
Y Combinator cofounder was convicted under CFAA in 1990 - twoodfin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris
======
ck2
Gates, Jobs and Wozniak were all criminals too, they just did it before anyone
could catch them or the laws set them up for felonies.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5078351>

Far less noble crimes than what Aaron was trying to do though.

 _sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, a
fine of $10,050_

I dare to say Aaron might still be around if that was what he was facing too.

~~~
jacquesm
> I dare to say Aaron might still be around if that was what he was facing
> too.

Probably. But, and this is a very big but: Aaron was encouraged by every
victory (and the coverage of those victories) to shoot for an even bigger
target.

In spite of being very sympathetic to Aaron, the goals he fought for and what
he stood for, sooner or later that was going to lead to a confrontation. And
he was encouraged by the public response to his deeds as well.

So even if everything in this particular case is as bad as it looks Aaron
definitely was not one to say 'that one is in the bag' and call it quits. If
he had stopped after the PACER incident it would have been a very worthy
achievement. Serially taking on entrenched interests of this magnitude will
sooner or later have consequences, it is as far as I can see unavoidable. The
fact that he did that makes me admire him even more but I fear that for
someone of his self evidenced emotional make-up this was not a long term
sustainable recipe.

~~~
rhizome
With a goal of "increasing freedom," there is no line to be drawn, and the
confrontations you predict are a signal of decreased freedom. One can call it
a perverse incentive, but to the point he had reached, the confrontation was
way out of proportion to the acts. You can call this unsustainable, but what
other choice is there? "Welp, the interests of less-freedom don't want this,
so I guess I shouldn't do it."

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

However, that the hammer was brought down so heavily tells me that on the part
of the status quo there is a real weakness and a real fear that people might
go in the directions he did.

Like the Boston Massacre, we will soon find ourselves in a propaganda battle.
Ortiz' husband's mockery of Aaron Swartz's supporters, and her hardening of
her stance (while parrying responsibility) is just the first step in circling
the wagons.

Sen. John Cornyn is now asking questions of the Attorney General about all
this, so now we know the people at the top have heard the call. Prepare for
additions to this story.

~~~
jacquesm
> With a goal of "increasing freedom," there is no line to be drawn, and the
> confrontations you predict are a signal of decreased freedom.

Agreed. But you should never lift more than your back can handle.

> One can call it a perverse incentive, but to the point he had reached, the
> confrontation was way out of proportion to the acts.

We're fully in agreement here. But there are many examples of such extreme
overreaches, recall the music sharing verdict and a bunch of other examples in
the hacking / media sphere. This is not an isolated case at all. The
differentiating factors are: (1) the defendant was for a change an
exceptionally nice person, (2) the defendant knew a lot of people and was
known by a lot of people and (3) he was clearly acting in what he thought was
the best interest of all of us.

> You can call this unsustainable, but what other choice is there?

Unsustainable for Aaron in particular.

> "Welp, the interests of less-freedom don't want this, so I guess I shouldn't
> do it."

No, that's definitely not where I'm heading. I _do_ want this and it is worth
something, maybe even worth a lot.

> However, that the hammer was brought down so heavily tells me that on the
> part of the status quo there is a real weakness and a real fear that people
> might go in the directions he did.

Yes, I agree, and this overreach has exposed another weakness all by itself. A
just justice system doesn't need scare tactics.

> Like the Boston Massacre, we will soon find ourselves in a propaganda
> battle. Ortiz' husband's mockery of Aaron Swartz's supporters, and her
> hardening of her stance (while parrying responsibility) is just the first
> step in circling the wagons.

Consider the battle joined. I will _not_ forget about this and it will shape
my actions for a long time to come.

> Sen. John Cornyn is now asking questions of the Attorney General about all
> this, so now we know the people at the top have heard the call. Prepare for
> additions to this story.

I guarantee it.

~~~
pretoriusB
> _Agreed. But you should never lift more than your back can handle._

"Lifting more that your back can handle" is the very definition for fighting
for freedom.

If everybody played it safe, and only went as far as they could comfortably
tolerate, they would have been no freedom.

------
denzil_correa
I am a bit surprised Richard Feynman does not figure in this discussion
possibly because he existed "before PC". Paul Graham in his essay "The Word
'hacker'" writes [0]

    
    
        Believe it or not, the two senses of "hack" are also 
        connected. Ugly and imaginative solutions have something 
        in common: they both break the rules. And there is a 
        gradual  continuum between rule breaking that's merely 
        ugly (using duct tape to attach something to your bike) 
        and rule breaking that is brilliantly imaginative 
        (discarding Euclidean space).
    
    
        Hacking predates computers. When he was working on the
        Manhattan Project, Richard Feynman used to amuse himself 
        by breaking into safes containing secret documents. This 
        tradition continues today. When we were in grad school, a 
        hacker friend of mine who spent too much time around MIT 
        had his own lock picking kit. (He now runs a hedge fund, 
        a not unrelated enterprise.)
    
    

[0] <http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html>

~~~
Shenglong
Locks in themselves are quite interesting mechanisms, and I'm not surprised
that people find breaking them exciting. I bought a lockpicking set a few
years ago, and the first thing I do whenever I move into a new house/apartment
is pick my own locks.

Keys are able to open tumbler locks almost _because_ of the imperfection of
the lock itself, and lock picks just exploit that fact. I don't know - I think
the whole concept is very beautiful.

As for usefulness, I've saved several friends a couple hundred dollars by
opening their doors when they're locked out. :)

~~~
denzil_correa
Which sets do you recommend to open various types of locks?

------
jacquesm
The law has tried to keep pace with the technological changes since then. This
has resulted in the laws being reflective of the economic impact of networks
and computing, rather than of the social impact of the various crimes and the
punishments are accordingly severe. The real problem is how to make sure that
actual crime can be punished hard enough that the punishments serve as a
deterrent while at the same time allowing for activism and other reasonably
benign (or even positive) transgressions of those same laws without allowing
prosecutors to nail those same activists to a tree as an example using laws
intended for the former group.

This is a hard problem to solve.

Woz, Gates, Jobs (and me too...) all profited from being born when this stuff
was not as much on the political and social radar as it is today.

------
twoodfin
I've been following most of the Aaron Swartz threads and have been surprised
that rtm's name hasn't come up more often, if at all.

Curious what hn thinks of his case in the light of the current firestorm.

~~~
djt
I'd be interested to hear from anyone at y combinator.

------
DanBC2
This is briefly mentioned in Clifford Stoll's book "The Cuckoo's Egg" (which
is great read).

It's a fascinating story. I also like his father's (or maybe it was his?) idea
for a spellchecker - using statistical analysis.

~~~
mpyne
It really is a great read, and it shows the other side of the story: When
there was very little, if any, idea of computer crime enforcement in the
Federal government.

Back then there was an a hacker running amok on the Berkeley (yes, _that_
Berkeley) network. Even when they managed to prove that the hacker was coming
from overseas (definitely making it a Federal case) they were met with a big
giant MEH from everyone they talked to. FBI didn't handle it. USSS didn't
care. And on and on it went, until they managed to drag the government (and
other parties besides) kicking and screaming into helping them out.

~~~
jacquesm
Things haven't changed that much. If you have a case and it does not involve
one or more of:

    
    
      - child porn
    
      - someone famous 
    
      - a large amount of money 
    

There is not all that much chance you'll get any cooperation.

------
jere
Does anyone have details on how he was caught? Reading about it leads me to
believe he acted covertly:

>He released the worm from MIT to conceal the fact that it actually originated
from Cornell.

~~~
DanBC2
He crashed significant parts of the Internet, causing considerable alarm
amongst sysadmins. His father was working for NSA at the time. I seem to
remember he went to his father and was persuaded to own up, but maybe I
misremember.

Here's Eugene Spafford's write up:
([http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1701&...](http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1701&context=cstech))

Page 26

> _However. at a recent meeting, Professor Rick Rashid of Carnegie-Mellon
> University was heard to claim that Robert T. Morris, the alleged author of
> the Wann, had revealed the jingerd bug to system administmtivc staff at eMU
> well over a year ago._

Here's Seely's "Tour of the Worm"
([http://www.cs.unc.edu/~jeffay/courses/nidsS05/attacks/seely-...](http://www.cs.unc.edu/~jeffay/courses/nidsS05/attacks/seely-
RTMworm-89.html))

> _These notes describe how the design of TCP/IP and the 4.2BSD implementation
> allow users on untrusted and possibly very distant hosts to masquerade as
> users on trusted hosts. [Robert T. Morris, "A Weakness in the 4.2BSD Unix
> TCP/IP Software"]_

Here's Mark W. Eichin's and Jon A. Rochlis' "With Microscope and Tweezers"
(<http://www.mit.edu/~eichin/virus/main.html>)

~~~
jere
Thanks. Quite interesting reads.

------
mathattack
This is an interesting story. I remember when the worm happened, and never
followed up with, "Whatever happened to him?"

------
iuguy
This shocking new revelation no doubt completely undermines the integrity of Y
Combinator. I for one am off to update Sendmail accordingly in disgust ;)

------
phil
I've always liked the way this is described on his YC bio page
(<http://ycombinator.com/people.html>):

 _In 1988 his discovery of buffer overflow first brought the Internet to the
attention of the general public._

------
rikacomet
back then, making a worm was way different than it is today. Today, most of
them are intended to do damage today, back then, it was a technical feat to be
able to write something like that. Look for the good part as well, like his
the son of a UNIX co-founder.

~~~
AndyNemmity
when i was younger we did the same thing, and everyone I knew did as well. It
wasn't ever intended to do damage.

the incredible level of trouble that I could have gotten into would have
dwarfed my imagination. thankfully this was before anyone significantly cared.

I'm not even old. Then again, now there are tons of outlets to learn and play
with things. breaking bbs's and other random things was a lot of my childhood
simply because I lacked real outlets to learn. although a lot of that time
seems wasted as being particularly good at taking efnet channels doesn't
really translate into much but problem solving technique.

today i imagine i'd be working on yet another javascript framework.

~~~
rikacomet
indeed, today, criminal hacking is more clearly defined, compared to back
then. Perhaps something we do today would be illegal tomorrow :P

------
fwr

        Graham also lists Morris as one of his personal heroes, saying "He's never wrong."[citation needed]
    

Haha, it almost looks like [citation needed] is the part of the quote.

------
Techasura
If robert dint do what he has done, then microsoft wouldn't be what it is
today. Hackers fine holes that needs to be filled. Companies patch those and
then they file a complaint against hackers. So, unacceptable.

Some news here:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=G2i_6j55bS0)

------
tlrobinson
Not only that, but he was the _first_ person to be convicted under CFAA.

------
andrewcooke
it's amusing that a yc member doesn't (or, at least, didn't) understand
exponential growth ;o)

[i assume there's more technical details somewhere than given in that article
- anyone have them?]

~~~
jacquesm
I'm pretty sure that since his sorcerers apprentice moment RTM learned a thing
or two.

------
martinced
The first time I read that pg's acolyte what _that_ dude I honestly thought
life wasn't fair ; )

