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except its not dishonest. one of the charges was wire fraud. from the article: > Wire Fraud. The Wire Fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. 1343, prohibits a scheme to gain

by andylei 14y ago

except its not dishonest. one of the charges was wire fraud. from the article: > Wire Fraud. The Wire Fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. 1343, prohibits a scheme to gain “property” by false pretenses. This strikes me as a pretty strong charge here. The false pretenses are provided by the false identification and spoofing of Swartz’ IP address and MAC address. Swartz was trying to trick JSTOR into giving him access to their database after they had specifically tried their best to ban him from doing so. And the “property” was the contents of the JSTOR database itself. do people on HN even read the articles anymore?

jasonzemos 14y ago
Except that MIT runs an open network, so Swartz didn't have to "spoof" anything. Rotating your IP or MAC address on an open network is simply not a violation of the statutory penal system. MIT can sue him for damages and abuse at most, the state is a non-party to the matter.
- andylei 14y ago
  The federal charges are with respect to unlawful access to JSTOR's computers, not MIT's computers. Furthermore, Aaron didn't have to "spoof" anything. JSTOR tried to ban him from their computers for activities against their terms of service. Orin Kerr's argument is that attempting to circumvent those bans to gain property is wire fraud, which there is a federal law against. So the actually the state is a party.
  - jasonzemos 14y ago
    It seems the problem with interpreting wire fraud with his cited precedent comes down to an IP address versus an identity. The cited case contained two employees with specific usernames to denote their identities. When one uses the other's identity it's an impersonation -- or a false pretense. This case contains publicly available IP addresses and network-wide access and with that comes access to JSTOR. Rotating the IP to gain continued access might be immoral or tortious conduct at best, but as long as he didn't impersonate another user (possibly by spoofing an active IP address even) the court wouldn't be right in interpreting with the cited precedent. If the court decided this way: Say my dhcp-obtained cable IP becomes banned from JSTOR, when it changes and I simply check if I can access JSTOR again, I'd be in violation. Furthermore, a reasonable person wouldn't know that an IP address could be an identity similar to a username and that changing it would be a crime.

by andylei 14y ago

jasonzemos 14y ago

Except that MIT runs an open network, so Swartz didn't have to "spoof" anything. Rotating your IP or MAC address on an open network is simply not a violation of the statutory penal system. MIT can sue him for damages and abuse at most, the state is a non-party to the matter.

andylei 14y ago
The federal charges are with respect to unlawful access to JSTOR's computers, not MIT's computers. Furthermore, Aaron didn't have to "spoof" anything. JSTOR tried to ban him from their computers for activities against their terms of service. Orin Kerr's argument is that attempting to circumvent those bans to gain property is wire fraud, which there is a federal law against. So the actually the state is a party.
- jasonzemos 14y ago
  It seems the problem with interpreting wire fraud with his cited precedent comes down to an IP address versus an identity. The cited case contained two employees with specific usernames to denote their identities. When one uses the other's identity it's an impersonation -- or a false pretense. This case contains publicly available IP addresses and network-wide access and with that comes access to JSTOR. Rotating the IP to gain continued access might be immoral or tortious conduct at best, but as long as he didn't impersonate another user (possibly by spoofing an active IP address even) the court wouldn't be right in interpreting with the cited precedent. If the court decided this way: Say my dhcp-obtained cable IP becomes banned from JSTOR, when it changes and I simply check if I can access JSTOR again, I'd be in violation. Furthermore, a reasonable person wouldn't know that an IP address could be an identity similar to a username and that changing it would be a crime.