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>I don't think anyone is denying that Swartz committed a (possible series of) minor crimes. If you read through the charges, it isn't cut and dry clear that he
by ohyes 15y ago
>I don't think anyone is denying that Swartz committed a (possible series of) minor crimes.
If you read through the charges, it isn't cut and dry clear that he did actually commit any federal crimes.
He didn't do anything special to get into JSTOR. Essentially he was web scraping with a bunch of different user-names and passwords. There is nothing specifically illegal about that.
It isn't clear that it cost JSTOR anything or actually damaged JSTOR. It may have caused a disruption to the service, but it isn't clear the disruption was intentional. He didn't wake up one day and decide to DDOS JSTOR.
Although he has a history of distributing documents, it isn't clear that he intended to distribute these particular documents.
What I'm surprised about is that he did this so badly. There are a number of colleges around Boston and Cambridge all with libraries that have access to JSTOR. He had to have known that JSTOR and MIT wouldn't like this. Couldn't he have scraped the database slowly and from multiple points so that it blended in with the normal traffic?
- Estragon 15y agoHe didn't do anything special to get into JSTOR. Essentially he was web scraping with a bunch of different user-names and passwords. What about trespassing in and tampering with MIT's network closet?
- nkassis 15y agoIs that really a federal crime? the trans passing part? I would think that would be a rather minor thing.
- gavinlynch 15y agoTo the "so what, he just trespassed. You don't get the FBI involved for trespassing." If they just found him randomly wandering the halls where he should not be, obviously the FBI would not be involved. If they see him entering the network cages in order to mirror an asset worth $1.5 million dollars to his personal storage devices... I think they take the trespassing a bit more seriously and in a different context :p
- ohyes 15y agoTrespass still wouldn't be a federal offense, it would be a state issue. He isn't being charged with trespass.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- tptacek 15y agoThere's a really pernicious fallacy among geeks that the difficulty of a hack has bearing on its offensiveness to the law. No. If you know you're not supposed to access something, and you take deliberate steps to access it anyways, you are culpable.
- jonknee 15y agoWho said he was not supposed to access the files? JSTOR is available from MIT. MIT gives out generous guest access. Did Aaron have to agree to not download above a certain number of documents?
- tptacek 15y agoThe DoJ would say --- and a grand jury would agree --- that it became clear to him that he wasn't supposed to access the files when both MIT and JSTOR took steps to stop him from accessing them; his intent to access that data knowing that countermeasures had been erected, and his purposeful evasion of those countermeasures, helps establish mens rea.