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You don't lose any constitutional rights when you accept a plea bargain, but you voluntarily give up many constitutional rights. To suggest that the only reaso

• anigbrowl 14y ago
  He should have. 6 months for a case where he was caught red-handed was a good deal. He would have been in a minimum security prison with white-collar criminals and possibly been a candidate for early release after 3-4 months. Forget about JSTOR; it's obviously against the law to secretly patch your computer into someone else's network wiring closet and repeatedly circumvent the security measures designed to keep you off the network. Something that has bothered me about the HN debate on this is that people think that because the MIT security response was weak and easily bypassed, there was no real offense in doing so. This is equivalent to saying that that only those with fortress-like security deserve legal protection from criminal access. Numerous people have objected that because the MIT wiring closet wasn't secure enough then there can't be anything wrong about plugging into it; essentially they're arguing that 'because I could' should be a valid legal defense.
  • nitrogen 14y ago
    1. People are upset that Aaron Swartz faced losing the right to vote, hold public office, serve on a jury, or own a firearm, penalties entirely unrelated and disproportionate to the crime. 2. Your analogy fails because MIT IT certainly know what they could do to secure their systems more robustly, and chose not to do so. This debate has gone on long enough; most of HN disagrees with your position. Let it drop.
    • twoodfin 14y ago
      "Shut up," he argued. I bet you know how you could secure your home more robustly. That has no bearing on whether someone who breaks in to steal your laptop is committing a crime.
    • pretoriusB 14y ago
      >Your analogy fails because MIT IT certainly know what they could do to secure their systems more robustly, and chose not to do so. While I am pro Aaron and anti-MIT this is argument is weak sause. So what? I also know what I could do to secure my house more robustly (put an electric fence, more cameras, a steel door with secure locks etc), and I don't do it. Does that give you the right to enter into it against my will, much less to a robbery? >This debate has gone on long enough; most of HN disagrees with your position. Let it drop. And most of US citizens disagree with you (maybe), and say that abortions should remain illegal. Should you just let it drop? One should not abandon his views because of what a majority (or minority) says. And neither is what the majority agrees with always right.
    • mpyne 14y ago
      > People are upset that Aaron Swartz faced losing the right to vote, hold public office, serve on a jury, or own a firearm, penalties entirely unrelated and disproportionate to the crime. The "Felony" idea comes from the maximum possible sentence for a crime. CFAA has been on the books since like 1986 so as soon as Aaron decided to run afoul of its provisions that was a done deal. As it turns out many states have provisions to restore voting rights to felons, firearm rights, etc. But this type of case is one of the few things prosecutors don't have discretion on, except by dropping charges completely (which I understand is what you think should happen, but that's not going to match what most of the rest of the country thinks, where fairness of justice and due process are at least theoretically the ideal). > This debate has gone on long enough; most of HN disagrees with your position. Oh! Is HN the decider now? I browse this site and I wasn't aware my opinion had been pre-determined for me. Are there any other HN-mandated opinions I should adopt now that this question has been raised? Am I still allowed to like Microsoft products? Are iPhones mandatory or can I keep my Android?
    • anigbrowl 14y ago
  • betterunix 14y ago
    He was not charged for entering the wiring closet. He was charged with various forms computer fraud and with damaging a computer.
    • anigbrowl 14y ago
      Plugging the laptop into the wiring loom without authorization is central to the computer fraud charge.