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> Did the defendant knowingly access a system used by the federal government, a financial institution, or a system used in interstate commerce without authoriza

by lowboy 14y ago

> Did the defendant knowingly access a system used by the federal government, a financial institution, or a system used in interstate commerce without authorization? The answer to that one is "no". He had authorization to both pages. Unless we're going to interpret that authorization was given to each device and not the person.

tptacek 14y ago
You're suggesting that the defendant in this case either didn't know the difference between a phone and a computer, or had a reasonable belief that despite the obvious language on those pages, the provider did not care whether he was using a phone or a computer. Good luck with that argument.
- lowboy 14y ago
  I'm not saying there's not a case for fraud, but the answer is resoundingly NO to this question: (i) Did the defendant knowingly access a system used by the federal government, a financial institution, or a system used in interstate commerce without authorization? It's a public facing website. He has authorization to access it. I don't see any other viable interpretation.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I disagree that's a "resounding no".
    - lowboy 14y ago
      What is your reasoning there? Remember, we're not talking about the overall fraud case, just the answer to this question.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        I believe that any reasonable person viewing those offerings would understand that the cheaper price was for phone Internet, and the more expensive price was for computer Internet. I also believe that the author of this post made it completely clear that they were getting one over on the ISP, which does not at all help their case. That's about as far as I'd like to go with this particular branch of the discussion, if that's OK with you.
        lowboy 14y ago
        That's fine with me. You've shifted the argument back to the overall case and refused to address my specific concern about the answer to question (i), so I'm just going to declare myself the winner of this branch, if that's OK with you.
  - majormajor 14y ago
    My reading: he purchased authorization to use the system from a phone. He instead used the system from a computer, without authorization for doing that. Whether or not Gogo should price discriminate like that, it seems clear that they want more money in exchange for authorizing use from a laptop.
    - lowboy 14y ago
      Again, this branch was to the specific question referenced by tptacek: (i) Did the defendant knowingly access a system used by the federal government, a financial institution, or a system used in interstate commerce without authorization? My beef is with GoGo's price difference in the first place.
      - majormajor 14y ago
        I'm not seeing why you think the answer is "no," then. (a) Knowingly? The blog post (and the changing and then changing-back of the UA) makes this clear. (Though if he had happened to inadvertently had his UA set to mobile before hand, maybe to test something the day before, and never even saw the other screen... but once he saw it, and consciously decided to get around the higher price, it hits the "knowingly" requirement.) (b) "Access a system used by the federal government, a financial institution, or a system used in interstate commerce"? The Gogo system seems pretty clearly an interstate commerce system to me, what with the whole used-across-the-country thing and the charging-for-access part. (c) Without authorization? He specifically notes that he saw they charged different prices for different devices and purchased the option for a device that was not the type he was using. So he did not purchase authorization to use it from a laptop.
        lowboy 14y ago
        No contest to (a) and (b) - I agree there. As to (c) I was reading "system" as the two signup pages, not the overall wifi system. Still, unless there's a difference between the mobile and laptop services, they're the same product regardless of type of device used to access the system, and you're paying for the service. It would be like an all you can eat restaurant charging extra if you were over certain weight/height thresholds.
  - jahewson 14y ago
    You're confusing Gogo's website with Gogo's WiFi network. It's not too hard to argue that he had authorization to access Gogo's WiFi network from a phone, but not from a laptop.
- sophacles 14y ago
  Playing devil's advocate: it seems to me that a laptop is a mobile device. Further playing devil's advocate: it seems that the system is not so much that the provider cared about whether it was a phone or computer (I bet a galaxy tablet would get the mobile price... and I can use just as much data on that as on a laptop without trying very hard at all), but whether they were using a browser with a mobile user-agent string. They offered a discount for having the right user-agent string, and being willing to browse the mobile version of Gogo's landing page. Questions this raises: what if my phone browser was not on their list of mobile browser agent strings? Say it was just a custom webkit thing I built? Or a firefox compiled for a tablet? Would I be defrauding by making my user-agent work for my mobile device? What if I had been working with a mobile browser compiled for my laptop, as I was just browsing with it, but not using my phone, so I could get a feel for various quirks it would introduce over a non-mobile browser, in an easy to side-by-side way on my nice big laptop monitor?
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Critically: the prosecution of a fraud case must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused acted with the intent to deceive another party in order to gain something of value.
    - sophacles 14y ago
      Still playing devil's advocate: If there was a discount based on user-agent string, and that is settable in most browsers, how is taking advantage of a feature "intent to deceive" over "meeting the conditions of the discount". There is really nothing stating that the mobile agent string must actually come from a mobile device. By analogy, a few years ago, many mobile banking sites worked just fine with firefox, but those users were denied access because it was an "IE only" site. Does changing the user agent to IE to gain access to the bank site then also constitute fraud? Web/interne banking is something of value. edit: Accidentally said mobile instead of web.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        Does the offer clearly say there's one price for using the Internet from your phone, and another price for using the Internet from your computer? Then what are we arguing about? The way they enforce that restriction is relevant only to the extent that someone could accidentally violate it. You can't accidentally commit fraud.

by lowboy 14y ago

tptacek 14y ago

You're suggesting that the defendant in this case either didn't know the difference between a phone and a computer, or had a reasonable belief that despite the obvious language on those pages, the provider did not care whether he was using a phone or a computer. Good luck with that argument.

lowboy 14y ago
I'm not saying there's not a case for fraud, but the answer is resoundingly NO to this question: (i) Did the defendant knowingly access a system used by the federal government, a financial institution, or a system used in interstate commerce without authorization? It's a public facing website. He has authorization to access it. I don't see any other viable interpretation.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I disagree that's a "resounding no".
  - lowboy 14y ago
    What is your reasoning there? Remember, we're not talking about the overall fraud case, just the answer to this question.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      I believe that any reasonable person viewing those offerings would understand that the cheaper price was for phone Internet, and the more expensive price was for computer Internet. I also believe that the author of this post made it completely clear that they were getting one over on the ISP, which does not at all help their case. That's about as far as I'd like to go with this particular branch of the discussion, if that's OK with you.
      - lowboy 14y ago
        That's fine with me. You've shifted the argument back to the overall case and refused to address my specific concern about the answer to question (i), so I'm just going to declare myself the winner of this branch, if that's OK with you.
- majormajor 14y ago
  My reading: he purchased authorization to use the system from a phone. He instead used the system from a computer, without authorization for doing that. Whether or not Gogo should price discriminate like that, it seems clear that they want more money in exchange for authorizing use from a laptop.
  - lowboy 14y ago
    Again, this branch was to the specific question referenced by tptacek: (i) Did the defendant knowingly access a system used by the federal government, a financial institution, or a system used in interstate commerce without authorization? My beef is with GoGo's price difference in the first place.
    - majormajor 14y ago
      I'm not seeing why you think the answer is "no," then. (a) Knowingly? The blog post (and the changing and then changing-back of the UA) makes this clear. (Though if he had happened to inadvertently had his UA set to mobile before hand, maybe to test something the day before, and never even saw the other screen... but once he saw it, and consciously decided to get around the higher price, it hits the "knowingly" requirement.) (b) "Access a system used by the federal government, a financial institution, or a system used in interstate commerce"? The Gogo system seems pretty clearly an interstate commerce system to me, what with the whole used-across-the-country thing and the charging-for-access part. (c) Without authorization? He specifically notes that he saw they charged different prices for different devices and purchased the option for a device that was not the type he was using. So he did not purchase authorization to use it from a laptop.
      - lowboy 14y ago
        No contest to (a) and (b) - I agree there. As to (c) I was reading "system" as the two signup pages, not the overall wifi system. Still, unless there's a difference between the mobile and laptop services, they're the same product regardless of type of device used to access the system, and you're paying for the service. It would be like an all you can eat restaurant charging extra if you were over certain weight/height thresholds.
- jahewson 14y ago
  You're confusing Gogo's website with Gogo's WiFi network. It's not too hard to argue that he had authorization to access Gogo's WiFi network from a phone, but not from a laptop.
sophacles 14y ago
Playing devil's advocate: it seems to me that a laptop is a mobile device. Further playing devil's advocate: it seems that the system is not so much that the provider cared about whether it was a phone or computer (I bet a galaxy tablet would get the mobile price... and I can use just as much data on that as on a laptop without trying very hard at all), but whether they were using a browser with a mobile user-agent string. They offered a discount for having the right user-agent string, and being willing to browse the mobile version of Gogo's landing page. Questions this raises: what if my phone browser was not on their list of mobile browser agent strings? Say it was just a custom webkit thing I built? Or a firefox compiled for a tablet? Would I be defrauding by making my user-agent work for my mobile device? What if I had been working with a mobile browser compiled for my laptop, as I was just browsing with it, but not using my phone, so I could get a feel for various quirks it would introduce over a non-mobile browser, in an easy to side-by-side way on my nice big laptop monitor?
- tptacek 14y ago
  Critically: the prosecution of a fraud case must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused acted with the intent to deceive another party in order to gain something of value.
  - sophacles 14y ago
    Still playing devil's advocate: If there was a discount based on user-agent string, and that is settable in most browsers, how is taking advantage of a feature "intent to deceive" over "meeting the conditions of the discount". There is really nothing stating that the mobile agent string must actually come from a mobile device. By analogy, a few years ago, many mobile banking sites worked just fine with firefox, but those users were denied access because it was an "IE only" site. Does changing the user agent to IE to gain access to the bank site then also constitute fraud? Web/interne banking is something of value. edit: Accidentally said mobile instead of web.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Does the offer clearly say there's one price for using the Internet from your phone, and another price for using the Internet from your computer? Then what are we arguing about? The way they enforce that restriction is relevant only to the extent that someone could accidentally violate it. You can't accidentally commit fraud.