This is a contested and unsettled legal question. It is not an established fact that what Aaron did would constitute stealing, due to the nuances of this particular situation.
> and that subverting the law, even if non ideal, was HIS choice, and therefore the overly dramatic legal threats were invited by HIS actions
Even if you ignore the fact that MIT has a long, established student culture of civil disobedience and circumventing the law, the level of prosecution was completely disproportionate to what he actually did.
The legal concept of "theft":
https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2119
"the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale)..." (see the link above for more)
So what does it mean to "take"?:
https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2088
"to gain or obtain possession, including the receipt of a legacy from an estate, getting title to real property or stealing an object."
...and "possession"?:
https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1555
"1) any article, object, asset or property which one owns, occupies, holds or has under control. 2) the act of owning, occupying, holding or having under control an article, object, asset or property." (again - more is available at the link)
Ok - so data can't be occupied, so we can drop that. Holding something implies that something is now in someone's hands and not in another's; data doesn't really work that way either. So - can you "own" or "control" data?
I'm not going further down this rabbit hole, but it seems to me that we have carved out this special exemption for data - or more generally IP - that isn't applied to physical objects. Which is to say that if you make a copy of data that isn't "your's" (whatever that means in a legal sense), that you have now, in some manner, committed theft. You have somehow stolen something from someone else - even though they still have theirs!
Imagine a physical item, and imagine you had a way to copy it. Maybe a wood table, and you are an expert woodworker. You see it, you take some measurements first, plus some photos, maybe a 3D scan? Or you used photogrammetry from the pictures to gain the 3D data. Whatever. Then you go home and make the copy in your workshop. You make an "exact" copy of that table, and the owner (the guy who originally made it - maybe he was selling it, too) learns about it.
Have you just stolen from him? Have you committed theft?
In the real world, if you tried to bring such charges, you might be laughed out of court (unless he had a patent on it, and you were trying to sell that copy - because patent law allows one to make such copies in order to make improvements, but those copies can't be sold or manufactured in quantity).
But when it comes to data - all of a sudden, it's different. With data, the deprivation (even if you are just keeping it for yourself, with no intention of passing it on to someone else!) is considered to be "a loss of sales revenue".
So why not in that case of that table? Or any other potentially manufactured artifact?
The "slippery slope" argument might be the idea that in the future, that yes, if you happen to make an exact copy of a manufactured article (whether manufactured as a singular item or by the millions, whether done by hand or by machines), and regardless of whether you intend to sell it or keep it for your own use - that if caught, you will be deemed as having committed theft; as having stolen something.
I mean - why not? That's what we do with data, so why not physical items?
The next step is, of course, to just define stealing or theft as being the deprivation of sales revenue...but that would be crazy, right?
As crazy as thinking that one could define stealing and theft as being something you do where you don't deprive the original owner of anything...?
He was? I may be misremembering, but I don't think that was the crime he was accused of. I believe the crime was bypassing access control systems.
And even that accusation seriously stretched credulity.
Among other things, he was charged with the heinous crime of modifying his MAC address on his laptop's WiFi so that he could obtain a new IP address.
How did that accusation seriously stretch credulity? The technical means may have been simple, but it's unquestionable that he did so intending to circumvent access controls.
attaches retrieval requests to a python script
"N-N-NOT LIKE THAT--!!"
They shouldn't have threatened him to the extent they did, I definitely concede, and I wish he didn't feel so pressured to commit suicide - but I'm not convinced he was the perfect person everyone seems to claim.
Let's say you can prove intent to distribute; I still don't think it's worth any jail time. It's theoretically harmful at best, minor harm to anyone at worst. It's not like a large specific harm (say, stealing someone's car, which has a definite negative impact on them). It's more like... taking all the shrimp at the buffet.
Plus our copyright law is completely fucked anyway and encourages anti competitive behavior (the exact opposite of its intent). On top of that, there's a good bet that 99.99% of the papers involved were the results of taxpayer-funded research.
I don't think he's a saint, but I do think he got a bullshit deal by an overzealous, madwoman prosecutor and university - both of whom rely on federal funding. And everything that was "stolen" was also created with federal funding.
But really, all of those differences don't really matter. The most important difference is: Would you kill yourself instead of going to jail for just 6 months? Maybe you would. I don't know for certain. But if the US's booming prison industry tells me anything, it's that you (like most people) probably wouldn't kill yourself instead of taking a 6 month sentence.
I am sorry to be "that guy", but sometimes laws are unfair.
Extreme counter-example: SS officials in nazi Germany were acting according to the then-in-place laws. That does not mean they can thus be exempted from any consequences.
> In short, Aaron Swartz was not the super hacker breathlessly described in the Government’s indictment and forensic reports, and his actions did not pose a real danger to JSTOR, MIT or the public. He was an intelligent young man who found a loophole that would allow him to download a lot of documents quickly. This loophole was created intentionally by MIT and JSTOR, and was codified contractually in the piles of paperwork turned over during discovery.
> If I had taken the stand as planned and had been asked by the prosecutor whether Aaron’s actions were “wrong”, I would probably have replied that what Aaron did would better be described as “inconsiderate”. In the same way it is inconsiderate to write a check at the supermarket while a dozen people queue up behind you or to check out every book at the library needed for a History 101 paper. It is inconsiderate to download lots of files on shared wifi or to spider Wikipedia too quickly, but none of these actions should lead to a young person being hounded for years and haunted by the possibility of a 35 year sentence.
He wilfully, deliberately and with substantial premeditation broke the law. Having pretty much stated publicly he was going to and been caught and let off for a similar crime previously. He was bang to rights guilty.
However, he was then persecuted mercilessly and threatened with a sentence way out of proportion to the crime. He was hounded to his death for political brownie points and that's unforgivable.
But to suggest he was just a naughty schoolboy is inaccurate and unhelpful.
So did Rosa Parks, and so did Edward Snowden. That does not mean they automatically deserve what they got.
Indeed, and I said the same about Aaron.
Snowden's a different case as he didn't break the law to show up the law.
But it's critical to history that Rosa Parks broke the law. If she had just annoyed a racist bus driver then there's no shining a light on the system. And crucially, that's what Aaron was attempting to do too.
What I quoted says nothing more. And what I replied to was "if you can't do the time", implying "the time" was appropriate to the crime.
> to suggest he was just a naughty schoolboy
What in what I quoted suggests that? Can you quote the bits you consider "a load of nonsense"?
The article attempts to defend Swartz by essentially claiming that what he did was unimpressive... So what? Same goes for SQL injection. In fact, most crimes are quite unimpressive.
It's indisputable that both JSTOR and MIT actively tried to block Swartz, and that he actively circumvented those blocks.
The article also makes the completely bullshit claim that Swartz could've realistically received a 35 year sentence.
Worse has been done for pranks with little to no consequence.
Recent suicide of 9 year old because bullying had sparked debate in our office. And most agreed her bullies and parents of bullies should be charged criminally.
He was hounded to death by a prosecutor. The fact that the prosecutor lied to him is hardly a defense.
He had good legal representation and it couldn't have been as easy to mislead him as people here keep suggesting.
What sort of a person kills themselves over 4 months in prison?
And you keep saying he couldn't have hanged himself over these charges. Given that he was threatened with prison time, and shortly after hanged himself, what's your counter-theory? He was murdered by the CIA? He was totally fine with the changes, but he just got real sad all of a sudden? There is no reasonable circumstance where this wasn't the major factor in his suicide.
You’re the one giving incorrect numbers, he couldn’t possibly have been sentenced to 50 years.
According to his attorneys, the prosecutors believed that the most they could achieve at trial would have been 7 years. A very different number from 50 years.
I suggest you look into the case a little before making statements like this. Techdirt may not be the best source either.
> According to his attorneys, the prosecutors believed that the most they could achieve at trial would have been 7 years. A very different number from 50 years.
And a lot more than 6 months.
You still haven't answered my question. If he didn't kill himself because he feared prison, then what happened?
I should have used more accurate language. I think my intended statement is clear now.