Weev made the info easier to get, and I'm not saying he should have done it, but the info was already available publicly on the internet. This should have been a civil case where AT&T could get damages or something. Instead they outlawed "using a script to download data that someone accidentally posted to the web", which is insane.
Re:Kathy Sierra: Your app makes me fat
by lawnchair_larry on Tuesday July 30, 2013 @03:20PM
(#6129348)
Nope, he didn't release it. He showed it to a journalist to substantiate his claim, and then deleted it.
If the information was already public-facing, was it not already 'released'?
Not in the general usage of that word, no.
I'm not clear on what you mean. General usage of the word "release" necessitates prior confinement. Dumping a bunch of data on an open web server is not confining said data, it is making it public. Even if the data was previously confined -- by, say, company policy or copyright or whatever -- as soon as it is uploaded to the public-facing web server without protections it is released from confinement.
Weev is not one of the good guys. He acted deliberately, and that makes all the difference.