
Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs - Estragon
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/217115-20110719-schwartz.html
======
_delirium
The repeated use of "stole" in the indictment is interesting, even beyond the
usual metaphorical usage to discuss copyright infringement.

In this case, the indictment alleges that the documents were stolen _from
JSTOR_ , which does not even own them! In the vast majority of cases JSTOR
scanned documents whose copyright is owned by someone else, and acquired or
was donated a non-exclusive license to distribute copies via its service. In
many cases the documents are even public domain. The indictment continues the
theft metaphor by discussing the effort and expense JSTOR incurred in scanning
the documents, and the alleged attempt to render this less valuable by
redistributing "its" documents, analogizing this to the loss someone suffers
in a theft.

But effort expended to build a private repository consisting of copies of
things you don't own doesn't give you ownership of the result, any more than
Google Books doing the same has given them ownership of the documents that
_they've_ scanned. If you scraped Google and "stole" their scans, you would be
violating Google's Terms of Service, and Google might indeed feel subjectively
like you've taken something of value (their exclusive access to this
repository of scans), but I think it would be a stretch to say that you've
"stolen" "their" documents.

~~~
Alex3917
They are talking about theft of services, not copyright infringement. In any
event these charges are going to be very difficult to beat since they're
federal, even though there are some obvious holes in the indictment. It will
be almost impossible to get any of the evidence thrown out even if there was
an illegal search and seizure. His best bet is probably to get the Harvard
legal team to go to bat for him, although it's difficult to say how likely
that is.

~~~
_delirium
I wasn't really commenting on the legal sufficiency of the indictment, just
the rhetorical dishonesty of accusing someone of "steal[ing] well over
4,000,000 articles from JSTOR" (quote from the indictment) when JSTOR didn't
own those articles. They could've just alleged violation of JSTOR's TOS and
thereby theft of network services. I suspect JSTOR or people sympathetic to
them had a hand in writing the indictment, though; JSTOR has a long history of
attempting to spread the misinformation that it somehow "owns" its archive.

~~~
anigbrowl
Well, if someone stole $100,000 of property from a storage facility, that
wouldn't mean the storage facility claimed ownership of the property, just
that it was the location of the theft. Maybe you're overthinking this a bit.

~~~
dman
Well this is more akin to breaking into the storage facility and making a copy
of all the Paintings stored there. The value of the goods being stored has not
been reduced.

~~~
anigbrowl
Not to torture this analogy any further, but would you feel safe storing your
stuff at such a facility after something like that? No, you'd probably look
elsewhere for your storage needs. Breaking in is still bad and would be the
subject of criminal charges. If the US attorneys decide that use of the word
'stole' is somewhat over the top, then guess what? they can amend the
indictment - just as the defense can amend their motions.

My point is not that the government is correct or morally justified in
bringing this indictment, but that getting hung up on terminology like this
obscures the legally problematic issue of having (allegedly) bypassed the
security systems to download material he was not supposed to have access to,
_regardless_ of who actually owns said material.

~~~
Vivtek
But: (1) JSTOR isn't a storage facility in that sense; the copyright holders
do not pay JSTOR to store their items, so this is a bad analogy.

(2) If the outrage is supposed to be about bypassing security systems, why is
the government hung up on the "theft" terminology? Especially when JSTOR, the
party arguably injured (in some way not specified), has asked the government
not to prosecute?

No, this is clearly a convenient way to get a politically inconvenient person
labeled a felon.

~~~
anigbrowl
1\. The analogy is only to point out that a 3rd party repository can be
negatively affected by a break-in event if it doesn't have an ownership
interest in the materials it stores.

2\. The government is not hung up on the 'theft' terminology. The words
'steal' or 'stole' only appear three times in the 15 page indictment and the
actual offenses he is charged with are wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully
obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a
protected computer.

------
dgreensp
What Aaron did sounds seriously sketchy (sneaking into MIT wiring closets,
trying to download the _entire_ database, etc.), a fact that Demand Progress
and several commenters here seem to be ignoring.

Defending his actions would require a very strong, multi-pronged version of
the argument "if it's physically / technologically possible, it must be ok."
Can MIT legally limit guest access to its network? Can JSTOR limit access to
its content? Well, technically, their software _didn't_ limit it, right? He
just changed his IP address and they let him right back on, gave him
permission. And then he had to change his MAC address. And then physically
move to a different building.

But it doesn't matter anyway, because legal restrictions are legal
restrictions. It's impossible to enforce every legal restriction in software.
Put another way, we don't have to read JSTOR's server code to figure out if
there's a violation of policy here -- the policy is written out as a legal
document.

In the hacker world, there's a tendency to think that if something's possible,
even easy, then it shouldn't be considered "breaking in" or "stealing." If my
Gmail password is "password," then of course you're going to read my email! I
had it coming. In the real world, though, this is still a crime.

~~~
VladRussian
>What Aaron did sounds seriously sketchy (sneaking into MIT wiring closets,
trying to download the entire database, etc.),

reminded me about ancient IP infringement case:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus>

~~~
jxcole
+1 for correlation with ancient Greek mythology.

I seriously recommend Prometheus Unbound for a more modern treatment of the
subject.

<http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/prometheus.html>

------
runningdogx
This is the most technically competent charging document I've ever read. I
guess there must have been some hackers on the grand jury.

Paragraph 35 & 36: which "protected computer" on MIT's network did he access?
Certainly they're not trying to claim his laptop was a protected computer? Are
they talking about the DHCP server or whatever registration frontend MIT has
for the DHCP assignments? I have trouble with the concept that a violation of
a computer use agreement (when there are no operative security barriers in
place) constitutes a violation of the computer fraud and abuse act. Then
again, I've always thought that act was vague and therefore overbroad.

Obviously what he did was bad in some sense (at least from the perspective of
JSTOR and MIT), but even if it should be a crime rather than a civil dispute
or internal disciplinary action at MIT, I don't like the fact that just about
any misbehavior on the internet becomes a federal case because the probability
of no interstate resources being used is very low.

Finally, I take issue with the notion that someone who is accessing a service
through a public interface is criminally responsible for downtime if too high
an access rate causes service degradation or an outage. The claims that
JSTOR's servers were overloaded and (one?) even went down at some point are
clearly there to set up a later claim of damages. Haven't they heard of rate
limiting (in this case, since it was a rogue laptop stashed in a data closet,
rate limiting by IP)? That wouldn't work against a concerted denial of service
attack, but this was no denial of service attack. JSTOR seems to have been
relying on manual intervention to stop article leeching that could lead to a
(partial) outage. That's naive, and not a good idea.

~~~
mbreese
> no operative security barriers in place

I don't know... Even if my front door was open, you still aren't allowed to
enter my house without my permission.

~~~
johngalt
But there is an element of permission inherent in DHCP. Your device is
actively configuring my device _specifically to allow network access_. It's
not an open door; it's a sign saying "This way please". That said, its obvious
this was an attempt to circumvent access controls.

~~~
mbreese
I'm unfamiliar with MIT's guest setup, but I assume they let you get an IP
address, but before you can access anything, you have to acknowledge their
terms of service / acceptable use policy. If you fail to abide by this, you'd
be accessing the network without permission.

You're right that (as alleged), this would be an obvious attempt to circumvent
access controls.

Given the way things are worded, I'm guessing that the MIT computer that was
improperly accessed was a router or switch. Hell, just plugging into the
switch directly could be construed as unapproved access to a computer device.
I think the Federal law treats anything with a processor a computer.

~~~
derekdahmer
The MIT Guest network is actually pretty awesome, it doesn't ask you to
acknowledge anything, it just grants instant access.

------
mukyu
[http://blog.demandprogress.org/2011/07/federal-government-
in...](http://blog.demandprogress.org/2011/07/federal-government-indicts-
former-demand-progress-executive-director-for-downloading-too-many-journal-
articles/)

 _“It’s even more strange because the alleged victim has settled any claims
against Aaron, explained they’ve suffered no loss or damage, and asked the
government not to prosecute,” Segal added._

Nowhere do they say he did not do it however.

cached:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.demandprogress.org/)

~~~
_delirium
JSTOR is being very vague about their role in this, so that might
unfortunately be wrong about just how settled JSTOR considers things on their
side. Their statement feels extremely carefully worded:
[http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-
misu...](http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-misuse-
incident-and-criminal-case)

~~~
gojomo
MIT (and the alleged disruption to other MIT JSTOR users' access) may also be
relevant to the decision to charge.

My understanding is that MIT has a freewheeling attitude to information, but
also deep organizational and funding links to national security institutions.
So their hacker ethos might tell them to brush it off, while their federal
relationships require them to take a tougher stance.

~~~
_delirium
In terms of broader implications, I would actually have many fewer problems
with MIT pressing straightforward trespassing charges. If he broke into a
server room and messed with equipment there without the owner's permission,
they could prosecute that under very ordinary state criminal law long
predating the computer age.

It's the weird "stealing documents from JSTOR" federal case under the Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act that's more worrying, because it's extremely vague what
those kinds of charges can cover (in some interpretations, essentially any
violation of a ToS).

------
guywithabike
This is almost too good:

"As Swartz entered the wiring closet, he held his bicycle helmet like a mask
to shield his face, looking through ventilation holes in the helmet."

~~~
raldi
I was waiting for a part where he cut eyeholes into a newspaper.

------
maxniederhofer
This reminded me of Jacques Mattheij's list of ideas for startups (see
[http://jacquesmattheij.com/My+list+of+ideas+for+when+you+are...](http://jacquesmattheij.com/My+list+of+ideas+for+when+you+are+looking+for+inspiration)):

"(45) OpenPapers

A place where all academic research that has been funded in part by public
funds is published, journals be damned. Hopefully with deep pockets to fight
off the lawsuits."

~~~
ak217
For NIH-funded studies, PubMed Central is actually doing a pretty good job. It
would be great if PMC actually had a mandate to collect papers for all US
federal grant-funded research, though.

------
mbreese
This all hinges on _what_ he was going to do with the documents. If he was
looking to perform some large-scale analysis (such as he has done before) and
publish the results academically, then this would fall under the academic
mission of MIT, and therefore be legit. But if this were the case, why go
through the hassle of hacking the system? Why not just ask JSTOR for
cooperation? Or maybe he did, and they rejected it?

There has got to me more to this story, because I just can't for the life of
me believe that he would download the documents to "free" them on internet (as
is alleged).

~~~
GHFigs
A detail you missed is that Swartz was not a student or faculty member at MIT.
He was a fellow at Harvard.

------
carbonica
I wonder what they'll push for. He sounds pretty screwed if this evidence pans
out. Looks like he could even end up with a few years' time if the prosecutors
want.

1\. Wire fraud maxes out at 20 years outside of a presidentially-declared
emergency. No fine cap, it seems.
<http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C63.txt>

2\. Computer fraud under 1030(a)(4) caps out at 5 years with no prior offense,
no fine cap. <http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C47.txt>

3\. 1030(a)(2), (c)(2)(B)(iii) looks to be another cap of 5 years. Ibid.

4\. 1030(a)(5)(B), (c)(4)(A)(i)(I),(VI) looks like another cap of 5 years.
Ibid.

IANAL, just trying my best to read the code itself.

------
snikolic
Ignoring legality, Aaron's actions, case specifics, etc., I have to admit: I
really wish that the data in question was free and publicly available.

~~~
xefer
Anybody with a library card to a major public library can get this stuff for
free over the web.

~~~
snikolic
There's an enormous difference between controlled access to individual
globules of data, and free access to the entirety of a dataset.

------
acangiano
When someone risks 35 years in jail for something like this, you know your
justice system is broken.

I know he won't get 35 years, but it's nevertheless outrageous that it could
happen.

~~~
kragen
Do you think he'd get life in Italy?

------
mukyu
The title is inaccurate.

It is alleged that he signed up for guest accounts on their network with
different laptops, changed his MAC address and re-registered if the IP he was
using was blocked (by JSTOR) or cut off of the network (by MIT), and finally
connected a laptop in a basement networking closet.

I guess you could say that is 'hacking' in the unauthorized access sense, but
not in any meaningful sense. It isn't breaking and entering if someone
repeatedly trespasses somewhere (say, banned from a store) even if they change
their clothes to avoid detection.

~~~
SpikeGronim
IANAL, but legally speaking unauthorized access is a crime regardless of how
easy it was to gain access.

~~~
jrockway
This is a very frightening belief.

How long until posting a negative comment to a blog is "unautorized access" to
that blog? Gaining access was easy: all you had to do was type a comment and
hit submit. But some Powers That Be decided they didn't really want you to
post that, so now it's a federal computer crime.

Land of the free.

~~~
tptacek
Speaking of "TV drama levels of understanding of criminal justice"... :)

With only a few exceptions, persons accused of crimes are not presumed to have
_mens rea_. Statutory rape, for instance, has "strict liability"; even if you
don't know you're committing a crime, you're liable. Most criminal offenses
are not like this. The state is required to establish _mens rea_.

A prosecutor could say that a ToS-infringing blog comment is a criminal
violation, but unless that prosecutor can establish that the comment was made
in purposeful, knowing, or reckless violation of the ToS, they'd be wasting
their time.

~~~
Natsu
So where's the _mens rea_ in this case?

~~~
tptacek
Aaron's? I respectfully decline to lay out a case against Aaron on HN.

------
troutwine
The indictment asserts that Mr. Swartz intended to distribute the files
downloaded but did not substantiate this claim. I wonder what proof they have
of this? (There are, of course, a great many laws dealing with probable intent
that need only convince a jury of said intent without demonstrating it's
validity.)

~~~
jgilliam
That is what he normally does.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13records.html>

~~~
kragen
That was what he did in that case, but it wasn't what he did with the four
hundred thousand law review articles he analyzed for conflicts of interest
more recently.

------
andymboyle
The Boston Globe's got an article written on this that they're updating:
[http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/07/cambridge-
man...](http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/07/cambridge-man-accused-
hacking-mit-computers-steal-scientific-
papers/6SVnqu3Yfo7OIrLQOYSz5M/index.html)

------
woodall
Posted in another thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2782752>

This is not the first time he has done something like this if memory serves
me. In late 2008 Mr. Swartz and Carl Malamud went to select libraries, ones
with free PACER access, and proceeded to download ~700 GB of information that
was behind a paywall. After which they made all of it available on Mr.
Malamud's website.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/case-
against...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/case-against-
pacer.ars)

------
prosa
Demand Progress PAC's website is down, but they released a statement:

_(from:[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9k5ryiX...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9k5ryiXKKwsJ:blog.demandprogress.org/+blog.demandprogress.org&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com)
)_

Cambridge, MA– Moments ago, Aaron Swartz, former executive director and
founder of Demand Progress, was indicted by the US government. As best as we
can tell, he is being charged with allegedly downloading too many scholarly
journal articles from the Web. The government contends that downloading said
articles is actually felony computer hacking and should be punished with time
in prison.

“This makes no sense,” said Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal;
“it’s like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books
out of the library.”

“It’s even more strange because the alleged victim has settled any claims
against Aaron, explained they’ve suffered no loss or damage, and asked the
government not to prosecute,” Segal added.

James Jacobs, the Government Documents Librarian at Stanford University, also
denounced the arrest: “Aaron’s prosecution undermines academic inquiry and
democratic principles,” Jacobs said. “It’s incredible that the government
would try to lock someone up for allegedly looking up articles at a library.”

Demand Progress is collecting statements of support for Aaron on its website
at …URL…

“Aaron’s career has focused on serving the public interest by promoting
ethics, open government, and democratic politics,” Segal said. “We hope to
soon see him cleared of these bizarre charges.”

Demand Progress is a 500,000-member online activism group that advocates for
civil liberties, civil rights, and other progressive causes.

About Aaron

Aaron Swartz is a former executive director and founder of Demand Progress, a
nonprofit political action group with more than 500,000 members.

He is the author of numerous articles on a variety of topics, especially the
corrupting influence of big money on institutions including nonprofits, the
media, politics, and public opinion. In conjunction with Shireen Barday, he
downloaded and analyzed 441,170 law review articles to determine the source of
their funding; the results were published in the Stanford Law Review. From
2010-11, he researched these topics as a Fellow at the Harvard Ethics Center
Lab on Institutional Corruption.

He has also assisted many other researchers in collecting and analyzing large
data sets with theinfo.org. His landmark analysis of Wikipedia, Who Writes
Wikipedia?, has been widely cited. He helped develop standards and tutorials
for Linked Open Data while serving on the W3C’s RDF Core Working Group and
helped popularize them as Metadata Advisor to the nonprofit Creative Commons
and coauthor of the RSS 1.0 specification.

In 2008, he created the nonprofit site watchdog.net, making it easier for
people to find and access government data. He also served on the board of
Change Congress, a good government nonprofit.

In 2007, he led the development of the nonprofit Open Library, an ambitious
project to collect information about every book ever published. He also
cofounded the online news site Reddit, where he released as free software the
web framework he developed, web.py.

Press inquiries can be directed to demandprogressinfo@gmail.com or 571- 336-
2637

~~~
microarchitect
_“This makes no sense,” said Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal;
“it’s like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books
out of the library.”_

No it's not. It's like sneaking into the library at night and making
photocopies of all the books. Then, upon getting caught, the perpetrator
sneaks back into the library in a different disguise and continues to
photocopy more books. Repeat this action of getting caught and sneaking back
in a few more times and combine this with the fact that his downloading of
documents affected JSTOR performance for other legitimate users of the archive
and you get a sense of what he's really done.

How is this excusable?

I'm completely onboard with those who claim that we need some reform in
scientific publishing, but Aaron's actions smack of low ethical standards to
me, not to mention extremely poor judgement on his part.

EDIT: Hi downvoter! Can you please explain why you think I'm wrong?

~~~
goombastic
Not a downvoter, but the way governments are reacting to those demanding
transparency is what I call draconian. This is no longer symmetric opposition,
this is a way of terrorizing those who want a little more freedom. Faced with
obstacles as the one Aaron faced, I would do the same. So sue me.

Disobedience is not the same as terrorism although they would like you to
think so. Disproportionate punishments are what I term a terrorist act. Stop
being such a conformist and stop using their language. Every time you test
these boundaries and fight for it you will be fighting for your freedoms.

~~~
microarchitect
Fair enough. I agree with most of what you're saying here. I definitely
believe that any punishment involving more than a fine and/or some community
service would be disproportionate to the crime here.

What I didn't like was the statement portraying him as some kind of hero. I'm
just pointing out that he's not. He didn't have a legal right to be using the
documents, he shouldn't have been trying to download the documents using a
guest account at MIT obtained by submitting false information, and he
certainly shouldn't have tried to get back into the network after being banned
multiple times.

If his goal was to put a lot of scientific papers into the public domain, I
can think of many other ways he could have achieved this. So I'm also a bit
puzzled by his approach here.

 _Stop being such a conformist and stop using their language._

This attack seems rather uncalled for.

 _Every time you test these boundaries and fight for it you will be fighting
for your freedoms._

I can see where you're coming from on this, but I'm not entirely convinced
that you're right.

------
sp332
How did Aaron get access to the for-pay articles (page 9)?

Also: nice going, Aaron! Drag research access into the 21st century, kicking
and screaming!

Does anyone think it's odd that an Acer laptop could write these files to disk
faster than JSTOR could serve them?

~~~
SpikeGronim
"Does anyone think it's odd that an Acer laptop could write these files to
disk faster than JSTOR could serve them?"

Nope. I bet the JSTOR servers are serving many concurrent requests. If he had
the servers to himself then yes, that would be surprising.

~~~
sp332
FTA: _This is more than one hundred times the number of downloads during the
same period by all the legitimate MIT JSTOR users combined_

It sounds like he was using the majority of their resources. But maybe those
servers serve lots of places, and they only mentioned MIT as an example.

~~~
a3camero
They do. Universities across Canada also subscribe to this.

~~~
sp332
Yeah, my college also had it. But the article made it sound like only MIT was
using these servers.

------
rryan
"Aaron Swartz ... was a fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Ethics"

~~~
llimllib
It is not impossible to imagine a code of morality which views his alleged
actions as ethical.

~~~
rryan
Definitely true -- I thought it was a relevant bit of information so I quoted
it.

~~~
llimllib
That's fair, I was just refuting what your comment implied, that it was an
unethical action.

(I understand that you may not have intended to imply it. Just wanted to put
that out there.)

So since we don't disagree on that: Do you think what he did _is_ ethical?

edit: also, boston.com says he "is a fellow at Harvard’s University’s Center
for Ethics". A quick google says that he was at least as of October 2010:

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=swartz+ethics+fello...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=swartz+ethics+fellow+site%3Aharvard.edu&oq=swartz+ethics+fellow+site%3Aharvard.edu&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=9112l11062l0l11132l16l12l2l0l0l6l170l1142l4.6l10)

------
flocial
It's hard to trivialize downloading 4 million articles using a web scraper's
bag of tricks and then some. If the information was publicly accessible these
charges wouldn't stand unless he tried to distribute it. If it was something
so commendable, why would you cloak your activities or go to a different
university to do your dirt instead of Harvard (where your a fellow of some
sort) or Stanford (where you attended). Regardless of the motives and ideals
or the excess of the charges, this isn't one of those hapless grandma versus
the RIAA stories. He must have known what he was doing.

The pricing and restrictions on the dissemination of academic papers is by any
rational evaluation nothing short of ridiculous and contradicts the academic
ideal of free exchange of ideas for the advancement of knowledge. However,
history of scholarship is also a history of patronage, academic politics and
in-fighting for greater prestige.

It's sad that someone like Aaron has to be treated like a domestic terrorist.
It's sad that we have a vindictive justice system willing to flaunt the
Constitution in this day and age with what effectively amounts to cruel and
unusual punishment so they can "make an example" out of someone.

However, it's no one's fault that Aaron was so emboldened to take this
initiative without sufficiently ensuring that he would be free from criminal
prosecution.

Am I alone in thinking that these "hacktivists" will only prompt government to
push more frivolous data theft laws and heavier punishment for offenses that
may one day victimize hapless, innocent people? It's going to get a lot worse
before it gets better.

~~~
jacquesm
> However, it's no one's fault that Aaron was so emboldened to take this
> initiative without sufficiently ensuring that he would be free from criminal
> prosecution.

Maybe he did it knowing full well what the consequences might be. He seems to
be a pretty principled guy.

------
sigil
Consider showing your support for Aaron here:

<http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/support_aaron/>

Demand Progress is an organization Aaron co-founded. They've done some great
watchdog work on things like PROTECT IP, the Patriot Act, the Internet
Blacklist Bill etc.

------
Aloisius
There is a riser closet in my office with various internet service providers
wiring in it feeding the entire building.

If I were to enter this riser closet and plug into my laptop into one of these
lines, I would be charged with theft of service and deservedly be sent to
jail. It doesn't matter if the door is locked or not. It doesn't matter what
kind of security they put in place or not. It doesn't matter if I only sent a
few bytes of data on their network and didn't harm anyone elses' service. It
is still theft of service.

------
blinkingled
Why the hell is MIT stashing information in closed systems in first place? I
thought the idea (OCW etc.) was to enable more people to learn, participate
and benefit from work of academics and researchers. Hell I even donate a few
hundred bucks every now and then to OCW.

It is mind boggling how the supposedly smart people are not getting their
heads out of their asses so late in a world frighteningly short on
distribution of knowledge that can be effectively used to solve the wicked
problems that are crippling it for so long.

We really need a global, openly accessible knowledge network and a platform
where all eligible can contribute and collaborate to research at least when it
comes to areas that impact human society at large - medicines, natural
resources etc. It is hard otherwise to see how things like Cancer and Energy
shortage can be tackled.

~~~
basugasubaku
The papers are from JSTOR, not MIT. MIT pays for a subscription to JSTOR like
many other universities do.

~~~
blinkingled
But is it clear that MIT does not also store its research papers in JSTOR
instead of making them publicly available? Reading the article I did not get
that impression.

~~~
rryan
While many researchers at MIT publish in journals that sometimes have
restrictions on the distribution of their papers (exclusivity, etc.), most MIT
publications are issued via:

1) DSpace <http://dspace.mit.edu> (an open publishing platform for academic
material. Most all theses produced by MIT researchers can be accessed by the
public here)

2) as an MIT technical report (mostly published via dspace)

3) as an MIT "Working Paper"

You can find more information here: <http://libraries.mit.edu/docs/research-
publications.html>

Certainly, a huge number of MIT publications do end up being mirrored in
JSTOR, but they are usually published via whatever journal or conference
proceeding they are accepted to first. If an author cannot find a journal that
is willing to publish their paper, then they will probably issue it as an MIT
technical report.

~~~
blinkingled
Ok, that's actually useful information. I find MIT's approach fairly
reasonable - may be all others should follow suit and JSTOR-like walls would
not be necessary some day.

------
feydr
can someone please explain what the deal is here for us uninitiated? sounds
like they are throwing the book at him for stealing books? seriously? why is
the prosecution being so aggressive? did he profit from it or something? this
sounds so petty

~~~
phereford
He violated Terms of Service for a large database of journals at an egregious
rate. If he had stolen say...10,000 articles this may be a non-issue. The fact
that they can tie 4,000,000 articles to him is what makes this so bad.

The other part that is extremely bad is his measure to continually evade MIT
MAC banning through spoofing. That measure of evasion proves, to some extent,
his intent to steal and is a form of computer fraud.

~~~
awj
I wouldn't be too surprised if him causing a month (months?) long interruption
of JSTOR for an entire campus deeply involved in government contracts was also
part of the ire.

------
jgilliam
He posted on his blog yesterday that there would be a "major announcement" on
blog.demandprogress.org today, but nothing has been posted.

<http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/updates>

~~~
JED3
published [http://blog.demandprogress.org/2011/07/federal-government-
in...](http://blog.demandprogress.org/2011/07/federal-government-indicts-
former-demand-progress-executive-director-for-downloading-too-many-journal-
articles/)

------
Deutscher
_33\. Swartz intended to distribute a significant portion of JSTOR’s archive
of digitized journal articles through one or more file-sharing sites._

How do they know this? Has he said something to that effect?

\--edited for formatting.

~~~
nkassis
Well, I'm going to guess that the prosecution is putting that in there just in
case they can get the jury to agree. They can claim anything they want, the
jury has to decide if it's true without a doubt.

------
a3camero
Context: JSTOR blocks you automatically if you download articles in quick
succession.

------
peterwwillis
Wait a minute. All he needed was a _guest account_ to access JSTOR? That's
like saying, ANYONE IS ALLOWED TO DOWNLOAD FROM JSTOR. This isn't just bad
security, this is no security.

~~~
pak
Most academic journal repositories grant institutional access based on IP
address blocks. Some institutions keep this narrow and force you to use an
HTTP proxy, which gives them the ability to put additional institutional-level
authentication in place. The upside is that you can access the journals from
off-network, the downside is using the proxy can be a major pain. Other
networks, e.g. MIT, are permissive with the IP restriction and don't mandate
the use of one centralized proxy as long as you are on-network. I suppose that
may change after this case.

------
tlrobinson
Ballsy, considering his previous brush with the FBI over similar things:
<http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/fbifile>

------
ojbyrne
From the JSTOR website (<http://about.jstor.org/participate-jstor/worldwide-
access>)

"Our ultimate long-term objective is to make JSTOR available to everyone who
wants access to it, while doing so in a way that ensures sustainability of the
service."

Cynically, it seems like the bit about "ensures sustainability" can be
translated as "we will aggressively prosecute in order to protect our bloated
salaries."

~~~
keane
The salaries of Ithaka Harbors Inc. (JSTOR's holding company), a supposedly
not-for-profit organisation are indeed bloated. See pp. 7-8, 23, 26 of
[http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2009/133/857/2009-1338...](http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2009/133/857/2009-133857105-06a32823-9.pdf)

~~~
pmb
For those that don't like reading, the document describes multiple employees
of the "nonprofit" with compensation in excess of 200k.

------
queensnake
I'm probably Advocating Crime but, couldn't a bunch of people coordinate and
do what he was doing, over a year or two, distributed, from several
universities? You totally could. The more, the less noticeable, and
punishable.

edit: it wouldn't surprise me if something like that showed up; the problem
has been highlighted, the legal issues made clearer, and JSTOR bloodied. Go
Aaron.

~~~
_delirium
There's a loosely-organized project at Wikimedia Commons to liberate at least
the public-domain works locked up in JSTOR. This almost certainly violates
JSTOR access policies, but once downloaded and stripped of their JSTOR title
page, it's probably not illegal for the Wikimedia Foundation to host the
result, since the result is in the public domain, even if ToS were violated in
the document's acquisition.

See:
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Scanned_English_t...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Scanned_English_texts)

------
danso
So he allegedly goes out and buys a laptop just to do this heist...and then he
blows his cover by doing a scrape fast enough to apparently bring down some of
the MIT servers? Why was he in such a rush?

~~~
tlb
Most likely the servers crashed for whatever reason, and they looked at the
logs and saw lots of recent accesses from a particular computer, and post hoc
ergo propter hoc. Sysadmins often blame outlier users for crashes.

------
mbreese
JSTOR's statement [http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-
misu...](http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-misuse-
incident-and-criminal-case)

JSTOR Statement: Misuse Incident and Criminal Case

The United States Department of Justice announced today the criminal
indictment of an individual, Aaron Swartz, on charges related to computer
fraud and abuse stemming from his misuse of the JSTOR database. We have been
subpoenaed by the United States Attorney’s Office in this case and are fully
cooperating. While we cannot comment on this case, we would like to share
background information about the incident and about our mission and work with
the academic community and the public.

What Happened

Last fall and winter, JSTOR experienced a significant misuse of our database.
A substantial portion of our publisher partners’ content was downloaded in an
unauthorized fashion using the network at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, one of our participating institutions. The content taken was
systematically downloaded using an approach designed to avoid detection by our
monitoring systems.

The downloaded content included over 4 million articles, book reviews, and
other content from our publisher partner’s academic journals and other
publications; it did not include any personally identifying information about
JSTOR users.

We stopped this downloading activity, and the individual responsible, Mr.
Swartz, was identified. We secured from Mr. Swartz the content that was taken,
and received confirmation that the content was not and would not be used,
copied, transferred, or distributed.

The criminal investigation and today’s indictment of Mr. Swartz has been
directed by the United States Attorney’s Office.

Our Mission and Work

Our mission at JSTOR is supporting scholarly work and access to knowledge
around the world. Faculty, teachers, and students at more than 7,000
institutions in 153 countries rely upon us for affordable and in some cases
free access to content on JSTOR. Since our founding in 1995, we have digitized
the complete back runs of nearly 1,400 academic journals from over 800
publishers. Our ultimate objective is to provide affordable access to
scholarly content to anyone who needs it.

It is important to note that we support and encourage the legitimate use of
large sets of content from JSTOR for research purposes. We regularly provide
scholars with access to content for this purpose. Our Data for Research site
(<http://dfr.jstor.org>) was established expressly to support text mining and
other projects, and our Advanced Technologies Group is an eager collaborator
with researchers in the academic community.

Even as we work to increase access, usage, and the impact of scholarship, we
must also be responsible stewards of this content. We monitor usage to guard
against unauthorized use of the material in JSTOR, which is how we became
aware of this particular incident.

~~~
stephth
This sounds very hypocritical. If their "Mission and Work" is to support
scholarly work and academic usage, and encourage usage of large sets of data,
why are they suing Aaron's ass instead of working with him to further
understand what were his needs that their system was lacking and how they
could reduce that gap? Why else would Aaron hack their system if not for
research?

Sounds like instead of spending money in improving their system and security,
they found a more beneficial (to their eyes) approach: _charging_ Aaron will
instead set the example.

 _Edit: see @mbreese's correction._

 _Edit 2: looks like my comment missed some important pieces of the puzzle.
See further down the thread._

~~~
jillsy
Here's what's supposed to happen: A student on campus wants to do a research
project analyzing a large number of journal articles, or even just the
metadata around a large number of journal articles. They approach their
librarian, the librarian approaches the journal vendor (JSTOR or someone
else), and everyone works together to find a way to get the student their
data. Maybe the vendor hands over a special dataset. Maybe they give them
back-end access to their database. Maybe they allow the student to run a
Python script against their website, but only in the middle of the night so as
not to slow down service for other users.

Here's what sometimes happens instead: The student writes and runs a clever
script, the vendor notices that their servers have slowed due to automated
script activity on their webpages, shuts down access from that IP address, and
lets the school know. University IT staff and librarians drop what they're
doing and try to track down the party responsible. Once they've been
identified, the nice librarian has to have a talk with the student about
what's permitted under the university's license agreement with the publisher,
and together they go to the data vendor to ask forgiveness and permission.
They usually get it.

Here's what Aaron did: He walked onto the MIT campus, set up a script not to
analyze metadata but to actually download large numbers of documents, and when
his IP was blocked, he used traditional hacking as well as Johnny Long-style
"no-tech hacking" to get around it.
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2160824376898701015>

Publishers, rightly or wrongly, assume that someone systematically downloading
entire journal runs is intending to set up a shadow database to give away
their content for free. The feds seem to agree, in this case.

The thing that gets me is that JSTOR was more than reasonable in this case.
They didn't immediately shut down the whole campus (like some overly-
aggressive publishers do), but started with the IP addresses involved. When it
didn't stop, they had to cut off access completely. Aaron, who isn't even a
student at MIT, managed to kick the whole campus off JSTOR for weeks, and as
soon as they restored access, he went at it again. If I were a librarian at
MIT, I'd want the book thrown at him.

~~~
jfager
It's outright sociopathic to suggest that justice for a few weeks
inconvenience is 35 years in prison and a million dollar fine.

~~~
jillsy
It's excessive, and I don't think that's what he'll serve. But he was warned
multiple times that MIT and JSTOR didn't want him doing what he was doing, and
he continued doing it, so as far as I can tell he's getting exactly what he
asked for. He probably thinks he's the Rosa Parks of scholarly communication.
I think he's reckless and grandiose.

------
spinchange
Is the DOJ trying to 'make an example' here? JSTOR and MIT aren't pursuing
this, the Feds are.

------
bricestacey
I don't understand why he was so desperate to access it via MIT. There are
dozens of libraries in the Boston area with access to JSTOR with guest access
to their network. If he wasn't in such a rush, he could have easily bounced
around campuses and likely have avoided detection.

~~~
eli
Perhaps to have enough legitimate traffic surrounding you to mask the fact
that you're trying to download every single article.

------
xer0x
I admire Aaron's persistence. Sadly it was quite rude of him to repeatedly
crash JSTOR's servers. If only he'd throttled his script back a bit.

Liberating those documents from JSTOR would have been quite a gift to society.

~~~
kragen
If the indictment is accurate, he did throttle back his script a bit, and
continued to run it for several months after the last JSTOR server crash or
blockage.

------
ramidarigaz
Why would he do this? What is the purpose of having all those documents?

~~~
cing
33\. Swartz intended to distribute a significant portion of JSTOR’s archive of
digitized journal articles through one or more file-sharing sites.

~~~
keane
Interestingly, while the Grand Jury Indictment does discuss evidence for many
of the other accusations, they do not discuss any evidence for this intent-to-
distribute claim.

------
budu3
Is this what our tax money is going into. Aaronsw just presents a soft target
for the Feds.

------
tibbon
If all academic papers were released under a Creative Commons license, would
this even be an issue?

Aside from the allegations about breaking into various physical hardware
infrastructure at MIT, wouldn't that be like being charged with downloading
too many Jonathan Coulton albums?

------
cpeterso
> _The indictment alleges that Swartz, at the time a fellow at Harvard
> University, intended to distribute the documents on peer-to-peer networks.
> That did not happen, however, and all the documents have been returned to
> JSTOR._

All the documents have been returned?!

------
teyc
This is beyond belief. If the prosecutor tries enough charges, some of them
will stick, especially before a jury who may think this is a hacking case or a
file sharing case. He'd do well to avoid the "hacktivist" label in court.

------
pbreit
There were some poor judgment on display and I generally don't condone
breaking the law but it would be a shame to lose Aaron's epic productivity and
ingenuity for any period of time.

------
jpeterson
Alternate link, in case these are taken down: <http://pastebin.com/9vjfkigY>

~~~
keane
I get a 403 from MIT.edu so here are 1000 downloads of the pdf
<http://lts.cr/i/21cc51>

------
acak
Aaron's Twitter page which has been active today.

<http://twitter.com/#!/aaronsw>

------
donpark
As the saying goes, the end does not justify the means, more so if selection
of means was driven by impatience.

------
dreamdu5t
What's interesting in these threads is the obvious dichotomy of values.

You can't have it both ways. If people want to make money from research
itself, then intellectual property must be enforced.

Many hackers seem to hold the belief that making money from research is wrong.
Or at least anybody else but themselves.

------
keane
I don't understand why the US Attorney is suggesting he be charged with such
ridiculously inflated charges.

Reviewing the Indictment report, "JSTOR did not permit users... to download
all of the articles from any particular issue of a journal." Further, "JSTOR
notified its users of these rules, and users accepted these rules when they
chose to obtain and use JSTOR’s content."

So basically JSTOR is claiming Aaron violated their terms of use. Their terms
of use are likely an adhesion contract with a passive shrinkwrap notification.
(remember ReasonableAgreement.org ?). It is not certain that Aaron did in fact
agree to such terms, or what consequences doing so and then violating said
terms should have. Regardless, JSTOR proclaiming certain terms may not be
sufficient to deny Aaron of his rights as a consumer, citizen, and human.

The report goes on to claim that Aaron took action to "avoid MIT’s and JSTOR’s
efforts to prevent this massive copying". MIT and JSTOR allowed users to
access their network, with no system in place to ensure that a user was a
student (by design, as MIT admits) or that they were using their real name (or
a single MAC address). A researcher accessing JSTOR is really less of a
concern than other potential types of access so perhaps this is not a good
system. The report suggests Aaron took action to "elude detection and
identification" but courts have held that anonymous speech and action are
valid parts of society. They take issue with his using a Mailinator address
but such an email address is just as valid as any other and simply allows
others to read ones mail.

The report whines that the "rapid and massive downloads and download requests
impaired computers used by JSTOR to service client research institutions".
This inconveniencing of other users could have been avoided and the blame for
how JSTOR allocates resources lies with the architects of JSTOR.

MIT acted to ban the IP ranges that they believe were in violation of their
rules. Users were to use the network to support MIT’s research, or at least
not obstruct it. However, very likely Aaron was conducting research. Any
hindrance to other users may have been the responsibility of MIT's
infrastructure team.They further request users "maintain the system’s security
and conform to applicable laws, including copyright laws" seemingly suggesting
Aaron was in violation of copyright. Very importantly, MIT should remember
that when it comes to copyright "Reproduction for purposes such as criticism,
comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, is not an
infringement of copyright." The last point of MIT rules is that users "conform
with rules imposed by any networks to which users connected through MIT’s
system" which makes little practical sense and is certainly selectively
enforced. Assuming a JSTOR web server is now a network, so is my personal web
server. On all html files on my webserver I link to a ReasonableAgreement-
style notification that no user may browse such files between 8am and 11pm
EST. Any MIT student, faculty member, or guest who connects during those hours
is in violation and should be kicked by MIT, for if a rule is to be fair it
should be consistently enforced. This third rule is simply a CYA clause and is
its selective enforcement is arrogant.

To conclude, the document does suggest that perhaps Aaron did violate the
JSTOR terms of use for their website. When a normal business decides to deal
with a violation of their terms of use they deactivate that customer's
accounts. However, Ithaka Harbors Inc., a “non-profit” organisation
(Presidents yearly compensation is over $400,000 – see their 2009 Form 990 at
[http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2009/133/857/2009-1338...](http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2009/133/857/2009-133857105-06a32823-9.pdf)
) funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Gates Foundation and committed to
“the core values of higher education” and to a “deep understanding of
technology” (ha), decided to alert the feds. As to MIT's claims that Aaron
broke their rules for using their internet connection, it seems he neither
obstructed MIT's research nor violate laws or copyright laws. As to their
third claim, he may have violated the terms of a "network" but so do a
significant portion of MIT’s users everyday.

Why is the Obama administration pursuing an investigation in Wire Fraud and
Computer Fraud?

~~~
GHFigs
Frankly, I think most of the claims in your post are bonkers, but this one
sticks out:

 _This inconveniencing of other users could have been avoided and the blame
for how JSTOR allocates resources lies with the architects of JSTOR._

"During November and December, 2010, Swartz used the "ghost laptop" (i.e., the
Acer laptop) at MIT to make over two million downloads from JSTOR. This is
more than one hundred times the number of downloads during the same period by
all the legitimate MIT JSTOR users combined."

So we're entirely clear on this: you are saying this is reasonable and that
the majority of the blame for any disruption lies with JSTOR. You are saying
that JSTOR should have anticipated that a single legitimate user would have
placed a hundred times the demand on the system than the entire population of
a major university.

~~~
keane
Basing whether or not Aaron's actions were "wire fraud" based on quantity
doesn't really make sense. Saying he downloaded more than other users at MIT
is really just saying other people requested less files than he did. I
remember when I needed academic papers, I stopped using my institution's
access to JSTOR because frequently the same paper could be found (legally)
using Google Scholar or similar. As academia switches to things like arXiv,
JSTOR will be used less and less. I understand that 2 million is orders-
greater than an average individual might request, but basing the legality on
quantity is flawed. If one file is accessed illegally, you have broken the
law. If 2 million are, you have also broken the law.

As to being entirely clear, yes, I would have expected the employees at JSTOR
(like the VP of technology making $300k) to have thought of possible ways to
rate limit a connection. Just as you can prevent DDOS with something like
iptables hashlimit, JSTOR could have done something better than simply
refusing all MIT traffic. [http://serverfault.com/questions/211135/how-to-
prevent-a-loi...](http://serverfault.com/questions/211135/how-to-prevent-a-
loic-ddos-attack)

As an analogy, if I host 1 million images of cats on my webserver, and I keep
everything open and allow indexes in the Apache configuration, expecting the
average person to only download 10 pictures and then you use 'a little WGET
magic' to download 1 million jpgs, it seems odd for me to complain when my
server crashes and my friend Erica can't download 1 single cat image that she
had been wanting to. Yes, your downloads caused the tie up but how angry can I
be? Your browser sent a request to my server _and my server fulfilled the
request_.

Like David Segal says, the United States government wants to punish someone
for an action akin to allegedly checking out too many books from the library.
Over the objections of both MIT and JSTOR, presumably. And you're saying _I'm_
bonkers.

~~~
GHFigs
This is what I mean by bonkers: nobody is "basing the legality on quantity".
You made that up. I didn't say that. The indictment didn't say that. The law
doesn't say that.

As it seems your concern for fact starts and ends with the considerably less
relevant quantity of JSTOR employee compensation, I see no reason go on.

~~~
keane
One of the summary findings of the indictment does seem to suggest that
quantity was a factor: "[The] defendant, AARON SWARTZ, knowingly and with
intent to defraud, accessed a protected computer... _in excess_ of authorized
access, and by means of such conduct furthered the intended fraud".

JSTOR's salary rate is really the least of my concerns (though wasteful
bureaucracy in the non-profit industry does concern me in general and
tangentially relates to this story). My concern is over the US federal
government pursuing felony charges when a researcher violated a website's
terms of service statement. I'm sorry you received any other impression.

------
white_devil
There must be a reason why the US government wants to harass/bully/imprison
Aaron.

------
ck2
text version

[http://google.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fweb.mit.edu%...](http://google.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fweb.mit.edu%2Fbitbucket%2FSwartz%2C%2520Aaron%2520Indictment.pdf)

------
andreyf
Why do the charges all end with "and aided and abetted the same"?

------
ErikRogneby
This was a good reminder of the importance of physical security.

------
kaerast
One hopes he is smart enough to have a solid legal argument for what he has
done. If he loses the legal battle then it's going to set a bad precedent for
all these academic document stores to continue keeping hold of this
information. On the other hand, if he were to win then it may make it harder
for groups like JSTOR to continue restricting access to their data.

~~~
mark242
A solid legal argument for switching your MAC address, hiding a laptop in a
closet, and deliberately concealing your face to try to avoid recognition? He
isn't going to win that defense.

~~~
kragen
Hypothetically: wiring closets are normal places for computers engaged in
always-on network services. Putting a box over a laptop can keep it from
getting stolen. Your bike helmet can end up in front of your face for a while
while you're taking it off or putting it on. Switching your MAC address is
reasonable if there's a MAC address conflict, or if you've gone and apologized
to the network infrastructure guys for causing problems and they accepted your
apology but didn't have the password for the DHCP server handy.

Try to remember you're seeing the picture painted entirely by the prosecution,
without even the evidence that the grand jury saw to support it.

~~~
mark242
"...or if you've gone and apologized to the network infrastructure guys for
causing problems..."

Read the indictment. He started on Sep 25th. He was blocked by IP on Sep 25.
He switched his IP on Sep 26. The entire netblock was then blocked by admins.
To try to turn the service back on for normal users, admins tried to block his
MAC address on Sep 27, which worked until he changed it on Oct 2, and then
added a second machine on Oct 8.

Your "hypothetical" defense doesn't even come close to flying. This isn't a
little misunderstanding; this is network admins blocking access, and being
circumvented, multiple times.

~~~
kragen
Thanks, but I know what the indictment alleges. But the facts of the
indictment may be false, and there may be many other highly relevant facts
that are omitted.

------
mian2zi3
> Aaron Swartz lived in the District of Massachusetts and was a fellow at
> Harvard University’s Center for Ethics.

Oh, the irony.

------
neuroelectronic
Did he ever manage to republish the articles? Doesn't look like it.

------
keane
What is a Grand Jury? - <http://grandjuryresistance.org/grandjuries.html>

------
executive
Fantastic news! He deserves to rot in jail for wasting so much precious
bandwidth.

~~~
nostrademons
Compared to the millions of people who viewed "Friday"?

------
asciilifeform
The man is a heroic martyr, who risked everything to set knowledge free.
(Knowledge most of which was produced at the public's expense!)

He may very well die in prison.

Or perhaps he will be forced to publicly recant and merely be forbidden from
using computers. I hope that in the latter case he will have the good sense to
emigrate.

One day, his tormentors will be harshly punished. Unless, of course, "the
future is a boot stamping on a human face — forever."

 _"Keeping medicines from the bloodstreams of the sick; food from the bellies
of the hungry; books from the hands of the uneducated; technology from the
underdeveloped; and putting advocates of freedom in prisons. Intellectual
property is to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th."_

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lulu_of_the_Lotus-Eaters>)

~~~
tptacek
HE MAY VERY WELL DIE IN PRISON.

Can we be done with this thread? I know for a fact that I am not the only one
who has flagged it. No good can come of this. In a likely worst case given who
we're talking about, Aaron will be prodded into _commenting publicly_ on a
criminal case.

FLAGGED.

~~~
jdp23
Which of the HN guidelines does this violate?

~~~
tptacek
None of them. I think you'd be doing Aaron a favor to kill it, though.

~~~
asciilifeform
Yeah, let him become _desaparecido_ in obscurity.

 _Nacht und Nebel._

What a "favor."

Do you really think that he will be invited to post incriminating comments
here from his jail cell?

~~~
tptacek
Is he in jail? For this? I'd be shocked. I think even Mark Abene made bail,
and he reprogrammed telco switches.

~~~
asciilifeform
If he isn't, he will be soon.

I will be surprised if he is allowed into an airport.

~~~
tptacek
Oh, you're trolling. OK.

~~~
asciilifeform
I have stated my honest opinion.

You are, however, free to believe that I was trolling. I can't stop you.

I invite the moderators to delete my account, if they believe that I am a
troll. As things are, I merely refuse to go along with the herd-think on this
site.

~~~
jrockway
You seem to have a lot of comments for someone who doesn't even have a TV
Drama-level understanding of the criminal justice system. You know that even
people accused of murder are often free during their trials, right?

~~~
burgerbrain
For some of us, memory of how Mitnick was treated (or for a more modern
example, Manning), still taints how we expect accused "hackers" to be treated
by the criminal justice system.

Physical detainment of someone accused of such crimes is _hardly_ unheard of.

~~~
tptacek
Mitnick's story is absolutely nothing like Aaron's. Mitnick was a fugitive
_after already having done prison time_ and had to be tracked down via cell
phone triangulation.

~~~
burgerbrain
Read my comment again, I'm not asserting anything more than a passing
similarity.

