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This could be very troubling for scrapers, as they frequently breach the terms of service. If successfully prosecuted it would encourage and empower sites with

This could be very troubling for scrapers, as they frequently breach the terms of service. If successfully prosecuted it would encourage and empower sites with content that get scraped to push for criminal charges and win given this precedence.

throwaway64 14y ago
the idea that violating terms of service constitutes "hacking" is very dangerous in general. Get your pay-pal account suspended? you could now potentially be facing federal felony charges.
- tptacek 14y ago
  How? How would getting your Paypal account suspended put you at risk for federal criminal charges?
  - ksmiley 14y ago
    I didn't read the article, but I imagine the parent poster's logic is like this: if your Paypal account is suspended, you must have done something to violate the terms of service. If you violate the terms of service, you must be a hacker. If you are a hacker, you are at risk for federal criminal charges. Therefore, if your Paypal account is suspended, you are at risk for federal criminal charges.
ef4 14y ago
Keep in mind that his alleged actions go way behind scraping. He allegedly broke into an MIT network closet to install his own hardware, so as to avoid IP-based restrictions on the content. I sympathize with his goals, but I have to wonder what he was thinking. If the goal was liberating the information and I was in his shoes, I would have found a much more paranoid way to go about it. MIT is a very open environment, and I'm sure he could have recruited sympathizers with legitimate access. Which makes me wonder if he really cared about getting caught. Civil disobedience can be an effective tactic, but in this case it's simply too easy to paint him as an "evil hacker".
- bensw 14y ago
  >He allegedly broke into an MIT network closet to install his own hardware, so as to avoid IP-based restrictions on the content. Maybe you should read the original indictment instead of throwing around conclusions not found in evidence.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Huh? All those statements are in the original indictment. "Swartz contrived to ... break into a restricted computer wiring closet at MIT;" "Swartz connected the Acer computer to MIT's computer network" "JSTOR blocked the computer's access to its network by refusing communications from the computer's assigned IP address. ... Swartz obtained for his computer a new IP address on the MIT network ... and began again to download an extraordinary volume of articles from JSTOR." (Sorry for typos, I have a PDF of the indictment that is images)
    - bensw 14y ago
      Was referring to "Install...to avoid IP based restrictions"
      - danielweber 14y ago
        According to the original indictment, he actively worked around IP-based restrictions. See section 18. When that didn't work, MIT put in MAC-level blocking, and he worked to evade that, too. See section 21, among others. He later brought in another computer. See section 22. He later brought the laptops when he connected inside the wiring closet and assigned himself IP addresses. See section 26. I don't see any error on ef4's part, much less one that warrants a "maybe you should read"-level response.
        bensw 14y ago
        I didn't mean to come off as aggressive--was left over pent-up rage from the errors in the article. I likely shouldn't discuss this topic any more
biot 14y ago
Are you suggesting that mere scraping alone would demonstrate sufficient intent to warrant prosecution? Can you elaborate? Various courts have had mixed interpretations on the enforceability of sites' terms of service. How would this impact the body of case law that has been building around automated scrapers such as the many "... vs Google" cases? Also, "precedence" is ranking something in priority; "precedent" is the legal term.
- danielweber 14y ago
  There was a case where a company successfully got an injunction against a scraper that got pricing data, arguing that the scraper violated the federal unauthorized access statute. http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/EF_Cultural_Travel_v._Explorica http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/EF_Cultural_Travel_v._Explorica This is an area of law that is evolving rapidly so there may be other cases that supersede that one.
- tptacek 14y ago
  The indictment goes into great detail as to how Swartz would have known his actions violated JSTOR's terms, and how he repeatedly took surreptitious steps to continue his plan despite the obvious efforts of both MIT and JSTOR to stop him. "Mere scraping alone" is unlikely to land you a federal charge; the prosecution needs to demonstrate your intent to act unlawfully. A far more typical outcome for a scraping case is a C&D from the site you scraped. For obvious reasons, JSTOR can't C&D Swartz once their content hits BitTorrent. Similarly, if you scrape a site and post it to file sharing networks, you might have something to be concerned about.

throwaway64 14y ago

the idea that violating terms of service constitutes "hacking" is very dangerous in general. Get your pay-pal account suspended? you could now potentially be facing federal felony charges.

tptacek 14y ago
How? How would getting your Paypal account suspended put you at risk for federal criminal charges?
- ksmiley 14y ago
  I didn't read the article, but I imagine the parent poster's logic is like this: if your Paypal account is suspended, you must have done something to violate the terms of service. If you violate the terms of service, you must be a hacker. If you are a hacker, you are at risk for federal criminal charges. Therefore, if your Paypal account is suspended, you are at risk for federal criminal charges.

ef4 14y ago

Keep in mind that his alleged actions go way behind scraping. He allegedly broke into an MIT network closet to install his own hardware, so as to avoid IP-based restrictions on the content. I sympathize with his goals, but I have to wonder what he was thinking. If the goal was liberating the information and I was in his shoes, I would have found a much more paranoid way to go about it. MIT is a very open environment, and I'm sure he could have recruited sympathizers with legitimate access. Which makes me wonder if he really cared about getting caught. Civil disobedience can be an effective tactic, but in this case it's simply too easy to paint him as an "evil hacker".

bensw 14y ago
>He allegedly broke into an MIT network closet to install his own hardware, so as to avoid IP-based restrictions on the content. Maybe you should read the original indictment instead of throwing around conclusions not found in evidence.
- danielweber 14y ago
  Huh? All those statements are in the original indictment. "Swartz contrived to ... break into a restricted computer wiring closet at MIT;" "Swartz connected the Acer computer to MIT's computer network" "JSTOR blocked the computer's access to its network by refusing communications from the computer's assigned IP address. ... Swartz obtained for his computer a new IP address on the MIT network ... and began again to download an extraordinary volume of articles from JSTOR." (Sorry for typos, I have a PDF of the indictment that is images)
  - bensw 14y ago
    Was referring to "Install...to avoid IP based restrictions"
    - danielweber 14y ago
      According to the original indictment, he actively worked around IP-based restrictions. See section 18. When that didn't work, MIT put in MAC-level blocking, and he worked to evade that, too. See section 21, among others. He later brought in another computer. See section 22. He later brought the laptops when he connected inside the wiring closet and assigned himself IP addresses. See section 26. I don't see any error on ef4's part, much less one that warrants a "maybe you should read"-level response.
      - bensw 14y ago
        I didn't mean to come off as aggressive--was left over pent-up rage from the errors in the article. I likely shouldn't discuss this topic any more

biot 14y ago

Are you suggesting that mere scraping alone would demonstrate sufficient intent to warrant prosecution? Can you elaborate? Various courts have had mixed interpretations on the enforceability of sites' terms of service. How would this impact the body of case law that has been building around automated scrapers such as the many "... vs Google" cases? Also, "precedence" is ranking something in priority; "precedent" is the legal term.

danielweber 14y ago
There was a case where a company successfully got an injunction against a scraper that got pricing data, arguing that the scraper violated the federal unauthorized access statute. http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/EF_Cultural_Travel_v._Explorica http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/EF_Cultural_Travel_v._Explorica This is an area of law that is evolving rapidly so there may be other cases that supersede that one.
tptacek 14y ago
The indictment goes into great detail as to how Swartz would have known his actions violated JSTOR's terms, and how he repeatedly took surreptitious steps to continue his plan despite the obvious efforts of both MIT and JSTOR to stop him. "Mere scraping alone" is unlikely to land you a federal charge; the prosecution needs to demonstrate your intent to act unlawfully. A far more typical outcome for a scraping case is a C&D from the site you scraped. For obvious reasons, JSTOR can't C&D Swartz once their content hits BitTorrent. Similarly, if you scrape a site and post it to file sharing networks, you might have something to be concerned about.