

Letter from MIT President on Releasing Aaron Swartz Documents - igul222
http://pastebin.com/DH0Nqisw

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sadfaceunread
Some actual reporting on this issue besides just the letter from the MIT
President can be found at <http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N13/swartz.html>

Apparently JSTOR also supports redaction: " JSTOR’s response was similar to
MIT’s. “We believe the information we provided to the United States Attorney’s
Office in this case should be made open and available to the public. In a
letter dated Feb. 25, we agreed to the lifting of the protective order so long
as the articles downloaded from JSTOR were not released and the identities of
our staff are protected,” said Heidi McGregor, a JSTOR spokeswoman, in an
email to The Tech. “We do not agree that individuals’ names need to be
included with these materials to serve the public interest.” "

" “Although the United States and representatives of Mr. Swartz agreed on many
proposed modifications to the ­order, the United States and Mr. Swartz’s
representatives did not reach agreement on the scope of the redactions,”
Pirozzolo said.

“The United States expects to respond to the motion within the time provided
by the district court rules,” he said. “It will also request that individuals
potentially affected by the modification of the order be given an opportunity
to be heard on the proposed modifications.” "

Given that last part you can certainly expect the MIT documents to come out
much much faster than Gov documents.

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briguy
He is walking a tightrope. And protecting the privacy of those that are not
deemed culpable in some way is understandable. However to be consistent with
his previous acceptance of MIT holding some responsibility, he probably
should: (1) release the redacted documents now. (2) perhaps not refer to this
as the "Aaron Swartz situation" or state that "In the time since Aaron
Swartz's suicide, we have seen........ ", as this wording is less accepting of
some responsibility and really is putting the full burden of the backlash on
Aaron. (he could perhaps say "our handling of the Aaron Swartz situation".)

It would appear that regardless of what MIT does, it would be up to the court
when and how to release the un-redacted version.

....and MIT, for F __ks sake, get your Network security together, that is
really not a great reflection on your reputation as world class engineering
org.

~~~
ynniv
_get your Network security together_

No. In an educational setting, lax security is a feature.

~~~
jrochkind1
The aspects of their lax security that are an intentional 'feature' presumably
aren't the "vulnerabilities" they want to redact, because there's nothing
secret or unknown about that intentional lax security.

Which makes me very curious about what the vulnerabilities they want to redact
ARE.

Unless they are just being totally ridiculous and insisting on redacting
things everyone already knows and were never secrets in the first place, like
that any device can get on their network.

~~~
roc
If Aaron's crime revolved around breaking a use agreement by downloading in
bulk, and trespassing by stashing a laptop making those bulk downloads in a
known-unlocked-utility shed, what "network vulnerabilities" would even have
been be germane to the case and thus included in MIT's filings?

Not only am I curious about what the vulnerabilities are (in general), I'm
_more curious_ as to why they were ever sent.

Is it just email where network engineers mused about known-vulnerabilities
while discussing 'how Swartz got on the network'? Or was MIT making additional
accusations against Aaron, that they would prefer to let plunge down the
memory hole to avoid being seen as having been party to the prosecution trying
to 'throw the book' at Swartz?

------
rdl
Translated to actions, that means 1) MIT lawyers are going to argue against
being compelled to release the un-modified documents immediately 2) the
Abelson report isn't going to come out in 2013 ("careful").

~~~
sadfaceunread
Everything else that has ever been said indicates that the report will be out
in 2013. If you look carefully , (;)) you can find some Abelson quotes on the
web discussing this.

~~~
rdl
The Tech said "in a few weeks" on 23 January.

MIT has clear commercial reasons for wanting to defer until after admissions,
and possibly until the end of the 2012-2013 year. Releasing it in the summer
actually is a more effective way of burying than releasing in 2014, so I guess
what I mean is "released after the end of the 2012-2013 academic period".

MIT will be empty (sort of), everyone will be distracted by something new, and
it won't affect admissions.

------
waterlesscloud
That's fine, as long as the names of the people who made the relevant
decisions regarding the case are released. It's unacceptable to hide that
information.

~~~
aashaykumar92
Don't look at whether its acceptable or not, look at the implications. If
those names were to be publicly released, the MIT employees would not exactly
be safe. In fact, I would be pretty scared for them myself. Given all the
emotion in the aftermath of the suicide, it's not fair to put those people in
danger. Mr. Reif couldn't have said this better: "But I believe that openness
must be balanced with reasonable concern for privacy and safety"

What is important, however, is that those people are self-accountable. And
they realize their own faults and look to improve in the future. You might say
this is awfully altruistic, but it is better to hold the employees accountable
in this regards instead of jeopardizing their personal privacy and safety.

------
SeanKilleen
A little confused here...is Pastebin the communication method of choice for
the President of MIT? Is this a re-posting of a letter? How have we verified
that this is indeed from the President of MIT? All I see is a Pastebin guest
account pasting a message with a text signature, and I don't see how that can
be considered a verified communication to be commented on. I might be missing
something; if so, someone please enlighten me.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
[http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/reif-letter-swartz-
docume...](http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/reif-letter-swartz-
documents-0319.html)

There's the official version. Text appears to be the same. I don't know why
people use the Pastebin copy (I've seen this a few other times with documents
related to the Swartz case).

~~~
nitrogen
To add to SeanKilleen's comment, a Pastebin mirror probably can't be modified
with subtle wording changes that might invalidate a lot of the discussion and
conceal the original apparent intent of the letter. I'm not suggesting that
MIT would do this, but that in general, a read-only mirror of a document can
be a useful thing.

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akiselev
Can anyone link to the harassment/threats he mentions? (Mostly the latter, I'm
sure there was much harassment but I have yet to see any real "threats").

~~~
bmiranda
<http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N7/hoax.html>

~~~
D9u
From the above link: _Students were not notified of the situation until after
an hour after the initial tip._

It seems as if the powers that be decided student safety was less important
than apprehending any possible suspect...

~~~
akiselev
Human reactions under dangers like this are extremely unpredictable. I mean,
who has ever really had a chance to test the effectiveness or wisdom of their
fight or flight response?

If there is a gunman I think you would want students spread out among their
classrooms. If there's a major panic there can be deaths from the panic not to
mention the danger of a gunman in a hallway as students try to escape.

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blinkingled
Why is Professor Abelson involved in this - i.e. why not a committee or
$LAWYER to conduct a review? Not that I have a problem with it but it just
sounds weird to have someone like Professor Abelson do what would amount to
identifying personal info and redacting it from the documents.

~~~
heironimus
PR. By having Abelson involved, it hopefully throws a bone to all the angry
hackers.

~~~
blinkingled
Aha! It does make sense from that pov.

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sopooneo
Is MIT going to have to stop being so generally open after this?

------
nullc
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Aaron's name was released in all the court
materials— those of his accusers should be too.

~~~
drharris
His accusers? You do realize most of the redacted folks are just your average
employees that have nothing to do with the case? And that his accusers are
actually the Justice Department anyway? As a citizen that supposedly owns a
piece of that department (it fights for our interests, right?), you're as much
an accuser as the people who will be redacted.

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lnanek2
Makes me wonder which staffer was pushing for prosecution.

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wissler
Carte Blanche power of redaction combined with "openness"? This is Orwellian
double-speak. If they want to reasonably redact, that's fine to an extent, so
long as there's an uninterested third party review.

