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MIT Closet Allegedly Used by Aaron Swartz
- rdl 14y agoHeh. I used to leave my bag in one of those closets when I went to the bathroom if I was in a computer lab.
- gt565k 14y agoI bet no one locks those closets. I know for a fact there are a few comm closets with actual servers controlling the PLC of the building at my university that are often left unlocked, door wide open. No one gives a crap at these institutes. If a real malicious hacker got into one of those, he could easily wreak havoc.
- hnwh 14y agoyeah. someone might go crazy downloading shit
- sneak 14y agoAnd yet somehow, havoc isn't wreaked. Most bills aren't counterfeit. Most contracts don't get litigated. I think about security, so I know what you're talking about... but there is a real line between security and fearmongering. It's just network access, or denial of service. Nothing more.
- BCM43 14y agoOr a MITM attack stealing personal information?
- borski 14y agoFunny enough, me too.
- dazzawazza 14y agoI went to a similarly prestigious uni (Imperial College, London) and nothing was ever left unlocked. Even leaving a bag unattended in one of the labs could throw a security alert spanner in the works. Then again at the time we had the IRA bombing London and we were told specific bomb threats against the uni from idiots every few months or so.
- deadairspace 14y agoThings must have changed then - I find security is very lax at Imperial, especially in the EEE department.
- jpdoctor 14y ago> Download Equipment Allegedly Stored in Building 20 I assume this is a typo? or is there a recent renumbered bldg?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- systemizer 14y agoNo, that is correct. He left his hard drive and laptop in the SIPB office in W20. See the Tech's article from August 2011. http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N30/swartz.html http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N30/swartz.html
- rdl 14y agoAh, you're right (W20 != 20). The basement wiring closet was Building 16, but the SIPB stuff was W20. (you can tell by the ghetto furniture with duct tape). SIPB at least used to be pretty friendly about letting visiting "reasonable" people plug into the network, based on whoever was at the office at the time.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- clicks 14y agoThe SAMSUNG EcoGreen F2 HD154UI hard drive pictured is 1.5 TB. The alleged JSTOR archive torrent making the rounds is 35 GB. If Aaron went through the trouble of getting a HDD 1+ TB, it means the JSTOR files probably amassed to a size indeed to the tune of ~1 TB, (at least, if he in fact did have accurate foreknowledge of their true size).
- jrockway 14y agoMakes me wonder how many years in prison the prosecutors would give you if you just walked into JSTOR and stole one of their hard drives. It's not even a federal crime anymore.
- jlgreco 14y agoWell, assuming that would be treated the equivalent of armed bank robbery (robbery of a... data bank? ;)... a maximum of 25 years. Knock off 5 years if you don't bring a gun.
- corin_ 14y agoHow is it the equivalent to armed bank robbery?
- jlgreco 14y agoIt's not, but I figure I may as well highlight that even if you rob a bank with a gun your maximum sentence is less than 35 years.
- slapshot 14y agoThat's simply not true. "Possession of a firearm in furtherance of a bank robbery carries a minimum statutory sentence of five years in prison and a maximum of life imprisonment consecutive to any other sentence, plus a $250,000 fine." [1] http://www.justice.gov/usao/ncw/pressreleases/Charlotte-2012-07-23-humphrey.html http://www.justice.gov/usao/ncw/pressreleases/Charlotte-2012... , among many other sources.
- djt 14y agoI think this whole thing has become a meme now and people are starting to believe what they want to believe.
- jlgreco 14y agoThat is the page I found before I commented, I am seeing on that page: "Bank robbery carries a statutory maximum sentence 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Bank robbery while armed with a firearm carries a maximum sentence of 25 years." It also seems, in addition to armed bank robbery being a crime, having the firearm during a bank robbery is itself is a crime, and the maximum punishment for having the firearm, but not the bank robbery itself, is life. It seems you are practically correct.
- gregholmberg 14y agoWhen I clicked on the link, I expected to see an unlocked closet primarily used to store mops, floor wax and boxes of copier paper. Instead, I saw a small carpeted room containing a half-full rack of telecom gear, featuring several Ethernet switches providing 100 or so switchports for end users, punchdown blocks for terminating phone service to a similar number of incoming lines, and a small number of switchports on what looks like an administratively privileged network via a second smaller switch. The list price of the larger Cisco with all three power supplies and several 24-port GigE cards was at least $15,000 the last time I had to buy one. The fiber uplinks to other rooms (provisioned like this one, or better, typically one per wing on each floor of a large building) are likely to carry some very interesting traffic -- not just between end users and their preferred servers, but between the large switches themselves, possibly even routing outbound traffic for the "administrative" switch, as well. I sometimes use separate "control plane" switched media to access "remote power strips". These allow an admin to remain seated at a desk while rebooting machines all over the campus. Allowing unrestricted access to a storage closet containing that much gear (uninstalled) is irresponsible. Theft is likely. Allowing unrestricted access to a wiring closet containing that much gear (provisioned, configured, and running in production mode) is a hilarious wtf. The imagination soars ... Allowing unrestricted physical access to any administrative switch that carries traffic for power-cycling campus equipment on and off remotely is a fairly serious oversight, and not in the least bit hilarious. edit: It looks like the photos show two different rooms. The wiring closet itself has a bare concrete floor.
- jasonzemos 14y agoI'm not surprised. That seems to be the MIT ethos since Stallman proclaimed the best account password for all users was the enter key.
- sp332 14y agoIt wasn't just Stallman. Hacker subculture has always contained an element that is opposed to unequal access, like locks. And it's still going strong; last month's CCC hacker conference in Hamburg had a large lockpicking workshop. http://events.ccc.de/congress/2012/wiki/Lockpicking_Area http://events.ccc.de/congress/2012/wiki/Lockpicking_Area
- alaskamiller 14y agoAaron's impact has been rippling through the internets lately and that's awe inspiring but we're slowly marching into morbid reality porn. Nancy Grace does this exact "thing" for a living. Tread lightly.
- Zimahl 14y agoI agree, it's getting creepy. I'm starting to get the feeling of 'man worship' where perfectly sane men put giant Fathead pictures of professional athletes on their walls, wear their jerseys, and get a little too involved.
- jlgreco 14y agoI like the graffiti on the right wall in the first picture. Gives off some serious vibes of "secured room".
- borski 14y agoThat's not graffiti. MIT hackers commonly 'sign in' to places that they've found and gained entrance to. A wiring closet, frankly, is kind of a lame place to sign in at, but the steps under Lobby 7 or the steam tunnels or the little dome are far more interesting, for example. It's actually looked down upon fairly heavily if a sign in is larger than a regular signature by very much - typically sign ins are lauded, graffiti isn't. Just thought I'd clarify. :)
- jwr 14y agoI suspect there won't be as many MIT hackers now that this sort of culture is no longer tolerated. Getting in trouble with your principal/dean/chairman is quite different from facing the secret service, federal prosecution, 30 years in jail and multi-million dollar fines.
- borski 14y agoMIT over the last few years, sadly, under the Hockfield administration, has screwed hackers over - no doubt about that. Numbers decreased because of that. But they increased at the same time due to the MIT blogs and better (sometimes unintentional) publicity of MIT hacks. I honestly suspect that things will be better for hackers under Reif's administration. He does, in my humble opinion, "not suck." EDIT: Also important of note is that Aaron wasn't a student at MIT - historically, MIT students were forgiven for things like hacking, but non-MIT students were typically handed over to Cambridge Police. Typically, when hacking with a non-MIT student, you would pretend they were a 'pre-frosh' if you could.
- rdl 14y agoI've never heard anything but criticism of Hockfield on any front.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Riesling 14y agoInteresting. Keeping my fingers crossed that the download script will be released next. I would love to read through the code and see for myself how much actual "hacking" was involved.
- beedogs 14y agohow the fuck could they not find a laptop connected directly to an Ethernet switch? What a crock of shit. that laptop should've been discovered within 15 minutes.
- xd 14y agoLast I knew comms rooms aren't generally patrolled on a regular basis .. but then, where ever I've worked the rooms have always been locked.
- jstevens85 14y agoI don't have any idea about how easy it would be to detect a laptop connected directly to an Ethernet switch, but the court documents do mention that Aaron placed the laptop in the closet on December 26th, and it wasn't noticed until January 4th. Perhaps many of the IT administrators were away on Christmas holidays?
- ef4 14y agoYou're forgetting the context. The network is open and freely available to anyone. They're not trying to keep anyone out. That's precisely what Swartz's defense team has pointed out -- there was precious little "hacking" involved because there was no defense to hack.
- mpyne 14y ago> That's precisely what Swartz's defense team has pointed out Perhaps Swartz should have chose smarter lawyers then, because he wasn't charged with "hacking" but with "intentional unauthorized access" and other similar things. It's not as if he accidentally logged onto an open Wifi and accidentally downloaded terabytes of information from JSTOR, they specifically blocked Swartz's machine multiple times. They may not be trying to keep everyone out but they were definitely trying to keep Swartz out (and they didn't even know it was Swartz until he was arrested).
- ef4 14y ago> They may not be trying to keep everyone out Which was exactly my point. That's why your original comment about "that laptop should've been discovered within 15 minutes" doesn't make sense. Their network model deliberately doesn't care about an extra random laptop, until somebody complains.
- gadders 14y agoWhereabouts was the tramp (hobo) sleeping?
- mindslight 14y agoPresumably the police weren't quite as eager to photograph that.
- bstar77 14y agoSeems like this could had been done much more discretely, makes me think Aaron may have wanted to get caught. Why not just buy a cheap 1u server and add it to the rack, I bet that goes unnoticed much longer.