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EFF to Supreme Court: Violating Terms of Service Isn’t a Crime Under the CFAA
- mvanveen 6y agoYes! Let's make sure in the memory of Aaron Schwartz and the many others who have faced undue scrutiny under CFAA that we see drastic reform of this draconian law and how it is applied.
- Google234 6y agoI don’t think Aaron Schwartz is the best example... he DDOSed a site. And I don’t accept that his final reaction to the charges was proportional to what he was facing.
- simonh 6y agoIt wasn't distributed, wasn't an attempt to disrupt the service, and the affected service didn't see it as a sanctionable issue. Describing it in those terms is implicit support of the outrageous charges against him and implicit approval of the way they were prosecuted.
- waheoo 6y agoYou're taking an incredibly insensitive and naive stance on that. Sure you dont want to reconsider that just maybe proportionality is one of the first things lost during depressionary states of mind? You also lack the personal understanding of his personal circumstance. I know nothing but any idiot can see whatever the case, this was the thing that broke the camels back. Please stop assuming everyones state of mind and the way it works is the same as yours.
- vmception 6y agoFocus on the mental state and how it doesn't include self-preservation, not the thing that broke the camel's back. Prisons are full of people that faced great injustices and didn't kill themselves.
- vertex-four 6y agoThe thing that broke the camel's back was something that should never have happened in the first place. You don't get away without having committed a crime if you "prank" someone by feeding them something they're allergic to, either; mental illness is not different from physical illness.
- vmception 6y ago> You don't get away without having committed a crime if you "prank" someone by feeding them something they're allergic to, either except in this analogy, Swartz was the one accused of committing a crime and wasn't getting away it, and the state actors are immune from criminal charges. not the best analogy?
- vertex-four 6y agoThe alleged crime should not have been a crime; hence the post we're commenting on. State actors are, indeed, immune from criminal charges by definition, but that does not mean they are not culpable in the broader ethical sense. And even then, I'd argue strongly that given the amount of mental illness in our society, the state has a duty to ensure that their process of deciding whether to commit harm to someone does not commit undue harm in itself.
- vmception 6y agoWhich has nothing to do with elevating him into martyrdom. Most people just do the time. He committed suicide because his mental state was not compatible with self preservation. Not He committed suicide because of an overzealous district attorney operating under misguided laws. Yes, have the EFF try to dismantle the CFAA, yes, have the ACLU try to correct injustices. And then get judges to drop cases, or reopen cases, or get people's sentences commuted, etc. My actual opinion? I honestly find it insulting to elevate his action, compared to all the people that take the plea deals, or go to trial and lose. Since everyone can so readily explain why he is dead, why is Ross Ulbricht not dead? That obvious answer [to me] is because he didn't kill himself and Swartz did! What about all the people railroaded, the disproportionately black Americans imprisoned and serving long sentences, is there a study to be had on how some segment of America has a surprisingly strong self preservation instinct? If thats something we value, then it really could be an answer to mental health for the people that have surprisingly weak self preservation instincts. Let me know if people want to actually have that discussion yet, because suicide talk is surprisingly not nuanced, seemingly out of fear of seeming insensitive.
- vegardx 6y agoSince you've concluded that suicide wasn't a propotional act, as if suicide is ever a rational act, what would be a propotional reaction?
- wadkar 6y agoThis is the first time in my hn lurking moment that I felt a desire to downvote something. And I don’t even have enough karma for that. So let me be unequivocal when I say this: you are being naive, and downright insensitive to the case in point. I am truly saddened by reading your comment.
- himinlomax 6y agoAre you talking about JSTOR? Of all the possible takes on the issue, calling it a DDOS is really the most retarded one. It wasn't distributed and it wasn't intended as a denial of service. I'm not even aware that it caused any availability issue, but even if that was the case that was not why that got him into trouble.
- vertex-four 6y agoGovernments, when using threat of violence against people, at least have a responsibility to ensure that they are not committing undue harm, and certainly not before a conviction - we can argue all day about exactly how much harm is ok, but given the amount of untreated mental illness in our society they have a responsibility to ensure that what they are doing isn't overly harmful to people suffering from such.
- vmception 6y agoI too notice that most people just do the time instead of kill themselves. It is extremely incongruent to ascribe people's lack of self-preservation priority on the thing they reacted to, and not the mental health distortion itself. I will agree with you publicly to add to the signal that it should be a greater nuanced discussion. People dismiss this observation as "insensitive", when it really is a multifaceted discussion to be had, specifically about mental health, instead of reacting to every single random trigger possible, while ignoring the common denominator.
- TAForObvReasons 6y agoAaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/ http://www.aaronsw.com/ EDIT: why was this downvoted? Is there a different Aaron "Schwartz" or did the parent misspell Swartz?
- d33 6y agoAnd if someone wants an account of the entire case, here's a must-watch documentary, especially if you belong to the hacker culture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ
- vmception 6y agoand most people just do the time
- scotuswroteus 6y agoSorry, how does an amicus brief do anything approaching that whatsoever? Seems more immediately like a useful way to get people to hit the red donate button.
- huffmsa 6y agoGood. It's hard to think of any other cases / examples where breaching a service contract which doesn't also lead to a crime is directly punishable under a statute. I suppose it would be like the manufacturer of a blowtorch saying "this can only be used to blowtorch X,Y and Z" and then calling the Feds on you for using it to toast the tops of your creme brulee. Or you tuning a pressure washer up to a higher than agreed upon pressure and discovering that there's some flaw in a component. You may have lost the warranty, but haven't broken a law. But even those aren't great analogies
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- tdrp 6y agoWe had a bad user who we kept banning for harassing other users. He would come back over and over again, using different pictures, IPs, even throwaway phone numbers or FB accounts etc. We ended up stopping him by involving a lawyer who drafted a letter invoking the CFAA. But it revolved around him violating our terms of service (eg no harassment, banned users are banned forever etc.) Anybody know: Would CFAA still apply here if EFF wins this case? Or are there any other laws which would cover this kind of unauthorized access? Thanks!
- yummypaint 6y agoThey can probably be prosecuted for the Harassment, which is a crime. IANAL but if you offer free automated signups with any email address it seems like invoking the CFAA is a stretch, as you aren't really taking steps to secure the system in the first place. The CFAA would be more appropriate if they are cracking admin accounts and getting into the back-end.
- tdrp 6y agoIt seems like any harassment complaint would have to be raised by the victims directly rather than by us, the service provider. In practice they just leave the site and never come back. So what would the recourse be in this case for a bad actor? How about for one who generates dozens of accounts every day and spams others?
- tuxxy 6y ago> Would CFAA still apply here if EFF wins this case? I hope not! What you described here is a great example of why EFF should win this case. Violating ToS is not and _should not_ be cause for civil or criminal action. If you don't want this user on your service, then remove them. If they continually violate your ToS and it results in damages or losses, then perhaps you have a more reasonable civil case than one invoking CFAA, but IANAL.
- tdrp 6y agoThanks - I feel like there should be something to legally strong-arm banned users into staying away. CFAA is one of the most direct: “I have banned you from my site and you keep coming back so I will take you to court to make you stop”. For those users we don’t really want to get damages from them as much as we just really want to never have to deal with them again. I’d even be fine with a restraining order Against the person using the site kind of thing as the maximal punishment. If it were a physical store and you kicked someone out for bad behavior and then they kept coming back by wearing different wigs or something, it would still be illegal.