
Ask HN: What can we do to help Andrew Auernheimer? - wwwtyro
It frustrates me that I did not lift a finger to help Aaron Swartz. Part of the problem is that I feel so damned impotent when it comes to actually <i>doing</i> anything. Petitions make our numbers known, but they are all bark and no bite.<p>I'd like to open a brainstorming discussion here about what we can do to add a systematic bite to our bark. And not just a bite, but a focused bite that we can all get behind to take a chunk out of injustice.<p>I'll be honest, I don't think I have any great ideas to address this. I have a couple off-the-wall ideas that I'll throw out there. You should do the same. If someone comes up with something brilliant that we can all get excited about, well, let's stop procrastinating and start our counterattack, shall we?<p>For my part, here's some brainstorming:<p>1. We are the new media; let's do what the media should: The SOPA blackout was an inspiring success. Can we be more systematic with this method? What if, once a month or so, we democratically chose some injustice being perpetrated by the justice department (the Andrew Auernheimer case, for example), and focused all our energy on a repeat of the success we had with the SOPA blackout? I'm imagining a simple voting site with a countdown and instructions for participating once the target had been selected. Each target could have a list of subscribers - people or companies willing to take a public position on the issue - giving us a better idea of which target might be successfully addressed.<p>2. Can we put our money where our mouths are? What if someone started a startup that allowed us to automatically funnel money to politicians that behaved the way we wanted them to behave? For example, with a few clicks, I might put twenty-five dollars towards the reelection campaign of a politician that started an investigation into the case of Andrew Auernheimer. If a politician did so, they would automatically receive my 25$ along with whatever other money was donated to the cause. If more than one politician did so, it would be split among them.<p>This is a serious problem that affects all of us. A lot of the public tolerates us as witches and wizards and have little compunction about turning on us for doing harmless things that seem scary to them. The first step in doing something about it is <i>choosing something to do</i>. Well, let's get started, damn it.
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pasbesoin
Don't presume that people already know the story.

Here are a few links, to start with:

[http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/att-ipad-hacker-when-
em...](http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/att-ipad-hacker-when-embarassment-
becomes-a-crime)

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/21/ipad-hack-statement-of-
resp...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/21/ipad-hack-statement-of-
responsibility/)

<http://cfaadefensefund.com/>

I recall at the time this story originally hit (or soon after) some
concern/speculation as to whether he originally intended to report the problem
or whether he did so after thinking through the cost/benefits of using the
data privately versus reporting the problem publicly. I do _not_ know whether
this is the case; perhaps someone else can speak to this more authoritatively.

Regardless, he reported the problem. Also, I think many non-technical actors
and reporters in this have no concept of how quickly and effectively a very
simple script could scrape that number of... I don't even want to call them
"accounts", because they were public pages and set up in the vast majority of
cases without the data owners' knowledge.

Once you have the proof of concept script, 10 examples versus 100,000 examples
may be just the difference between a second or two's run and several (well,
maybe many) minutes' run.

Hell, the phone could ring, and you hang up a half-hour later to find/remember
that your script is still running. I'm not saying that's what happened; on the
other hand, it easily could have.

P.S. Regarding that defense fund link, whoever's managing it should try a
little SEO; currently, it's not in the top two pages of Google results against
Andrew's full name. (I got frustrated and didn't look further into the
results.)

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nodata
A lot of people didn't know who Aaron was until he died, or at least couldn't
put his name to his actions.

Maybe you should explain who Andrew Auernheimer is?

 _What if someone_

This is part of the problem, suggesting that someone else do something.

------
shail
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev> There goes the wiki link.

Can anyone summarize what's he going through currently? Any DoJ cases etc.
Some guilty plea extortion or out of proportion criminal charges worth
millions and 100+ yrs in jail. We can use the petition (with 25k signatures)
as a great tool to get these things looked into by the White House. Such
exposure will guarantee that nobody will play with anyone's life just for
their career sake.

