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Unfortunately, I can see this pounding JSTOR's site. I'm sure US Attorney Carmen Ortiz will think this is a DDoS attack because JSTOR can't handle the traffic

Unfortunately, I can see this pounding JSTOR's site. I'm sure US Attorney Carmen Ortiz will think this is a DDoS attack because JSTOR can't handle the traffic generated by everyone going there. I'm sure she can rationalize that as a terrorist attack on essential infrastructure, so let's round it up to 170 years in jail for the conspirators. Let's assume every one of those connections would have paid $200 for an article,so that's $50 million in damages. Right?

nwh 14y ago
I can certainly see the site being impacted by a large number of concurrent visitors. The service embeds each PDF with the current datestamp, so every access is taking more server time than bandwidth. The response time on an example PDF for me was around 10 seconds.
res0nat0r 14y ago
Sigh. It is getting very old to see HN comments degenerating into Techdirt/Reddit/Torrentfreak level hyperbole any time a perceived injustice story is in the news and when it involves the US government, the entertainment industry or any other entity that isn't 100% in the "information wants to be free" boat.
- darkarmani 14y ago
  You don't think the site could get slashdotted from everyone trying to use this bookmarklet at the same time and PDFs getting generated from it? At this point, I don't think it would be a stretch to see an overreaction, even if it's just benign traffic from people checking out the free content melt the servers.
  - Permit 14y ago
    There's a difference between 'The site may go down and 'This person I don't know will overreact and accuse us of terrorism'. Why don't we discuss the reality of the situation rather than some bizarre scenario you've concocted?
    - darkarmani 14y ago
      The site goes down because of a distributed "attack" in the wake of Aaron's death. Coordinating a distributed denial of service attack (as characterized in the worst possible light) is not a legal activity. Less crazy charges have been brought for other "hacking" activities. Accessing "hidden" URLs has been called unauthorized access; deep linking or just linking to something like deCSS has been likened to a crime; port scanning has been legally attacked a few times. If these same type of people think URLs are a crime, I don't think the scenario I described is that bizarre. Look up that news story about the guy in a glider near a nuclear plant (he was catching a thermal from the lake) -- there was never a no fly zone, but officials actually considered shooting him down! Instead they held him for 24 hours while his loved ones started a search for his glider. They dropped the charges only after he agreed not to sue them!
      - Permit 14y ago
        My point isn't "It can't happen". My point is "Why don't we discuss things as they are, not as they may or may not be some time in the future?".
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
duaneb 14y ago
Let's not be hyperbolic. Carmen Ortiz does not have it out for people; it's incredibly likely she legitimately thought Aaron WAS hacking and simply thought it was right to make an example of him. This probably doesn't even violate JSTOR's EULA- people have the right to view the article, they aren't scraping the site, and it's not like the bookmarklets are going to drive people to the site any more than people already are. EDIT: Apparently the TOS (not EULA) is vague enough that this might actually violate the TOS- but the creators are very explicit about this and clearly tell the user that if they violate the TOS it's their own damn fault. The only thing I could think of is that the creators could be hit with DMCA violations for circumventing the 'DRM' of the site, EVEN if they never actually use it on anything copyrighted.
- darkarmani 14y ago
  > it's incredibly likely she legitimately thought Aaron WAS hacking and simply thought it was right to make an example of him. And you don't think that she will think that this is hacking if the site goes down from the load? Besides, making an example of people is having it out for them.
  - duaneb 14y ago
    > And you don't think that she will think that this is hacking if the site goes down from the load? No, I don't. Someone stupid enough to continue this shitstorm would never make it that high up in office, especially when this is even less plausibly hacking than what Aaron did, even to someone without a great understanding (it's distributed, they warned people it would violate TOS, and the intent is clearly not to burden the site but to make a political statement that is explicitly designed NOT to burden the site). I could be wrong. But I really, really don't think so. > Besides, making an example of people is having it out for them. Well yea, she might have it out for 'hackers', but who doesn't? Anyway, it's a common practice to go after the 'big fish' to scare the smaller ones.

nwh 14y ago

I can certainly see the site being impacted by a large number of concurrent visitors. The service embeds each PDF with the current datestamp, so every access is taking more server time than bandwidth. The response time on an example PDF for me was around 10 seconds.

res0nat0r 14y ago

Sigh. It is getting very old to see HN comments degenerating into Techdirt/Reddit/Torrentfreak level hyperbole any time a perceived injustice story is in the news and when it involves the US government, the entertainment industry or any other entity that isn't 100% in the "information wants to be free" boat.

darkarmani 14y ago
You don't think the site could get slashdotted from everyone trying to use this bookmarklet at the same time and PDFs getting generated from it? At this point, I don't think it would be a stretch to see an overreaction, even if it's just benign traffic from people checking out the free content melt the servers.
- Permit 14y ago
  There's a difference between 'The site may go down and 'This person I don't know will overreact and accuse us of terrorism'. Why don't we discuss the reality of the situation rather than some bizarre scenario you've concocted?
  - darkarmani 14y ago
    The site goes down because of a distributed "attack" in the wake of Aaron's death. Coordinating a distributed denial of service attack (as characterized in the worst possible light) is not a legal activity. Less crazy charges have been brought for other "hacking" activities. Accessing "hidden" URLs has been called unauthorized access; deep linking or just linking to something like deCSS has been likened to a crime; port scanning has been legally attacked a few times. If these same type of people think URLs are a crime, I don't think the scenario I described is that bizarre. Look up that news story about the guy in a glider near a nuclear plant (he was catching a thermal from the lake) -- there was never a no fly zone, but officials actually considered shooting him down! Instead they held him for 24 hours while his loved ones started a search for his glider. They dropped the charges only after he agreed not to sue them!
    - Permit 14y ago
      My point isn't "It can't happen". My point is "Why don't we discuss things as they are, not as they may or may not be some time in the future?".
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]

duaneb 14y ago

Let's not be hyperbolic. Carmen Ortiz does not have it out for people; it's incredibly likely she legitimately thought Aaron WAS hacking and simply thought it was right to make an example of him. This probably doesn't even violate JSTOR's EULA- people have the right to view the article, they aren't scraping the site, and it's not like the bookmarklets are going to drive people to the site any more than people already are. EDIT: Apparently the TOS (not EULA) is vague enough that this might actually violate the TOS- but the creators are very explicit about this and clearly tell the user that if they violate the TOS it's their own damn fault. The only thing I could think of is that the creators could be hit with DMCA violations for circumventing the 'DRM' of the site, EVEN if they never actually use it on anything copyrighted.

darkarmani 14y ago
> it's incredibly likely she legitimately thought Aaron WAS hacking and simply thought it was right to make an example of him. And you don't think that she will think that this is hacking if the site goes down from the load? Besides, making an example of people is having it out for them.
- duaneb 14y ago
  > And you don't think that she will think that this is hacking if the site goes down from the load? No, I don't. Someone stupid enough to continue this shitstorm would never make it that high up in office, especially when this is even less plausibly hacking than what Aaron did, even to someone without a great understanding (it's distributed, they warned people it would violate TOS, and the intent is clearly not to burden the site but to make a political statement that is explicitly designed NOT to burden the site). I could be wrong. But I really, really don't think so. > Besides, making an example of people is having it out for them. Well yea, she might have it out for 'hackers', but who doesn't? Anyway, it's a common practice to go after the 'big fish' to scare the smaller ones.