Aaron's Law(ers)

[Ghost In The Machine]

So not content with driving just one disruptive hacktivist to suicide via legal harassment, some in congress now want to significantly jack up the penalties under the 1986 CFAA.

Where's the Wikipedia blackout for this one?!
Digital rights only as long as they support our digital wrongs, eh Jimbots...

[lilburne]

And?

If one is going to jack about with someone else's computer system, one should be prepared to face penalties.

[Ghost In The Machine]

You're right..let's go Sharia and just cut their fucking hands off.

Does no one believe in proportional punishment, anymore...

[lilburne]

What is proportionate? If someone is jacking about on my home computer there is little to worry about, though I'm probably going to have to contact banks, and insurance companies, maybe change passwords across several sites, etc, etc. I'm going to be seriously pissed off and have top spend a degree of time fixing shit. If it is the works computer system that is being fucked with them there is several £million of potential damage, the livelihood of about 2000 people as risk, all of which has to be assessed, and several people are going to spend a lot of time sorting shit out.

[greybeard]

If one is going to jack about with someone else's computer system, one should be prepared to face penalties.

And what should those penalties be? 20 years for downloading an unlicensed copy of "Gangnam Style"? Life in prison for making a Wikipedia sock-puppet? The death penalty for typing in "User: Guest / Password: Guest" into some idiot's login screen?

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

[Ghost In The Machine]

Amen, Brother!

[lilburne]

If one is going to jack about with someone else's computer system, one should be prepared to face penalties.

And what should those penalties be? 20 years for downloading an unlicensed copy of "Gangnam Style"? Life in prison for making a Wikipedia sock-puppet? The death penalty for typing in "User: Guest / Password: Guest" into some idiot's login screen?

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

What is hard to understand about KEEP OUT of someone else's system? Break into someone's lockup and expect to get shot. Break into someone's computer system and expect to become Bubba's bitch.

[Kiefer.Wolfowitz]

So not content with driving just one disruptive hacktivist to suicide via legal harassment

Aaron Swartz had a history of suicidal behavior, prior to his violation of the JSTOR agreement and his being offered a 6-month prison term.

The Wikipedia article seems to have no mention of his previous suicidal threats or the calling of authorities to treat him. It does have a mention that his lawyer warned that he was suicidal 2 days before his suicide.

Legal harassment? He committed a crime for which he was being prosecuted.

[Ghost In The Machine]

Another thing to consider when considering Draconian laws, or any laws, is the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Instead of despair and suicide, our best and brightest might migrate. Some of them to hostile foreign nations in need of technical talent.
Suddenly Putin's cyberdroogs and China's PLA "Black Lotus" brigades, could be taking their attacks to whole new levels. Iran and even North Korea, could suddenly become major players in cyberterrorism. The Mexican drug cartels could add cyber crime to their sources of income, making the Nigerian prince look like a pauper.

Remember that the mighty Athenian empire was brought low by alienating one of its best and brightest- Alcebiades.

[mac]

So not content with driving just one disruptive hacktivist to suicide via legal harassment

Aaron Swartz had a history of suicidal behavior, prior to his violation of the JSTOR agreement and his being offered a 6-month prison term.

The Wikipedia article seems to have no mention of his previous suicidal threats or the calling of authorities to treat him. It does have a mention that his lawyer warned that he was suicidal 2 days before his suicide.

Legal harassment? He committed a crime for which he was being prosecuted.

As the Attorney General Eric Holder admitted in recent Congressional hearings, no one is actually going to get sent away for the long prison terms proposed. Instead, these types of laws are designed to give prosecutors a strong negotiation position with which to threaten suspects and avoid all the expense and hassle of actually holding trials.

Just look at all the "expense and hassle" Swartz saved them.

[EricBarbour]

I'm actually surprised that Holder's Wikipedia bio isn't more hostile than it is, given all the unpopular things he is in favor of.
Should ask Malik Shabazz about that.

[thekohser]

Instead of despair and suicide, our best and brightest might migrate. Some of them to hostile foreign nations in need of technical talent.

I don't think these hostile lands typically stock Cheetos in their grocery stores, so this big migration is not very likely.

[Ghost In The Machine]

You know well as I that the l33t can get pretty much anything they want.
Besides-Cheetos are sooo 07, Doritos are teh new finger-staining hotness!

[cyofee]

Another thing to consider when considering Draconian laws, or any laws, is the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Instead of despair and suicide, our best and brightest might migrate. Some of them to hostile foreign nations in need of technical talent.
Suddenly Putin's cyberdroogs and China's PLA "Black Lotus" brigades, could be taking their attacks to whole new levels. Iran and even North Korea, could suddenly become major players in cyberterrorism. The Mexican drug cartels could add cyber crime to their sources of income, making the Nigerian prince look like a pauper.

Remember that the mighty Athenian empire was brought low by alienating one of its best and brightest- Alcebiades.

America's best and brightest might migrate... because a mentally ill criminal committed suicide? You're probably better off without those.

[Ghost In The Machine]

A criminal you say...he wasn't even convicted of anything! I guess the old, liberal notion of "Innocent until proven guilty" has gotten flushed along with proportionate punishment. If our legal system can offer no better recourse than those of Russia, China or Iran, then let the exodus begin!

[lilburne]

A criminal you say...he wasn't even convicted of anything! I guess the old, liberal notion of "Innocent until proven guilty" has gotten flushed along with proportionate punishment. If our legal system can offer no better recourse than those of Russia, China or Iran, then let the exodus begin!

He seems to have been "banged to rights" or he wouldn't have been plea bargaining and getting worried about jail time.

[DanMurphy]

This guy's suicide was a result of his crippling depression. It is very sad.

He deliberately broke the law and was being prosecuted for his acts. He was offered a 6 month plea bargain, which strikes me as eminently reasonable.

The self-righteousness of his "friends" in the wake of his tragic death, in insisting that the US federal government murdered him (rather than introspecting on their own failings of fellowship to a wounded young man) has been sickening.

[Vigilant]

This guy's suicide was a result of his crippling depression. It is very sad.

He deliberately broke the law and was being prosecuted for his acts. He was offered a 6 month plea bargain, which strikes me as eminently reasonable.

The self-righteousness of his "friends" in the wake of his tragic death, in insisting that the US federal government murdered him (rather than introspecting on their own failings of fellowship to a wounded young man) has been sickening.

All of this is true, but the prosecution does look like they went well over the line in pursuing this guy.
Certainly much, much farther than they have pursued bankers in money laundering and fraud cases.

[DanMurphy]

This guy's suicide was a result of his crippling depression. It is very sad.

He deliberately broke the law and was being prosecuted for his acts. He was offered a 6 month plea bargain, which strikes me as eminently reasonable.

The self-righteousness of his "friends" in the wake of his tragic death, in insisting that the US federal government murdered him (rather than introspecting on their own failings of fellowship to a wounded young man) has been sickening.

All of this is true, but the prosecution does look like they went well over the line in pursuing this guy.
Certainly much, much farther than they have pursued bankers in money laundering and fraud cases.

Well, yes. There aint no justice in this world. The hypocrisy of the HSBC money laundering settlement was also sickening.

But that prosecutors do go hard after the kind of stuff he was doing was well-understood; this did not come out of the blue. He went ahead anyways, and at that point, you have to be prepared to take your lumps.

His death remains deeply sad. But looking at this case, I kept wondering "where were all these self-righteous ass-holes the last 30 years, when young black kids were getting sent away for ten years or more for selling a dime-bag of white powder?"

Of all the people to face the heavy-hand of the US state, Swartz had enormous resources of class and affinity group, that would ultimately keep his sentence down to the minimum (or less!) that tens of thousands languishing already in US prisons could only dream of.

[Notvelty]

If one is going to jack about with someone else's computer system, one should be prepared to face penalties.

And what should those penalties be? 20 years for downloading an unlicensed copy of "Gangnam Style"? Life in prison for making a Wikipedia sock-puppet? The death penalty for typing in "User: Guest / Password: Guest" into some idiot's login screen?

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

What is hard to understand about KEEP OUT of someone else's system? Break into someone's lockup and expect to get shot. Break into someone's computer system and expect to become Bubba's bitch.

Seems like a perfect use for medically-supervised caning to me. It'll stop tje self-entitled little shits, but present no particilar hurdle for people who actually have a genuine whistleblowing approach in mibd.

[Catfitz]

So not content with driving just one disruptive hacktivist to suicide via legal harassment

Aaron Swartz had a history of suicidal behavior, prior to his violation of the JSTOR agreement and his being offered a 6-month prison term.

The Wikipedia article seems to have no mention of his previous suicidal threats or the calling of authorities to treat him. It does have a mention that his lawyer warned that he was suicidal 2 days before his suicide.

Legal harassment? He committed a crime for which he was being prosecuted.

Like many celebratory accounts, the Wikipedia entry completely leaves out that the judge in Boston who released him on bail ordered him to seek mental health treatment. This was reported in the Boston Globe. This account also leaves out the New Yorker interview with his girlfriend, who, while generally attempting to shift the blame for his death on to the prosecutors, can't help but let slip that she spent the morning of his suicide pleading with him through a locked bathroom door not to hurt himself.

The account of the Congressional hearing leaves out the very pertinent statement by Eric Holder that it was never the government's intent to have him serve more than 3-5 months, and that maximum sentences are not what prosecutors look at; they look at conduct and see what in fact applies for that conduct; in this case, there wasn't an attempt to profit from the stolen files.

Why wouldn't this account mention that Quinn Norton received immunity in exchange for giving information about Swartz to the Grand Jury, and one of the key things she told them was about the Guerilla Manifesto, which they hadn't known about although it was openly available. It wasn't so material, but she then felt bad she told the feds about it. I caught her ought in a lie when I found out that the Italian coders who were said to be "co-authors" and because of this you "couldn't tell who had really authored the Manifesto" in fact published a sympathetic memorial post about Swartz immediately after his death crediting him fully for the Manifesto. Confronted with this fact, she ducked. And so on -- there are just so many pages like this from the world of Silicon Valley that spawned Wikipedia There's many more things that could be said about this story -- I've written reams about it.

It brings me to the larger question of how to get the parallel pages visible and into the public view. Not everyone even knows how to go look for Talk (I didn't at first, and I am pretty savvy on the Internet). Not everyone realizes that without knowing the arcane rules of Wikipedia editing, they can comment on Talk. I always wish for some overlay, some app or some browser (and there have been some like Webkins) that enables people to overlay comments on to pages that others can then see and share. I think a dedicated website with the most controversial pages linked would be great, but of course, how would you address the trolling problem there? Identity would be a start...

What's amazing to me is that there is not a single comment of the usual sort so often found on Wikipedia pages about clean-ups needed, problems to fix, controversies, people too close having written the entry, etc. etc. Not a single thing like that above the Swartz entry.

[lilburne]

It brings me to the larger question of how to get the parallel pages visible and into the public view.

You won't. Not on wikipedia at least. There is a concerted effort led by Lessig (one of those responsible for warping Swartz's ethics), and others to have Swartz beautified, the tech nerds are thoroughly bought into that, and no amount of facts will dissuade them that Swartz was crucified because? Well conspiracies range from wikileaks to anonymous, through 911 truthers, and Obama birthers. But mostly because the little fucknozzles believe that you pull almost any shit you like so long as its done on a computer: defamation, ripping off industrial designs, downloading music and films, scraping news articles, right through to revenge posting of photos of your ex, or distributing child porn. Apparently though spam, personal data, and letting the world know the real names of online shits is ALWAYS wrong, because that affects the little shits themselves.

[Poetlister]

He seems to have been "banged to rights" or he wouldn't have been plea bargaining and getting worried about jail time.

Maybe he believed that, although innocent, he would be framed after a show trial and was trying to minimise the damage.

[lilburne]

He seems to have been "banged to rights" or he wouldn't have been plea bargaining and getting worried about jail time.

Maybe he believed that, although innocent, he would be framed after a show trial and was trying to minimise the damage.

You have 'show trials' in America?

[Cedric]

It brings me to the larger question of how to get the parallel pages visible and into the public view.

You won't. Not on wikipedia at least. There is a concerted effort led by Lessig (one of those responsible for warping Swartz's ethics), and others to have Swartz beautified, the tech nerds are thoroughly bought into that, and no amount of facts will dissuade them that Swartz was crucified because? Well conspiracies range from wikileaks to anonymous, through 911 truthers, and Obama birthers. But mostly because the little fucknozzles believe that you pull almost any shit you like so long as its done on a computer: defamation, ripping off industrial designs, downloading music and films, scraping news articles, right through to revenge posting of photos of your ex, or distributing child porn. Apparently though spam, personal data, and letting the world know the real names of online shits is ALWAYS wrong, because that affects the little shits themselves.

I believe the word you are searching for is "beatified."

You are quite right, however, to suggest that any view of Swartz that falls short of saintliness is considered damnable heresy by the Frei Kultur Kinder. Such views are to be repressed by the swiftest and most vigorous of wiki-auto-de-feys.

[Midsize Jake]

You have 'show trials' in America?

I believe he's referring to the American invention of "courtroom media circuses," not Soviet-style foregone-conclusion judicial farces. In America, your guilt or innocence is mostly determined by how fancy your attorney is, and the system simply adapts to the fanciness-of-attorney factor as opposed to, say, actual evidence, witness testimony, or common sense. Meanwhile, TV shows portray the criminal-justice system the way people think it should operate, giving them a false sense of security and thereby protecting the system from some sort of populist political backlash.

A badly-depressed, fatalistic person is in particular jeopardy in the American system because he won't feel he deserves a fancy attorney, or any legal representation at all. He might also not be able to afford one, and fancy attorneys who work "on spec" usually prefer to defend (or for that matter, be around) people who are not badly depressed or fatalistic. If you're depressed and you want to commit an arguably "victimless" crime, you probably want to be in Scandinavia, or else just try to start on the happy pills a few weeks before you get caught.

[EricBarbour]

I can deal with Aaron Swartz very easily:

An early revision of his personal website, from 2003, reads like typical extreme-libertarian cant, including the astounding statement: "In the US, it is illegal to possess or distribute child pornography, apparently because doing so will encourage people to sexually abuse children."

"This is absurd logic. Child pornography is not necessarily abuse. Even if it was, preventing the distribution or posession of the evidence won't make the abuse go away. We don't arrest everyone with videotapes of murders, or make it illegal for TV stations to show people being killed."

[lilburne]

I can deal with Aaron Swartz very easily:

An early revision of his personal website, from 2003, reads like typical extreme-libertarian cant, including the astounding statement: "In the US, it is illegal to possess or distribute child pornography, apparently because doing so will encourage people to sexually abuse children."

"This is absurd logic. Child pornography is not necessarily abuse. Even if it was, preventing the distribution or posession of the evidence won't make the abuse go away. We don't arrest everyone with videotapes of murders, or make it illegal for TV stations to show people being killed."

As I said months ago that child's head was fucked up very early by the likes of Lessig and Doctrow.

[Catfitz]

I can deal with Aaron Swartz very easily:

An early revision of his personal website, from 2003, reads like typical extreme-libertarian cant, including the astounding statement: "In the US, it is illegal to possess or distribute child pornography, apparently because doing so will encourage people to sexually abuse children."

"This is absurd logic. Child pornography is not necessarily abuse. Even if it was, preventing the distribution or posession of the evidence won't make the abuse go away. We don't arrest everyone with videotapes of murders, or make it illegal for TV stations to show people being killed."

This is standard-issue geek religious doctrine. I've encountered many developers with exactly this point of view. That many actual child predators are arrested with troves of child pornography on their computers doesn't faze them.

Don't forget Lessig himself was a victim of child abuse as a teenager in his boarding school, took a payment to drop charges against the abuser in exchange for a pledge of silence, and then assisted another victim to publicize the abuse.

The above commenters are all correct that nothing will get Lessig and co. to stop their beatification of Swartz.

I meant the larger issue of how you get parallel versions into the view of any controversial figure -- whether someone like Swartz or a Russian oligarch or a US birther sheriff. How can those alternatives that in fact should be the impartial "encyclopedia" be established.

I suppose you all have over this a million times. Did Wikipedia Review attempt to make parallel pages? Did anyone use wiki software to start a wiki of just the controversial pages to highlight the issues?

[Zoloft]

From one authoritative site (a snippet):

After a suicide, family members and friends often go over the pre-death circumstances and events, blaming themselves for things they think they should or should not have done. 'If only I had persuaded him to get help!' or 'If only I hadn't told her I wanted a separation...' Even though suicide is an individual decision, it is a very natural and common reaction for survivors to feel guilt or responsibility.

Everyone is different, and there will be differences in the pain and anger, of course.

[mac]

Suicide isn't always an irrational decision. Sometimes the suffering is linked to physical pain, often for years. By this time, the person may have suffered indignities and dehumanization. In these cases, sometimes their loved ones have witnessed the decline of the person's health, and might have offered support, or even supplies for the suicide.

My understanding of this tragedy is that he had been depressed or otherwise suffered mentally or emotionally for a while. Who among us can say that this decision was wrong or bad.

After a suicide, whether expected or not, the ones left behind feel the loss, but sometimes that loss is balanced by the knowledge that the person is free from suffering. Perhaps that is the case with Aaron's loved ones.

[Zoloft]

Fighting in the aisles removed..

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