More to the point, why did he keep taking specific action to evade the feeble roadblocks the admins managed to put up in front of him before he finally just hooked his laptop to a switch? Why did he ignore the Terms of Use statements when he started off on the Wifi MIT network?

Guys, aaronsw was wicked smart, he was undoubtedly at least vaguely aware of there being a Federal law covering "computer crime". It's far easier to believe that he felt he was doing the right thing despite the law than to believe he was completely unaware.