I didn't realize simplicity had anything to do with the severity of a crime. How hard is it to kill someone? How hard is it to download something on Pirate bay? How hard is it to stash a laptop in an unused MIT closet and write code to download 4M articles? Why does it matter how hard one of these things is?

Ok, I give up. Please read this article before commenting any more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/aaron-swartz-felony...

Aaron fucked up and got caught. It sucks that we lost such an extraordinary individual but claiming he did nothing wrong is naive.

He used the Internet as it was meant to be used. MIT had no security, JSTOR had no security. Issuing a GET request to a web server is not, and should not be a crime.

http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartz...

> Issuing a GET request to a web server is not, and should not be a crime.

A DDoS is also "the Internet as it was intended" by your logic.

Did MIT and JSTOR really have no posted TOS? That is not my recollection of MIT wifi.

Does violating a few TOS's warrant 35+ years in prison?

That's a separate matter entirely. The point being discussed is whether Aaron did in fact violate the law. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone here who believed Aaron deserved the sentence or the prosecution brought upon him, but personally I find it incredible how quick people are to absolve him entirely.

First, he wasn't using wifi. Second, JSTOR does not have a click-through ToS on university campuses, so he never had to agree to anything.

Then why is it the backbone of your appeal?

Every persecution of a hacker invariably emphasizes how they created some scary powerful tool in furtherance of their goal. It's the modern day witch hunt. Your average slob thinks "I can't even write a program to download one file, he must have dangerous knowledge and powers". If they knew it was one step beyond rightClick->saveAs, and felt like anybody could do the same with little effort, they would wonder why the plaintiff had failed to secure something so simple if it really were as important as claimed.

What he used doesn't matter as much as the fact that he did it.

If you kill someone with a knife, it does not matter how difficult it was to obtain or create that knife.

But this was not even a copyright case. They accused him of hacking. He had access to wifi network with free access to JSTOR. He scraped JSTOR. They banned his IP. He connected directly to the network (didn't break into anything, didn't hack into anything) and began scraping again. If this was against the law, how could it be anything more than a misdemeanor?

How many other illegal things can I do in this country now? If violating a TOS is hacking, so is sniffing and port scanning and every other imaginable "unusual" activity. This is worse than locking away a phreaker for 50 years -- at least a phreaker may have bypassed technical restrictions. What he "intended" to do with the files is irrelevant. If I put in my website's TOS "You cannot scrape our website!" and Google did, should Google be indicted for wire fraud and a host of other made up charges?

If Hacker News has gotten to the point where they're willing to call a prosecution of 50 years for a "crime" like this the way of the world I really can't imagine you have any heart for this industry anymore. Aaron was one of you.

He didn't kill someone with a knife, he put butter on his toast with a knife. There was literally no crime committed, certainly no crime worthy of federal prosecutors and decades of potential incarceration.

He downloaded a bunch of files using a publicly accessible computer network, from a web site that was available without authentication from that network. He didn't crack any passwords or encryption schemes, he didn't access any material he was supposed to pay for without paying, he simply didn't do anything to warrant the type of prosecution that was launched against him.

The article below explains a lot. What Aaron Swartz did was rude, not illegal.

http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartz...

Tell it to the jury. Sounds like a slam dunk acquittal.

That's the wrong way to look at it. The process had wiped him out financially and almost certainly damaged his mental state. It doesn't matter if you're acquitted if you are punished before the trial even begins.

ewillbefull - he wasn't just charged with hacking, do some research: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/aaron-swartz-felony...

Again, it doesn't matter if it's extremely easy to run someone over with a car or whether it's easy for a computer programmer to bypass download limits and sneak a laptop into a closet at MIT with a spoofed MAC. Simplicity has nothing to do with it.

What is wrong with you? You keep posting this article wanting it to say what you think it says, but it doesn't. Maybe you should read it. Better yet, read the actual indictments which are linked on that page.

* Computer Fraud (7 counts, for each time he 'deceived' JSTOR) "the defendent, knowingly and with intent to defraud, accessed a protected computer -- namely, a computer on MIT's network and a computer on JSTOR's network -- without authorization and in excess of authorized access"

* Unlawfully Obtaining Information from a Protected Computer (12 counts??? These weren't even protected computers!)

* Recklessly Damaging a Protected Computer (because he downloading the files fast enough to impact other users)

* Wire Fraud (because he was logged in as a guest on MIT's network and downloading JSTOR articles)

They throw in details like him using a mailinator email as if it's illegal to do that. It's ridiculous. You're ridiculous for trying to justify it.

And yes, all of these charges are basically 'hacking' charges. He was not charged with copyright infringement or anything of that nature.

Nothing is wrong with me, I'm just shocked at the amount of hero worship going around and complete ignorance of the facts of the case. He didn't just break the TOS and he wasn't charged with "hacking" as you keep referring to it. He was charged with several crimes.

Forget the last article, read this one instead: http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/. Now read the ridiculous comments throughout this post that I've been arguing against.