Swartz was never going to get anywhere remotely near 35 years and people need to stop spouting this nonsense as it makes them look completely ignorant of every single fact in the case. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is designed to prosecute all computer crime from minor mischief to advanced terrorism. As such its maximum sentences are extremely high and the press just loves to throw around maximum sentences with no regard to the actual cases.
Swartz accessed a system he did not have permission to access. He did so by entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access. While I agree with his general ideal, what he did was an act of civil disobedience.
The single most basic tenet of civil disobedience is that you are willing to go to jail.
Swartz was apparently unable to think beyond the immediate and to the inevitable, obvious, end result of him being charged with a crime that he blatantly and admittedly committed.
Six months house arrest, which given that he had no criminal record, would likely have been halved or reduced even further. This is absolutely in line with the crime that he, again, admitted to committing.
Mitnick's sentence shows exactly what these maximums mean in regards to real-world sentencing.
"Swartz accessed a system he did not have permission to access. He did so by entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access."
These two sentences appear incorrect. I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed "JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT."
If Wikipedia is wrong, please correct them. Certainly, if you know facts about this case that Wikipedia is getting wrong, then the whole world would benefit by the modification.
"Swartz was never going to get anywhere remotely near 35 years and people need to stop spouting this nonsense as it makes them look completely ignorant of every single fact in the case."
Incorrect and inflammatory; again, a simple check of Wikipedia suggests that you don't have your facts right.
From Wikipedia: "Federal prosecutors later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release."
Again, if you know something that Wikipedia doesn't, please update them; however, it certainly doesn't make ANY sense to say that others are "spouting nonsense" simply because they've received what may be incorrect information from a source like Wikipedia.
> "Swartz accessed a system he did not have permission to access. He did so by entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access."
> These two sentences appear incorrect. I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed "JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT."
He was not a student at MIT and was initially looked at for trespass, though the Institute declined to prosecute.
If trespassing is _not_ "entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access", what is?
> "Swartz was never going to get anywhere remotely near 35 years and people need to stop spouting this nonsense as it makes them look completely ignorant of every single fact in the case."
> Incorrect and inflammatory; again, a simple check of Wikipedia suggests that you don't have your facts right.
Being theoretically possible to be sentenced to 35 years in jail does not in any way say that it is assured that you will. You willfully ignore context in the posts that discuss the difference between what a realistic sentence is, and how it differs at times from the sensationalist maximum sentence.
Just yesterday, a man was sentenced to 12 years jail for rape, despite there being a maximum sentence possible of 72 years. It is not incorrect or inflammatory to say that it was unlikely that person was ever going to get sentenced to 72 years in prison.
>I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed
Accessed a controlled access server room to attach his computer to so he could download from the JSTOR repositories. Learn to read.
>Incorrect and inflammatory; again, a simple check of Wikipedia suggests that you don't have your facts right.
Again, learn to read. "Cumulative maximum" means that if every single crime, which he admitted to committing I remind you, was given the maximum sentence he would have spent 35 years in jail.
Except he was never going to get 35 years or anything even close to it. Its just disingenuous jackoffs such as yourself that propagate this number because you can't fucking read and can't be bothered to learn facts.
Swartz was offered six months. He killed himself instead. Swartz was a fucking privileged pussy that likely never had a hard day in his life and bailed the moment reality hit him.
Again, if you have an argument with Wikipedia, maybe you should tell _them_ instead of going onto HN and spouting incorrect and inflammatory material.
"Learn to read", "disingenuous jackoffs", "can't fucking read", "fucking privileged pussy" -- these are all your words. I call them inflammatory. You seem to disagree, but the consensus will line up with me on this one. Please realize that. Your initial post was modded down by others for a reason.
You appear hypersensitive to people who disagree with you. Dude, this is the sign of emotional problems. You need to calm down and realize there's something wrong in your head or in your life, and when you can begin to write like an emotionally secure adult, you'll be taken seriously.
I implore you, please, to analyze your life, find the things that are harming you, and rectify them. I believe, given this interaction with you, that you would benefit from this kind of introspection.
As an example of your extreme sensitivity, when you say "the maximum sentence he would have spent 35 years in jail", on this issue we are in agreement. Somehow, you turn this into an opposition. You seem to be looking for a fight, and you're trying to do it on the Internet. I will not fight you on the Internet, my friend. That would be counter-productive.
>These two sentences appear incorrect. I can simply refer you to Wikipedia, where it states that he accessed "JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT."
A reminder/correction: According to the CFAA, if you use perfectly valid and correct credentials to do things you aren't supposed to do, you are "violating your access". IE, if I were to become a teller at a bank, and use the bank's software and my access to steal $100, that is a violation of the CFAA and considered accessing a computer "in excess of authorization" which is the actual terms used in the law
Swartz accessed a system he did not have permission to access. He did so by entering a restricted area he did not have permission to access. While I agree with his general ideal, what he did was an act of civil disobedience.
The single most basic tenet of civil disobedience is that you are willing to go to jail.
Swartz was apparently unable to think beyond the immediate and to the inevitable, obvious, end result of him being charged with a crime that he blatantly and admittedly committed.
Six months house arrest, which given that he had no criminal record, would likely have been halved or reduced even further. This is absolutely in line with the crime that he, again, admitted to committing.
Mitnick's sentence shows exactly what these maximums mean in regards to real-world sentencing.