4 ms·

What wasn't he guilty of?

monsterix 14y ago
Can you enlist some of those things you think he was guilty of? Leaving aside the fact that he was actually trying to forcefully give people (you and I) back what they already owned.
- sneak 14y ago
  This presupposes that one can own information in the first place.
  - monsterix 14y ago
    Well research papers that were funded by people's money - sure why not?
    - metaphorm 14y ago
      you should research the background of this case more. the jstor documents in question were already in the public domain.
Peaker 14y ago
The frivolous charges of wire fraud, damaging computer systems with wrecklessness, etc.
wisty 14y ago
Wire fraud. If you shoplift from a store wearing a fake mustache, and saying your name is "Mickey Mouse", you aren't committing fraud, just shoplifting. If you download documents with an anonymous name ("Gary Host", not the name of a MIT student / staff member) and an anonymous MAC address (once again - not passing yourself off as anything other than a guest) you are guilty of copyright infringement, not wire fraud. Using a script to rapidly change your name / MAC address might be a different matter, as you are pretending to be a crowd of people (and it's hard to respond to). But there's nothing he did to circumvent the security that was intended to make a material misrepresentation, he simply did the equivalent of using his hotmail account to create a new account once his gmail was banned. For things like fraud, there's no hard and fast laws. The courts use a thing called "common sense" (or precedent, which is using a previous judge's common sense). The bar for fraud is pretty high - he had to have misled the victim, and that misrepresentation must have made them behave differently (among other requirements). Had he used his own name, and used a new laptop instead of spoofing his MAC address, he would still have been able to download the documents. But that's just my opinion, and IANAL.
metaphorm 14y ago
he wasn't guilty of the crimes he was accused of. an innocent man shouldn't accept a plea. that is a coerced confession and one of the worst forms of tyranny.

Can you enlist some of those things you think he was guilty of? Leaving aside the fact that he was actually trying to forcefully give people (you and I) back what they already owned.

sneak 14y ago
This presupposes that one can own information in the first place.
- monsterix 14y ago
  Well research papers that were funded by people's money - sure why not?
  - metaphorm 14y ago
    you should research the background of this case more. the jstor documents in question were already in the public domain.

Peaker 14y ago

The frivolous charges of wire fraud, damaging computer systems with wrecklessness, etc.

wisty 14y ago

Wire fraud. If you shoplift from a store wearing a fake mustache, and saying your name is "Mickey Mouse", you aren't committing fraud, just shoplifting. If you download documents with an anonymous name ("Gary Host", not the name of a MIT student / staff member) and an anonymous MAC address (once again - not passing yourself off as anything other than a guest) you are guilty of copyright infringement, not wire fraud. Using a script to rapidly change your name / MAC address might be a different matter, as you are pretending to be a crowd of people (and it's hard to respond to). But there's nothing he did to circumvent the security that was intended to make a material misrepresentation, he simply did the equivalent of using his hotmail account to create a new account once his gmail was banned. For things like fraud, there's no hard and fast laws. The courts use a thing called "common sense" (or precedent, which is using a previous judge's common sense). The bar for fraud is pretty high - he had to have misled the victim, and that misrepresentation must have made them behave differently (among other requirements). Had he used his own name, and used a new laptop instead of spoofing his MAC address, he would still have been able to download the documents. But that's just my opinion, and IANAL.

metaphorm 14y ago

he wasn't guilty of the crimes he was accused of. an innocent man shouldn't accept a plea. that is a coerced confession and one of the worst forms of tyranny.