9 ms·

> 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.

by 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.
      - rhizome 14y ago
        3. "business" to refer to a specific human experiencing their own life and the factor(s) that applies to the general case. There were non-case factors, sure, but those are different for everybody, so dragging them into the argument is to strive to compare apples and oranges.
  - dchichkov 14y ago
    >> 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. Actually it has been discussed. As per his father: """ Bob Swartz also dismissed the notion that his son had a depressive personality. "He had never been diagnosed as having depression; he was never on medication for having depression," Swartz said. Aaron Swartz's mother had been hospitalized in December 2011 after having a bowel obstruction and going into septic shock, Bob Swartz said. She spent several weeks in a coma, four months in intensive care, and two more months in the hospital. "So the notion, the narrative that people are going to say -- is that he’s somebody who just has depression -- is just wrong. You’d be depressed too if you were under a 13-count federal indictment and you go see your mother, who’s in a coma."
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.

by mpyne 14y ago

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.
    - rhizome 14y ago
      3. "business" to refer to a specific human experiencing their own life and the factor(s) that applies to the general case. There were non-case factors, sure, but those are different for everybody, so dragging them into the argument is to strive to compare apples and oranges.
- dchichkov 14y ago
  >> 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. Actually it has been discussed. As per his father: """ Bob Swartz also dismissed the notion that his son had a depressive personality. "He had never been diagnosed as having depression; he was never on medication for having depression," Swartz said. Aaron Swartz's mother had been hospitalized in December 2011 after having a bowel obstruction and going into septic shock, Bob Swartz said. She spent several weeks in a coma, four months in intensive care, and two more months in the hospital. "So the notion, the narrative that people are going to say -- is that he’s somebody who just has depression -- is just wrong. You’d be depressed too if you were under a 13-count federal indictment and you go see your mother, who’s in a coma."

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.