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http://blog.demandprogress.org/2011/07/federal-government-indicts-former-demand-progress-executive-director-for-downloading-too-many-journal-articles/ http://bl

by mukyu 15y ago

http://blog.demandprogress.org/2011/07/federal-government-indicts-former-demand-progress-executive-director-for-downloading-too-many-journal-articles/ http://blog.demandprogress.org/2011/07/federal-government-in... “It’s even more strange because the alleged victim has settled any claims against Aaron, explained they’ve suffered no loss or damage, and asked the government not to prosecute,” Segal added. Nowhere do they say he did not do it however. cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.demandprogress.org/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

_delirium 15y ago
JSTOR is being very vague about their role in this, so that might unfortunately be wrong about just how settled JSTOR considers things on their side. Their statement feels extremely carefully worded: http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-misuse-incident-and-criminal-case http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-misu...
- Vivtek 15y ago
  JSTOR knows they'd better be very vague if they don't want too many rather intelligent people wondering just how they actually add value to the chain.
- gojomo 15y ago
  MIT (and the alleged disruption to other MIT JSTOR users' access) may also be relevant to the decision to charge. My understanding is that MIT has a freewheeling attitude to information, but also deep organizational and funding links to national security institutions. So their hacker ethos might tell them to brush it off, while their federal relationships require them to take a tougher stance.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    In terms of broader implications, I would actually have many fewer problems with MIT pressing straightforward trespassing charges. If he broke into a server room and messed with equipment there without the owner's permission, they could prosecute that under very ordinary state criminal law long predating the computer age. It's the weird "stealing documents from JSTOR" federal case under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that's more worrying, because it's extremely vague what those kinds of charges can cover (in some interpretations, essentially any violation of a ToS).

by mukyu 15y ago

_delirium 15y ago

JSTOR is being very vague about their role in this, so that might unfortunately be wrong about just how settled JSTOR considers things on their side. Their statement feels extremely carefully worded: http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-misuse-incident-and-criminal-case http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-misu...

Vivtek 15y ago
JSTOR knows they'd better be very vague if they don't want too many rather intelligent people wondering just how they actually add value to the chain.
gojomo 15y ago
MIT (and the alleged disruption to other MIT JSTOR users' access) may also be relevant to the decision to charge. My understanding is that MIT has a freewheeling attitude to information, but also deep organizational and funding links to national security institutions. So their hacker ethos might tell them to brush it off, while their federal relationships require them to take a tougher stance.
- _delirium 15y ago
  In terms of broader implications, I would actually have many fewer problems with MIT pressing straightforward trespassing charges. If he broke into a server room and messed with equipment there without the owner's permission, they could prosecute that under very ordinary state criminal law long predating the computer age. It's the weird "stealing documents from JSTOR" federal case under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that's more worrying, because it's extremely vague what those kinds of charges can cover (in some interpretations, essentially any violation of a ToS).