TED Talk says major criminal hackers may have Asperger's

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At the end of this TED Talk published, today, Misha claims that major international hackers probably have AS. He says that he talked with Simon Baron Cohen about it. He recommends leniency in conviction and sentencing, and vocational rehabilitation. He says that they usually get drawn gradually into crime in their young teens, before they have formed a moral fibre. He says they would work if they knew how to connect outside of cyberspace, and that they would make valuable workers.

Glenny, Misha. 2011. Hire the Hackers. Speech at TED Conference. Published 2011-09-13. Video accessed 2011-09-13:
http://www.ted.com/talks/misha_glenny_h ... ckers.html

What do people think of the positive and negative implications of this news both for discovery and for its effect on public opinion?

This is a worrisome topic for the public to get their first glimse of autism from. It always worries me to see "crime" and "Asperger's" in the same sentence in the news, because that is the kind of news that travels faster than full correct data and understanding. It is both scary and exciting for me, personally. People in the spectral community read it differently, I imagine, than the general public does. Is the speaker onto something good that could have wider implications? Is this a good way for the world to get introduced to the idea? Should Aspies with talents start claiming "Aspergers" on their resume. Will it ever be that positive a trait if combined with other work skills? I doubt it, but it is an interesting idea to discuss.

To speculate that someone has AS just because they are a hacker is entirely baseless. It comes from an NT derived stereotype. And to assume that just because a hacker has AS, they don't know that hacking is wrong, is also baseless.

Sure there are some crimes that a person with AS might commit unintentionally but with the exception of the very young, hacking usually isn't one of them.

Good point, Chronos. My summary, and even the original story, could lead people to make that false connection. Now, I understand why the speaker was careful to give 7 case studies of actual, individual people, and to ask Simon Baron Cohen about them. Cohen verified that one person has AS, and lended validation to the idea that general patterns are visible, that judges should be aware of them, and that we should give leniency in conviction and sentencing in regard for some people's tendency to be good citizens, to want to work, and yet to be disabled in connecting with society in acceptable work.

Towards the beginning of this TED Talk, Temple Grandin mentions a similar idea as the hacker researcher, above. Grandin says she worries about the young teenagers with Asperger's today, wondering whether they are getting connected into the world of work as well as previous generations have.

http://www.ted.com/talks/temple_grandin ... minds.html

I wander if hacking is ASD friendly crime.

It does not require much social skills.

No. It requires zero social skills. Dont know if its true, but it certainly seems likely to me that that hacking could be one of the few crimes that actually DOES correlate with autism/aspergers.

Aspies/autistics are stereotypically brainy nerds. And hackers are also stereotypically brainy nerds.

There's different forms of hacking, a hacker who relies on social engineering certainly needs social skills, but learning social engineering skills doesn't inherently mean they'll possess social skills in other contexts.