who doesn't have his skilis, or his personality, could FBI officials, meanwhile, won't say whether the bureau has ever investigated any of Lamo's intrusions. "There's no way I'd be able to tell you that," a spokeswoman in the FBI's Washington, D.C., office At one hotel in Washington, D.C., there's a vending machine that dispenses 20 cents in nickels every time it's hit with a Taser, an electric stun-gun meant for personal defense that is one of the more useful things Adrian Lamo has ever owned. "You never know what something's going to do when you Tase it, * Lamo enthuses. “It It's a mild Sunday evening in late March, and Lamo has cashed in a gift card at Banana Republic for a new black jacket, which he wears over his usual dun-colored pants and boots. He's also sporting a new black shoulder bag -- compiete with a sleeve on the stri phone -- that he bought, with another gift card, at the Gap. Protests against Operation Iraqi Freedom have roiled these streets in downtown San Francisco for much of the past two weeks, but Lamo has been away from the city, recuperating, again, from too many sleepless nights. Since turning 22, Lamo has noticed that his sleep and as we walk down the mostly empty streets, he stops to gaze in the window of a health food store. He's heard that some herbs and vitamins have antl-convulsive properties, which might help him stave off the spasms he suffers when he doesn't get enough rest. The convulsions are the result of a neurological disorder, which Lamo says stems from an amphetamine overdose he endured fast year. As with most of the steady infiuences on Lamo's life, drug use is something he regards as a necessary element of his lifestyie -- which also includes mainlining caffeine-laced energy drinks like Red Bull, Joit Cola, and Mountain 7 “t've resisted including this in news reports because T think it would make me intolerable to the government if I was advocating both ot because 's like ‘ap for his cell FBI(19-cv-1495)-183 6/20/2003