Anon hacked the USSC web site.

[Distind]

I don't particularly care about the case but some of these arguments got to me:

Are perl scripts forbidden, considering it's the same packets being sent as if he were to manually download articles?

Depending on the agreement it's entirely possible that automated access was forbidden. The power of contract law.

His laptop was fast enough to fry the servers? (that must be a _seriously_ badass laptop!)

Doesn't have to be, a properly written script on something pre-pentium could make enough requests to mild execute a denial of service attack if you really tried. It's a matter of causing the system itself to use resources, which can be as simple as sending a handful of packets repeatedly. In fact if he was using a perl script that's probably exactly what he was doing with minor modifications to each set of packets.

BTW, he deleted the files

Proving this would be rather difficult once the files were down loaded, the same kind of logic hasn't defended anyone who was involved in any of the file sharing cases.

If I remember correctly the crime was the downloading of the files, which doesn't go away when you delete them. Particularly when there's no way to verify they hadn't already been distributed. You also don't get a bulk discount on criminal charges, so if he downloads thousands of articles and is charged seperately for each rather than a total value of the articles he could be quite legally hosed. May be part of law not catching up to technology, but none of the people who are concerned with being able to issue charges are moving to have those laws changed.

Dude was quite obviously aware he was commiting a series of crimes, I don't see why he shouldn't be charged for them. Maybe if he'd tried it once, just fucking around, and stopped after a warning, but his actions went well beyond anything like that.

editishthingy:
And holy shit, 4 million charges... they could charge him a minute of jail time a piece and he'd have spent an age in jail.

[Jack Mann]

He was definitely guilty.  Anyone arguing that he wasn't committing a crime isn't paying attention.

I just think the prosecution was overzealous in their prosecution, and that the punishment sought was not in line with what he did.

It's like someone who downloads a song.  Yes, they're guilty of pirating it.  Yes, the company who owns the music has a right to protect their interests.  But most of us think that $150,000 per song is excessive as a punishment.  The fact that it's legal doesn't mean it's right.

[Witchyjoshy]

He was definitely guilty.  Anyone arguing that he wasn't committing a crime isn't paying attention.

I just think the prosecution was overzealous in their prosecution, and that the punishment sought was not in line with what he did.

It's like someone who downloads a song.  Yes, they're guilty of pirating it.  Yes, the company who owns the music has a right to protect their interests.  But most of us think that $150,000 per song is excessive as a punishment.  The fact that it's legal doesn't mean it's right.

JackMann pretty much nailed it on the head.

Did he do something illegal?  Yes.

The thing about civilized countries is that the punishment should never be disproportionate to the crime.  The punishment was disproportionate to the crime by a long shot.

Just because someone has broken a law doesn't mean that they deserve whatever punishment is thrown at them.  That's a dogmatic mindset that leads to things like the death penalty for graffiti.

[chitoryu12]

Your sarcasm fails to be persuasive. He committed a number of computer crimes, and his actions to hide his identity and flee from campus police indicated that he was fully aware that he was acting illegally. His mugshot and "not guilty" plea are both good indicators of his thoughts at the time: he knew he was acting illegally, but viewed himself as a rebel out to "fight the power" and "the system". I'm willing to blame his suicide entirely on his existing depression, though. I don't think it was a matter of not being able to handle being punished.

OK, so he messed up the network and he downloaded too many JSTOR articles.  BTW, is there a specific limit on how many articles are too many?  Are perl scripts forbidden, considering it's the same packets being sent as if he were to manually download articles?  A specific bandwidth limit.

Actually, there IS a limit JSTOR has on downloads and they have security measures in place to prevent mass downloads. He used the keepgrabbing.py script to circumvent those security measures until his laptop was banned, but he used another fake account and fake IPs and MAC addresses to avoid it. JSTOR suffered server failure, and eventually had to ban large chunks of the MIT campus (and finally the entirety of MIT) from accessing their database for days at a time because he spent 3 months screwing around.

I listed the charges beforehand:

1. Wire fraud (up to 5 years imprisonment)

2. Computer fraud to steal materials over $500 in cost (up to 5 years imprisonment)

3. Unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer (also up to 5 years, falling under computer fraud)

4. Recklessly damaging a protected computer (up to 10 years imprisonment)

So even if he was given a single charge for each of these, rather than stacked over the 3 month period, that would have been as many as 25 years in prison. He was also lucky that they dropped the breaking & entering charge for illegally accessing the server cabinet, which would have added even more on.

Can you dispute these charges?

[StallChaser]

The law is not the same thing as justice.  Under an extremely strict interpretation, you could argue he did all those things.  You could also argue almost every person is a criminal.  Who hasn't driven faster than the speed limit?  That doesn't mean we should put everyone in jail, fine everyone thousands of dollars for all those instances of speeding that weren't caught, or that people should feel lucky every day they're not in jail.

Let's say someone goes on another person's unsecured connection and downloads a zipfile of 1000 songs.  Doing so overheats their router, so it goes down for a few minutes.  Same exact crimes.  Should that person also go to jail for 25 years, or does this only apply to hacktivists?

[Captain Jack Harkness]

The law is not the same thing as justice.  Under an extremely strict interpretation, you could argue he did all those things.  You could also argue almost every person is a criminal.  Who hasn't driven faster than the speed limit?  That doesn't mean we should put everyone in jail, fine everyone thousands of dollars for all those instances of speeding that weren't caught, or that people should feel lucky every day they're not in jail.

Let's say someone goes on another person's unsecured connection and downloads a zipfile of 1000 songs.  Doing so overheats their router, so it goes down for a few minutes.  Same exact crimes.  Should that person also go to jail for 25 years, or does this only apply to hacktivists?

You've read what he did.  Don't go downplaying it with a bullshit strawman.  What he did was several magnitudes more severe than your little "overheated the router for a few minutes" analogy.

[Jack Mann]

Stall, the man was guilty of sin.  He was guilty of exactly the crimes they said.  The evidence is damning as all get-out.  Again, I do not argue that it merited the punishments the prosecution was seeking, or what the laws currently on the books suggest.  But the guy was committing crimes.  He should have paid for that.  Again, I think a fine and a few months in prison would have been sufficient, but I think it's pretty far out there to claim that he didn't deserve any punishment.

[chitoryu12]

Stall, the man was guilty of sin.  He was guilty of exactly the crimes they said.  The evidence is damning as all get-out.  Again, I do not argue that it merited the punishments the prosecution was seeking, or what the laws currently on the books suggest.  But the guy was committing crimes.  He should have paid for that.  Again, I think a fine and a few months in prison would have been sufficient, but I think it's pretty far out there to claim that he didn't deserve any punishment.

The thing is, he was going to be offered a plea bargain that's pretty much exactly what you said: 6 months in jail, plus pleading guilty to all 13 charges (it seems like a lot more than I listed, but that's because he was operating many times for a 3 month period; it wasn't a single day of work). Not even a fine. They almost got a deal that would let him serve NO time in jail, but MIT wouldn't sign off on it. I mentioned the reason earlier in the thread: listing every single charge and threatening him with the maximum severity for what he did would scare him into accepting the plea deal and bringing the trial to a close instead of dragging it out for longer. He committed suicide shortly after the 6 month deal had been arranged and he was set to have it presented to him.

The law is not the same thing as justice.  Under an extremely strict interpretation, you could argue he did all those things.  You could also argue almost every person is a criminal.  Who hasn't driven faster than the speed limit?  That doesn't mean we should put everyone in jail, fine everyone thousands of dollars for all those instances of speeding that weren't caught, or that people should feel lucky every day they're not in jail.

Let's say someone goes on another person's unsecured connection and downloads a zipfile of 1000 songs.  Doing so overheats their router, so it goes down for a few minutes.  Same exact crimes.  Should that person also go to jail for 25 years, or does this only apply to hacktivists?

Bullshit strawman. No "strict interpretation" is needed. He DID do all of those things. There's evidence of it, including his attempts at covering his face when he found out that there was a camera in the room, and he attempted to flee when campus police asked him for an ID. Not exactly the moves of an innocent man.

Your point is horribly incorrect because if you get caught speeding, you WILL get fined. What Aaron Swartz did also was of a far greater severity than speeding, but that's beside the point I'm making: he got caught and was being punished for it.

To go back to your very bad comparison to traffic violations, it would be like someone driving drunk the wrong way down a one-way rural road with a loaded handgun in the seat (in a state that requires weapons to be kept locked up and unloaded in vehicles), getting pulled over by the cops because they had gotten a call about a maniac driver from a local farmer, and then trying to drive away and getting stopped a mile down. And then the guy pleads "not guilty" because he doesn't think that what he did was a crime.

Now you see why your "Arrest everyone for speeding a lot" analogy falls apart?

[Dakota Bob]

Hide yo servers, hide yo files, anonymous be hacking everythin' out 'ere. Illegal or not, I admire Aarons balls (*snicker*) He saw something he desired to protest against, and took action.

[StallChaser]

The thing is, he was going to be offered a plea bargain that's pretty much exactly what you said: 6 months in jail, plus pleading guilty to all 13 charges (it seems like a lot more than I listed, but that's because he was operating many times for a 3 month period; it wasn't a single day of work). Not even a fine. They almost got a deal that would let him serve NO time in jail, but MIT wouldn't sign off on it. I mentioned the reason earlier in the thread: listing every single charge and threatening him with the maximum severity for what he did would scare him into accepting the plea deal and bringing the trial to a close instead of dragging it out for longer. He committed suicide shortly after the 6 month deal had been arranged and he was set to have it presented to him.

So it's OK to threaten someone with a disproportionate punishment for not conveniently conceding the trial?

[chitoryu12]

The thing is, he was going to be offered a plea bargain that's pretty much exactly what you said: 6 months in jail, plus pleading guilty to all 13 charges (it seems like a lot more than I listed, but that's because he was operating many times for a 3 month period; it wasn't a single day of work). Not even a fine. They almost got a deal that would let him serve NO time in jail, but MIT wouldn't sign off on it. I mentioned the reason earlier in the thread: listing every single charge and threatening him with the maximum severity for what he did would scare him into accepting the plea deal and bringing the trial to a close instead of dragging it out for longer. He committed suicide shortly after the 6 month deal had been arranged and he was set to have it presented to him.

So it's OK to threaten someone with a disproportionate punishment for not conveniently conceding the trial?

You clearly don't understand its point. They didn't WANT Aaron Swartz to rot in jail. Many trials end rapidly and in a plea bargain because people want to get it over with quickly; the ones that actually go to trial are the ones stubborn or stupid enough to refuse the deals, or those who committed crimes so heinous or serious that people are willing to go through all the red tape and effort to put them away for a long time.

This is a frankly routine thing, and Swartz is not the only one to go through it: you tell him exactly how much time he's facing for his crimes, then tell him that it's in his best interests to accept such and such deal to avoid facing the full punishment.

Again, did Swartz not commit the crimes I listed? Is there any sort of evidence that he was not guilty of computer fraud, wire fraud, recklessly damaging a protected computer, etc.? If you can actually prove that he was innocent of those 13 charges he faced, by all means go ahead. So far your only justification for your claim that the maximum penalty he was facing is in any way disproportionate is a lot of strawmen and going "It's not that bad because of I don't think so. Justice for the martyr!"

[Distind]

Not to mention they only had the potential jail time to work off of. For all he knew a sympathetic judge could sentence him to the absolute minimum(sometimes less if there's only one offense involved), even if he was found guilty on all charges. Which isn't a sure thing without going into the plea bargaining chitoryu mentioned.

It's not disproportionate to the sheer scale and repeated behavior shown. Or at least not legally, it's based on existing laws and various other things he could (and frankly anyone out there considering such actions SHOULD) be aware of. As I said, there's no bulk discount on criminal charges. The only real deterrent to criminal behavior via computer is the scale of the punishment involved once you get caught, and frankly a lot of it is easy as hell. I could probably walk around my apartment complex and start gathering credit card info and I'd only ever get caught if I was the one who used them, rather than selling them anon through various sites intended to do so.

You're more or less arguing that what he did wasn't a crime. Which isn't true. Where it should be or not is debatable, but the laws laid down have a very clear say on the matter. Right next to the potential punishments.

[m52nickerson]

So it's OK to threaten someone with a disproportionate punishment for not conveniently conceding the trial?

Yes, simple because any defense lawyer is going to tell you what you are really looking at as far as punishment.