Remember Yevgeniy Nikulin, the Russian hacker involved in a tug-of-war between the Washington and Moscow?

This is reposted. Nikulin is supposed to be in court in Prague on Tuesday. Will this hit the American Press?

We wrote about him last February, and wondered why the only articles we could find were in La Reppublica (Italy) and The Guardian (UK). He finally made it to the mainstream media in the US this week.  That link is to Newsweek, and it’s also on the websites of Reuters and the Daily Mail. It’s not the New York Times or the Washington Post, but it’s a start.

His trial was supposed to take place this week in Prague, where the Czechs are trying to decide which country to extradite him to: the one where he allegedly stole a few thousand dollars online (Russia) or the one where he is accused of the massive hacks of LinkedIn and Dropbox. Nikulin is claiming that the FBI was willing to let him off the hook if he confessed to hacking the DNC and Hillary Clinton. While I maintain a healthy skepticism of government, this seems pretty unlikely. It also seems a little strange that Russia is going to the mat over a mere petty criminal. Deals do get made, criminals are let off the hook, but what upside is there for the FBI in giving this guy immunity after Twittler had already won the election? My mind can run rampant with all sorts of theories, but I’m wondering how it would sit with LinkedIn and Dropbox if Nikulin got off scot-free, in addition to being set up with life in the US. And that doesn’t even touch how angry half of us would be if he turned out to be one of the DNC hackers and was then rewarded for it, especially by a president who would not want this information public (and nothing stays secret for long in the White Sieve House).