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He was rich from reddit and would have had to lose all his money fighting the case...and he still might have ended up in a cage for years...Seems like pretty ba
by yadabadabada 10y ago
He was rich from reddit and would have had to lose all his money fighting the case...and he still might have ended up in a cage for years...Seems like pretty bad treatment over scraping academic PDFs.
The response was entirely unwarranted. Violating a website's terms of service should not cost anyone their life savings or years in federal prison. A slap on the wrist? Sure...but they treated him like a "cyber terrorist" and tried to make an example of the softest possible kind of "criminal".
If the PDF website doesn't have anti-crawling technology then that's their fault. He didn't do anything more than stick a laptop on MIT's network and crawl the content. Any student might have done the same...should they have their life ruined?
- CameronBanga 10y agoI mean, what Aaron had noble goals. But he did break into networks and physical locations he had no right to be in. He knowingly broke laws, to do what he did. And I'm not sure what "being rich" and losing his money matters. He knew the potential consequence of his actions. He got caught, and was likely facing in reality, a year in prison for his actions if he didn't take a plea. But he committed crimes knowingly for the purpose of what he saw as a noble act. That's admirable. But the narrative that he was a martyr maybe goes a bit far.
- ffggvv 10y agoAnd those responsible for the 2008 crisis why aren't arrested?