Apparently, the MIT and/or JSTOR staff took down the service themselves when they detected the mass downloads. It was not Aaron's "attack" that brought down the access.

That is not correct. He launched what amounted to a DoS against JSTOR:

" the strain it put on JSTOR’s servers was enough to have impaired other research institutions attempting to access the materials."

"Together, Grace and Gary Host downloaded JSTOR articles at such an astounding pace that several of JSTOR’s servers crashed."

http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N30/swartz.html

Every journal database I have done bulk downloads from (sometimes constantly) over a week requires a cookie and sends you a polite message (via http no less) asking you to put in a few seconds pause between each request.

It would not have occurred to me that they haven't configured their servers to handle the load. Once again - Aaron did nothing that I, and tens of thousands of people like me, haven't done many times.

You've downloaded millions of articles from JSTOR? Or how MIT put it: "more than 100 times the number of legitimate JSTOR downloads at MIT during that time period"

So what? Aaron violated MIT's policies and JSTOR's policies and the result was that a large community of scholars lost access. Those scholars would have had access if Aaron hadn't done what he did.

The only harm was manufactured by the "victims". Were it not for the "victims" manufacturing this harm, they would not be called victims at all. They essentially bootstrapped their own victim-hood. If you don't see why that is relevant in an ethical consideration of his actions, then I cannot help you.

This is taking victim blaming to new heights. Is it now the victim's fault they don't acquiesce to a lawbreakers' demands? Doesn't MIT have the right to decide who is allowed to use their network and in what manner?

Can I break into your home and use your internet connection as I see fit without your complaint?

Is it similarly victim blaming when people call shit on the RIAA for claiming thousands of dollars of damages per mp3? Give me a break, and knock it off with the emotionally charged language. MIT isn't the victim of domestic abuse or sexual assault.

> Can I break into your home and use your internet connection as I see fit without your complaint?

They dropped the trespassing charges, the only charges that had merit.

But if I broke into your house and used your internet connection, the only harm would come from you, the "victim", objecting to my behavior. You'd be bootstrapping your own victimhood, right?

If I were choosing to object to you on the grounds that you trespassed, then no.

If I were to drop the trespassing charges and choose to object on the grounds that I had to throw out my router because you used it, then I would indeed be manufacturing victomhood.

I'll repeat myself. They dropped the trespassing charges.

> "You realize that about 40% of the money that comes into MIT comes from the federal government right?"

Based on this non sequitur, can we infer that you have tacitly accepted jlgreco's point?

He didn't break into anywhere. MIT had an open network. Can I use my neighbor's open wireless network without it being a crime? All signs point to yes.

We do all realize that there's a difference between breaking locks and trespassing, right?

Oh yeah, they would have had a case for trespassing.

BUT THEY DROPPED THOSE CHARGES.

If violation of TOS'en was a crime (thankfully, courts so far have ruled it's not), we'd all pretty much be screwed.

the fact that someone did something dumb does not make it illegal.

If i buy so many lottery tickets that the state thinks it's fraudulent, and shuts down the lottery for a day, that doesn't make me guilty of anything.

(As I said, TOS violations are simply not crimes. No court has ever held otherwise)

Man! What a crime you describe! Do you think any of these scholars--very few of whom probably use JStor on a regular basis (even at a very good liberal arts school, Columbia, did I rarely use it)--would advocate a >$1.5*10^6 or jail time for their lost productivity (which, again, was likely negligible)?

He didn't cause anyone to lose access.

That's besides the point. I'm asking if in which way is the crime, as described in the official charges, different than the Starbucks scenario. The denial-of-service to MIT may have helped spur the case, but wire fraud doesn't seem to depend on whether a DoS happened (or at least from what I can tell)