6 ms·

The press will never get everything 100% accurate, but let's look on the bright side. A week ago, many lawyers (example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=505

by temphn 14y ago

The press will never get everything 100% accurate, but let's look on the bright side. A week ago, many lawyers (example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052339 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052339) were assuring us that seeing any accountability for Ortiz and Heymann would be a "fantasy", that this wasn't the way things worked, that hackers had to wise up and embrace their impotence. That wasn't the way things played out. With this (as with the movement against SOPA/PIPA), we can see an embryonic new power arising in the Internet, a power which can drive mainstream media coverage which in turn drives political decision-making. This week, at least, the lawyers' worldview was proven wrong and the hackers' worldview was proven right, in both the empirical and moral senses of the terms. Let's hope that continues.

mpyne 14y ago
> This week, at least, the lawyers' worldview was proven wrong and the hackers' worldview was proven right, in both the empirical and moral senses of the terms. Let's hope that continues. I've seen more prevaricating (and sometimes outright lying) this week from the hackers than from the lawyers so I, for one, hope that the lynch mob ceases immediately.
- jmesserly 14y ago
  Oh please. Wanting someone held accountable for their negligence and overreach is not a "lynch mob".
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    We live in a world were comparing government action to government action seen in 1930/1940s Europe is considered "losing the conversation" and is just met with screams of "but Godwin's law!", but where it seems to be perfectly acceptable to compare the public calling for the firing of a public official to a formerly widespread practice of brutally murdering members of underprivileged minorities. When the comparison is made against governments, that is bad, but it is okay to make such comparisons against the people. Sickening. The cause of this discrepancy is an unhealthy worship of the law and government that many people seem to have acquired.
- malandrew 14y ago
  Examples please.
  - mpyne 14y ago
    * "Aaron was just violating TOS" * "They were pushing for 35/50 years in prison" * "This is just like using my neighbor's Wifi" * "They were trumping up charges to make an example of Aaron" (before you downvote, read Kerr's posts). * "They were aiming for harshest possible sentence" * There was also the very nice individual who doxxed Ortiz, who I'm sure is a fine representative of all that is right with hacktivism. And on and on. And in the meantime there has been very little commentary over the major (not only, but major) cause of this (untreated depression), presumably because that doesn't play into the agenda. Likewise there is little discussion on ways to amend CFAA to make it better-aligned with what we intuitively feel would be appropriate (because in the hacktivist mold the only good change would be to repeal CFAA entirely). Feel free to say I'm seeing it wrong, but I don't think I am.
    - rhizome 14y ago
      Your quotes are selective, so I hope this doesn't just devolve into people battling their own predilections through their HuffPo/Drudge filters. There's lots to be said for the entire process. As for depression, the federal case is the only part that is any of our business, and is the only part (that I know of) that provides some commonality of experience and results, as the feds can come after any of us for whatever three felonies a day they choose to do so. The prosecutors were helped by the PATRIOT act, after all, which covers more of us than Aaron's personal historical details and experiences. Aren't we allowed to talk about whether that's a troublesome umbrella to live under, and how it played out in a specific case? You can't just say "every case is different" when the techniques can be the same between them. Forest for the trees.
      - mpyne 14y ago
        > As for depression, the federal case is the only part that is any of our business If by "business" we mean keeping our brightest minds around to drive progress on the difficult issues of our times then we absolutely must take a holistic view. If by "business" we simply mean advancing the goals of hacktivism then a focus on depression would certainly not help, I agree.
- coderdude 14y ago
  I agree with you but I think instead of lies it's likely ignorance or people blinded by emotion. Ever since Aaron killed himself people have been saying the most logically unsound things about this case and others. Such as: he was a hero, he didn't commit any crimes, others who did similar things were not criminals, copyright shouldn't even exist, MIT is evil for not not caring about the breach, calling other cases bogus because the perpetrator was a young programmer, and so on. Many of the people commenting seem so out of touch with reality that it looks like trolling. It's all the emotions. Makes it hard to write a sound argument.
  - visarga 14y ago
    > logically unsound things about this case such as ... he didn't commit any crimes Please consider the notion of civil protest. After all, this great country started by throwing the English tea overboard. To defend this view I would like to say that: 1. he was not personally profiting from the act 2. he was doing it for the betterment of society Illegal things are sometimes morally right, and legal things morally wrong. We need to raise above the laws when they don't fit reality any more.
    - mpyne 14y ago
      The most religious people refuse personal profit and earnestly and honestly believe they are doing it for the "betterment of society". This is the logic that was used to colonize (er, "civilize") the "savages" of Africa and the Pacific. So no, I refuse to subscribe to the idea that because he felt that it was better for everybody that it was his job to force it on everyone else. You know what else the American colonists did to the English, right? They tarred and feathered them, burned down their houses, and many other forms of not-quite "civil" protest. And they did this in response to far worse transgressions than "those JSTOR assholes make me go to a public library to read this peer-reviewed literature I wouldn't know what to do with".
      - visarga 14y ago
        I agree with you, letting people think they can change society as they wish by civil disobedience might easily be destabilizing and a bad thing, yet, the opposite is also true. From time to time we need to protest, voting doesn't change shit.
noonespecial 14y ago
I saw something different. In the end I don't even care about if "hackers were right". I saw the fact that when enough people get upset enough about what their "representatives" are doing ostensibly on their behalf, they can cause real change, even if that change is just removing a single individual from office. Those in office, even the appointed ones, really do need to care about what the people they represent think. I find that refreshing.

by temphn 14y ago

mpyne 14y ago

> This week, at least, the lawyers' worldview was proven wrong and the hackers' worldview was proven right, in both the empirical and moral senses of the terms. Let's hope that continues. I've seen more prevaricating (and sometimes outright lying) this week from the hackers than from the lawyers so I, for one, hope that the lynch mob ceases immediately.

jmesserly 14y ago
Oh please. Wanting someone held accountable for their negligence and overreach is not a "lynch mob".
- jlgreco 14y ago
  We live in a world were comparing government action to government action seen in 1930/1940s Europe is considered "losing the conversation" and is just met with screams of "but Godwin's law!", but where it seems to be perfectly acceptable to compare the public calling for the firing of a public official to a formerly widespread practice of brutally murdering members of underprivileged minorities. When the comparison is made against governments, that is bad, but it is okay to make such comparisons against the people. Sickening. The cause of this discrepancy is an unhealthy worship of the law and government that many people seem to have acquired.
malandrew 14y ago
Examples please.
- mpyne 14y ago
  * "Aaron was just violating TOS" * "They were pushing for 35/50 years in prison" * "This is just like using my neighbor's Wifi" * "They were trumping up charges to make an example of Aaron" (before you downvote, read Kerr's posts). * "They were aiming for harshest possible sentence" * There was also the very nice individual who doxxed Ortiz, who I'm sure is a fine representative of all that is right with hacktivism. And on and on. And in the meantime there has been very little commentary over the major (not only, but major) cause of this (untreated depression), presumably because that doesn't play into the agenda. Likewise there is little discussion on ways to amend CFAA to make it better-aligned with what we intuitively feel would be appropriate (because in the hacktivist mold the only good change would be to repeal CFAA entirely). Feel free to say I'm seeing it wrong, but I don't think I am.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    Your quotes are selective, so I hope this doesn't just devolve into people battling their own predilections through their HuffPo/Drudge filters. There's lots to be said for the entire process. As for depression, the federal case is the only part that is any of our business, and is the only part (that I know of) that provides some commonality of experience and results, as the feds can come after any of us for whatever three felonies a day they choose to do so. The prosecutors were helped by the PATRIOT act, after all, which covers more of us than Aaron's personal historical details and experiences. Aren't we allowed to talk about whether that's a troublesome umbrella to live under, and how it played out in a specific case? You can't just say "every case is different" when the techniques can be the same between them. Forest for the trees.
    - mpyne 14y ago
      > As for depression, the federal case is the only part that is any of our business If by "business" we mean keeping our brightest minds around to drive progress on the difficult issues of our times then we absolutely must take a holistic view. If by "business" we simply mean advancing the goals of hacktivism then a focus on depression would certainly not help, I agree.
coderdude 14y ago
I agree with you but I think instead of lies it's likely ignorance or people blinded by emotion. Ever since Aaron killed himself people have been saying the most logically unsound things about this case and others. Such as: he was a hero, he didn't commit any crimes, others who did similar things were not criminals, copyright shouldn't even exist, MIT is evil for not not caring about the breach, calling other cases bogus because the perpetrator was a young programmer, and so on. Many of the people commenting seem so out of touch with reality that it looks like trolling. It's all the emotions. Makes it hard to write a sound argument.
- visarga 14y ago
  > logically unsound things about this case such as ... he didn't commit any crimes Please consider the notion of civil protest. After all, this great country started by throwing the English tea overboard. To defend this view I would like to say that: 1. he was not personally profiting from the act 2. he was doing it for the betterment of society Illegal things are sometimes morally right, and legal things morally wrong. We need to raise above the laws when they don't fit reality any more.
  - mpyne 14y ago
    The most religious people refuse personal profit and earnestly and honestly believe they are doing it for the "betterment of society". This is the logic that was used to colonize (er, "civilize") the "savages" of Africa and the Pacific. So no, I refuse to subscribe to the idea that because he felt that it was better for everybody that it was his job to force it on everyone else. You know what else the American colonists did to the English, right? They tarred and feathered them, burned down their houses, and many other forms of not-quite "civil" protest. And they did this in response to far worse transgressions than "those JSTOR assholes make me go to a public library to read this peer-reviewed literature I wouldn't know what to do with".
    - visarga 14y ago
      I agree with you, letting people think they can change society as they wish by civil disobedience might easily be destabilizing and a bad thing, yet, the opposite is also true. From time to time we need to protest, voting doesn't change shit.

noonespecial 14y ago

I saw something different. In the end I don't even care about if "hackers were right". I saw the fact that when enough people get upset enough about what their "representatives" are doing ostensibly on their behalf, they can cause real change, even if that change is just removing a single individual from office. Those in office, even the appointed ones, really do need to care about what the people they represent think. I find that refreshing.