

Aaron’s Law Takes Shape - bpolania
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/11/aarons-law-takes-shape/

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arbuge
All well and good but the issue goes deeper than reforming any one law. At the
end of the day what's needed is curbing prosecutorial overreach, and holding
prosecutors accountable when it happens. Sending somebody to jail unfairly is
a crime, and should be treated as such.

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gyom
> Sending somebody to jail unfairly is a crime, and should be treated as such.

Very interesting take on things. I'm not sure if it would create a huge legal
mess when a federal prosecutor is doing his or her job at prosecuting someone
who's probably innocent.

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ecounysis
How is what Aaron did legally different from what Google does with Google
Books and Scholar?

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rayiner
First, Google didn't sneak into a closet at MIT and surreptitiously plug into
their physical network. Second, Google has formerly coordinated with JSTOR to
index its content. Third, Google doesn't bypass the paywall--it just links to
freely available copies if they are available outside JSTOR.

So aside from the fact that it's completely different, you're right, it's
exactly the same.

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betterunix
Aaron had every right to access JSTOR and did not bypass any paywall (I have
the same access). He also had every right to access MIT's network, just like
any other member of the general public does. The one thing you mentioned that
might have been a crime was to enter a closet without permission, but he was
not even prosecuted for that one.

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pyre
1\. He used the network closet because they booted him off of the wireless
network.

2\. He changed his MAC address because they blocked his old one.

I don't think that this alone should be enough for a conviction though. For
instance, he wasn't privy to the reason that his network connection wasn't
working anymore (so far as the MAC address was concerned). The prosecutors
wanted to argue that changing the MAC address was a purposeful attempt to
thwart restrictions, but from the outside he couldn't have known _why_ the old
MAC was no longer working.

3\. Instead of using Harvard's network and signing up with his own name, he
used MIT's network (which is open to the public) and signed up for access with
a fake name. The prosecutors would have argued that this was his way of hiding
his identity because he knew what he was doing was wrong.

4\. The US Department of Justice has had a hard-on to expand the hacking
statutes to cover "any crime with a computer." See the case about the
MySpace/Facebook mother that drove her daughter's classmate to suicide. They
tried to go after her for 'hacking' into the website because she signed up
with a fake name which is against the Terms of Service (i.e. "unauthorized
access" to the website).

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derekp7
For your point #4, I don't think the prosecutors were specifically trying to
go after another _hacking_ conviction (to expand the statutes), but they were
reaching for any law that could apply, since what the woman did (emotionally
harassing a minor until driving her to suicide [allegedly]) was considered to
be abhorrent but not in itself illegal -- just like the prosecutor's conduct
with Arron. And in our society, any time something tragic happens people feel
that someone has to be held accountable.

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dkl
Problem is, once a law is used for a new use, no matter how virtuous it is, it
will now be seen as one of the tools in the toolbox for prosecutors to punish
people. Many of those new uses will not be looked on favorably, either.

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largesse
The article doesn't say anything about how the law is taking shape, it just
repeats criticisms of it.

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anseljh
Maybe you forgot to read the part about the drafts and suggestions.

