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He didn't just do some silly illegal thing; he illegally hacked a network from a closet he should not have been in and hit it with so much traffic that he cause

He didn't just do some silly illegal thing; he illegally hacked a network from a closet he should not have been in and hit it with so much traffic that he caused legitimate users of the network to suffer loss of access for multiple days and he did this multiple times after being kicked out. Legitimate users were harmed, regardless of what what anyone feels, Aaron committed a felony and was rightfully arrested. Beyond that, you seem to be overlooking the fact that it wasn't MIT that was after Aaron, but JSTOR, who constantly pushed MIT to help them locate the hacker who was taking their data from the MIT network. MIT didn't have the option to just handle the matter internally, a third party was involved who was being hacked through the MIT network. You know what happens when you're a hacktivist; you go to jail. Aaron knew he was guilty, he knew he was breaking the law when he did it, it was willful civil disobedience by his own admission. His suicide was likely the result of his knowing jail was coming even if the prosecutor hadn't been overzealous because he committed a felony and knew it and he couldn't deal with facing the consequences of his actions. He wanted to change the system, he went about it the wrong way and figured that out too late.

igravious 11y ago
You can't say that it was wilful civil disobedience and then say that he went about it the wrong way, you contradict yourself as that's kind of the definition of civil disobedience. If you're saying that he ought not to been civilly disobedient then that's a different matter but what he did makes him a sort of modern-day hero. That he took his own life makes him a martyr in a weird kind of way. I know that hero and martyr are emotive words but I think I nearly feel that way about all this. And it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. Repeat after me: you can't steal bits and bytes, only copy them, and copying is infringement, not theft.
- gnaritas 11y ago
  > You can't say that it was wilful civil disobedience and then say that he went about it the wrong way, you contradict yourself as that's kind of the definition of civil disobedience. I didn't mean "morally" wrong, I mean wrong approach. That's not contradictory at all; civil disobedience is not always the correct way to go about change. Sometimes it is, like when its done en-masse; going it alone, wrong approach. > And it's not theft Fine, infringing their data, irrelevant to the conversation; a crime no matter what label you want to apply. The right approach is to lobby to get the law changed, not break it by yourself and hope you don't get hammered.
  - ddingus 11y ago
    You are very seriously misinformed. For there to be a defensible claim of theft, the property owner must lose their property. Someone experiences something missing. Infringement exists as a concept and an element of law because it is not theft, specifically.
    - gnaritas 11y ago
      Already corrected that, not germane to the point; he wasn't charged with theft.
  - igravious 11y ago
    > Sometimes it is, like when its done en-masse; going it alone, wrong approach. Perhaps, perhaps not. There's certainly safety in numbers. But this issue is not a huge social issue like, say, nationalist causes or other political issues. This is a kind of geeky issue that only a small fraction of the population gets but that everybody should care about. Also the law-breaking is doing no-one any physical harm. Nobody is going to go hungry because they are deprived of food. Some argue that mp3 downloads have not affected the music industry's revenues and profits, or at least not by the vast amounts they claim. Similarly I imagine the out of pocket hit to JSTOR to be pretty small, but couple that with the fact that a lot of academic papers were funded by public money then people start seeing things differently. Hence the open-access journal movement and Arxiv and so on. And what about the benefits to society brought about by giving wider access to knowledge? One could start to take a pretty dim view of the ridiculous prices the JSTORs and Elseviers charge. > it's irrelevant to the conversation. It's not totally irrelevant. Stealing/theft sounds worse than infringement. Look, I'm not having a go at you. I just think that Aaron was justified in what he did and I admire him for what he did. There are times for emailing and times for plugging in a network cable, Aaron chose the cable and I don't think that was the wrong approach even though it ended tragically.
    - gnaritas 11y ago
      Hey, I agree with Aaron's position that the data should be freely accessible, so no need to sell me on that or the fact it was non-violent, that's not in contention. > Stealing/theft sounds worse than infringement. It's not relevant because this conversation isn't about how it sounds, it's about who's to blame for his death. None of which has anything to do with what the particular charges were. > I just think that Aaron was justified in what he did and I admire him for what he did. There are times for emailing and times for plugging in a network cable, Aaron chose the cable and I don't think that was the wrong approach even though it ended tragically. And that's your right, personally I admire the principles, but his approach was naive and imho not worth admiration; his suicide tragic and also not worth admiration. It was the wrong approach because a bad outcome for Aaron was predictable from the onset that led to a needless suicide of a very talented individual. You can't flagrantly commit federal crimes and think jail isn't an option, regardless of the merits of those laws.
- cinquemb 11y ago
  I wonder what effective [as far as achieving an ends] civil disobedience looks like in the era when such is relegated to free speech zones? Will it look like asymmetric, guerrilla like tactics that subvert/coop mechanisms of power that make it hard to leverage garden variety lawyers?
  - igravious 11y ago
    Those are very difficult questions to answer. I imagine that any form of non-violent civil disobedience is fair game. I imagine that collective action is always more troubling for the system because the systemic response is more challenging to orchestrate. Some things change by themselves. We can see that marijuana is slowly transitioning from being a criminalised substance a decriminalised one. I don't partake myself but society is heading that way, that's plain to see. Same with civil rights of all kind. Yes, it might take centuries but the arrow of equality is clearly pointing in just one way. But it does take civil disobedience and protest. In this specific case (academic articles) I personally believe that we ought to cover the cost of storage and distribution and that's it. Because this is not a civil rights issue, more a, I don't know, societal expectation(?), a right to knowledge so that society can be improved quicker rather slower. These rent-seekers are like grit in well oiled machinery gunking up the works. I more or less think the worst form of money-making is rent-seeking. I don't know, get creative!
- ryanlol 11y ago
  No. Swartz killing himself absolutely does not make him a martyr. Martyr is someone who is killed for their beliefs. We don't know why Aaron killed himself, but I sure hope that he had a better reason than possibly spending a few months in prison.

igravious 11y ago

You can't say that it was wilful civil disobedience and then say that he went about it the wrong way, you contradict yourself as that's kind of the definition of civil disobedience. If you're saying that he ought not to been civilly disobedient then that's a different matter but what he did makes him a sort of modern-day hero. That he took his own life makes him a martyr in a weird kind of way. I know that hero and martyr are emotive words but I think I nearly feel that way about all this. And it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. Repeat after me: you can't steal bits and bytes, only copy them, and copying is infringement, not theft.

gnaritas 11y ago
> You can't say that it was wilful civil disobedience and then say that he went about it the wrong way, you contradict yourself as that's kind of the definition of civil disobedience. I didn't mean "morally" wrong, I mean wrong approach. That's not contradictory at all; civil disobedience is not always the correct way to go about change. Sometimes it is, like when its done en-masse; going it alone, wrong approach. > And it's not theft Fine, infringing their data, irrelevant to the conversation; a crime no matter what label you want to apply. The right approach is to lobby to get the law changed, not break it by yourself and hope you don't get hammered.
- ddingus 11y ago
  You are very seriously misinformed. For there to be a defensible claim of theft, the property owner must lose their property. Someone experiences something missing. Infringement exists as a concept and an element of law because it is not theft, specifically.
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    Already corrected that, not germane to the point; he wasn't charged with theft.
- igravious 11y ago
  > Sometimes it is, like when its done en-masse; going it alone, wrong approach. Perhaps, perhaps not. There's certainly safety in numbers. But this issue is not a huge social issue like, say, nationalist causes or other political issues. This is a kind of geeky issue that only a small fraction of the population gets but that everybody should care about. Also the law-breaking is doing no-one any physical harm. Nobody is going to go hungry because they are deprived of food. Some argue that mp3 downloads have not affected the music industry's revenues and profits, or at least not by the vast amounts they claim. Similarly I imagine the out of pocket hit to JSTOR to be pretty small, but couple that with the fact that a lot of academic papers were funded by public money then people start seeing things differently. Hence the open-access journal movement and Arxiv and so on. And what about the benefits to society brought about by giving wider access to knowledge? One could start to take a pretty dim view of the ridiculous prices the JSTORs and Elseviers charge. > it's irrelevant to the conversation. It's not totally irrelevant. Stealing/theft sounds worse than infringement. Look, I'm not having a go at you. I just think that Aaron was justified in what he did and I admire him for what he did. There are times for emailing and times for plugging in a network cable, Aaron chose the cable and I don't think that was the wrong approach even though it ended tragically.
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    Hey, I agree with Aaron's position that the data should be freely accessible, so no need to sell me on that or the fact it was non-violent, that's not in contention. > Stealing/theft sounds worse than infringement. It's not relevant because this conversation isn't about how it sounds, it's about who's to blame for his death. None of which has anything to do with what the particular charges were. > I just think that Aaron was justified in what he did and I admire him for what he did. There are times for emailing and times for plugging in a network cable, Aaron chose the cable and I don't think that was the wrong approach even though it ended tragically. And that's your right, personally I admire the principles, but his approach was naive and imho not worth admiration; his suicide tragic and also not worth admiration. It was the wrong approach because a bad outcome for Aaron was predictable from the onset that led to a needless suicide of a very talented individual. You can't flagrantly commit federal crimes and think jail isn't an option, regardless of the merits of those laws.
cinquemb 11y ago
I wonder what effective [as far as achieving an ends] civil disobedience looks like in the era when such is relegated to free speech zones? Will it look like asymmetric, guerrilla like tactics that subvert/coop mechanisms of power that make it hard to leverage garden variety lawyers?
- igravious 11y ago
  Those are very difficult questions to answer. I imagine that any form of non-violent civil disobedience is fair game. I imagine that collective action is always more troubling for the system because the systemic response is more challenging to orchestrate. Some things change by themselves. We can see that marijuana is slowly transitioning from being a criminalised substance a decriminalised one. I don't partake myself but society is heading that way, that's plain to see. Same with civil rights of all kind. Yes, it might take centuries but the arrow of equality is clearly pointing in just one way. But it does take civil disobedience and protest. In this specific case (academic articles) I personally believe that we ought to cover the cost of storage and distribution and that's it. Because this is not a civil rights issue, more a, I don't know, societal expectation(?), a right to knowledge so that society can be improved quicker rather slower. These rent-seekers are like grit in well oiled machinery gunking up the works. I more or less think the worst form of money-making is rent-seeking. I don't know, get creative!
ryanlol 11y ago
No. Swartz killing himself absolutely does not make him a martyr. Martyr is someone who is killed for their beliefs. We don't know why Aaron killed himself, but I sure hope that he had a better reason than possibly spending a few months in prison.