Although I am deeply saddened by Aaron taking his life, I feel that part of the article is intellectually dishonest. I.e., it recites synopses of the charges a

Although I am deeply saddened by Aaron taking his life, I feel that part of the article is intellectually dishonest. I.e., it recites synopses of the charges and then states that the charges are not true because: - "MIT runs an open network" But this is irrelevant, if Aaron used my public Wifi it wouldn't be my job to police his actions even if I had the resources for that. - "MIT could have locked the network down, but didn't." This is a poor excuse as well. "I could have locked my car doors, but I didn't, so I guess it's my fault." Or better yet, "I could have worn my hijab, but I didn't, so I suppose it's my fault I was punished in a Sharia court". - "MIT doesn't specifically tell its users not to do dickwad things to its network." This is the same logic that gets those "stupid warning labels" put on everything! - "JSTOR didn't have technical facilities in place to stop people like Aaron." But the only reason such technical facilities would be needed is if Aaron's behavior on the network were unacceptable in the first place. - "Aaron did not 'hack' the JSTOR website for all reasonable definitions of 'hack'". But this is kind of a strawman, go back and read the article's own description of the charges if you don't believe me, they claim only generic things like "unauthorized access" or "deceptively appearing as if he were from MIT". - "He didn't try to hide his behavior". Who CARES? If I steal something in broad daylight in the real world people would say I was an idiot, not that I was "innocent". - "Other people use fake identities too". Which is the same argument every parent of a 5-year-old has heard and taken care of... - "If JSTOR had properly responded to the DoS/unauthorized access it wouldn't have been such a big deal". See above about victim blaming. - "But he wasn't trespassing!". And in the next sentence, "the Federal government isn't charging him with such". Uh, OK? Now, did he deserve even the possibility of 35 years in prison? No. Is it right to prevent him (as Lessig claims) from forming a proper legal defense fund? Absolutely not. In fact, that would be an area that needs to be properly "witch hunted" over because it's obvious from the outpouring of support now that Aaron's dead that he could have found help if he were able to ask... so why wasn't he able? What did the district court judge order that led Aaron to kill himself rather than risking the ire of a district judge? I wonder also why Aaron was so worried about being termed a 'felon'. I've worked with a felon, it was a similarly stupid charge (let's just say he later married his "victim"), and absolutely no one cared. Roman Polanski is still making movies; Aaron would have been just fine. But that was his choice to make. :( But I worry about articles like this that have popped up in the aftermath, especially when they are so full of inaccuracies as this.