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US court rules masking IP address to access blocked Website violates law

138 points by tanglesome 13y ago

Shish2k 13y ago
TL;DR: "this is a decision applying only to a narrow, specific circumstance." - Craigslist sent a legally valid cease & desist letter to 3taps, explicitly revoking their default-allowed access. 3taps changed their IP and continued scraping -- it's the ignoring of the cease & desist that's the problem; that they did so by changing IP is just a technical detail.
- grecy 13y ago
  > Craigslist sent a legally valid cease & desist letter to 3taps, explicitly revoking their default-allowed access. I can have a site on the public internet and ban certain people from visiting it, then enforce that in court if they do? That seems... strange.
  - kd5bjo 13y ago
    Just like you can have a store on the public street but ban certain people from visiting it, yes.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - yebyen 13y ago
    You can have and enforce a terms-of-service agreement for users without strongly and strictly identifying every user at every moment. You can enforce copyright on a dataset from a database through the courts. You do not have to allow every use just because you have allowed a certain use. These things should not be surprising. EDIT: I googled it because I could smell the wrong in my statement, it's not called copyright it's called "database right" because a compilation of facts is not a creative work. Still the right is real regardless of the distinction. EDIT2: CraigsList is a US company and apparently if you read deeper into the WikiPedia article, US copyrights do not respect databases and so it's not a real thing. Sorry for muddying the waters, but it doesn't change that service providers can have terms of service irrespective of how strongly they work to identify and segregate their users.
  - alayne 13y ago
    Why don't you try scraping book reviews from Amazon onto your own website and see what happens?
    - japhyr 13y ago
      Is it about visiting and scraping the site, or what they do with the content they scrape?
      - res0nat0r 13y ago
        Both. CL wanted them to stop scraping their site because they were republishing content without CL's explicit permission.
        sejje 13y ago
        What if they weren't republishing the data? I believe it's against TOS to scrape at all. Presume they were scraping the data to /dev/null, would that still be an issue? Further, aren't some things INTENDED to be scraped? Like their RSS feeds?
        res0nat0r 13y ago
        I believe all of that is against the law after they were specifically told not to via a C&D.
    - RyanMcGreal 13y ago
      You're conflating violating copyright with committing a crime under the CFAA. Then again, the Obama administration wants to make it a felony to stream compyrighted material, so maybe the conflation isn't so outrageous after all.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    That seems perfectly in line with existing property rights. If I have a house and certain people are visiting it against my will, then I have legal recourse to prevent them from doing so. That it's digital doesn't really change the fact that, at the least, what 3taps was doing maps to trespassing. (Theft, at the worst, but I'm wary of invoking the 'copying isn't theft' mantra).
    - enry_straker 13y ago
      If you have a house, then it's your responsibility to have doors with locks and windows which are closed. You cannot have a house in a public space accessible worldwide, without doors or windows, and then randomly get to decide who can and can't visit, and have it enforced by courts.
      - bmelton 13y ago
        If you have property, and the house is on that property, then yes, you can. If I build my house in the public commons, on property that I do not own or lease, then I haven't any property rights as a homefront, and the relationship is more akin to one of a storefront than a home. If we're extrapolating from commercial property rights, then again, stores and merchants have the right to refuse entry to persons they choose as well, even though those buildings are in common areas, and their doors are commonly unlocked to allow free entry to all. Further, it is not incumbent upon you to have doors, windows and locks to prevent entry from your property, as the property needn't be a house at all, but could simply be land. I have the right to expel trespassers from land I own, whether or not any dwellings or structures exist upon such property. Even if you're assertion is just that I should have doors and locks to prevent them entering just my home, that is again a false claim. Whether or not my property is secure might be a matter of insurance liability, but does not obviate me from the expectation that others will respect my property rights. Even if I have no doors, windows, locks, or even walls, I have the right to expel others from my property.
      - DannyBee 13y ago
        "If you have a house, then it's your responsibility to have doors with locks and windows which are closed." Legally, it isn't. "You cannot have a house in a public space accessible worldwide, without doors or windows, and then randomly get to decide who can and can't visit, and have it enforced by courts. " Completely and totally false. Trespass to land, in fact, doesn't even require that you intend to trespass, only that you voluntarily traveled to the location. You do not need to know it's someone else's property or that you are trespassing to be liable. Getting injunctive relief is more difficult for other reasons, but you would at least get nominal damages. I think you will find trespass to land doctrines are not in your favor in this argument. You may want to try to argue it isn't like land at all :)
  - AlisdairSH 13y ago
    I view it much like a bar owner. The bar is default-open to any patron. But, if a patron gets drunk and makes a scene, they can be asked to leave. If that patron sneaks around back and climbs in through an open window, they are trespassing. The actual legal details may be different, but that's how I see this case.
    - atmosx 13y ago
      That's a bit naive: If that's the case, then you need to put a user/password. Having a website on the internet is like shouting on a public square: it's main function is to be accessible world-wide (or internet-wide). So if you "shout" on a public square (blog, post, etc.) you can't tell which group of people can and can not hear what you say. The bar example would be fit for websites that raise paywalls, or some sort of access control. That's idiotic, it's just another case where the judge is 20 years behind current affairs, he is judging something he clearly doesn't understand.
      - processcontrol 13y ago
        Having a website is not at all like 'shouting on a public square' and is exactly like having a bar open to the public. Craigslist told a patron they couldn't come in any more. The patron put on a fake mustache and tried to come in the back door. Would you support someone scraping a blog to repost it elsewhere? Do you support crawlers that don't respect robots.txt? I don't see a problem with Craigslist saying 'No, you can't scrape our users content to post on your website'. The exact details of which laws and how the court case went may not be correct, but at a theoretical level the website as open-to-public bar/store/etc is a perfectly valid analogy.
        sejje 13y ago
        And what makes it hilarious is that the fake moustache is seemingly illegal.
        Helianthus 13y ago
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    It seems...normal. Same way you can have a store on the public street and ban certain people from visiting it, then enforce that in court if they do.
  - jemfinch 13y ago
    You can have a house or a business on a public street and ban certain people from visiting it as well. Why does it seem strange that the same law applies online?
    - devcpp 13y ago
      I have always considered websites to be comparable to public shops. Any "client" can enter and profit from a "[web] service" given by a "server", so it seems much more fitting than a private house or office, which would be comparable to the backend, itself off limits in most cases. And in most cases, in the areas I've lived in, you have no right to refuse service to "certain people". So, yes, this seems just as bad as a baker who would refuse a certain subset of people from even entering his shop.
      - ori_b 13y ago
        Just about any store in the USA can ban customers for non-discriminatory reasons. For example, if you go to a restaurant, start swearing at the servers, throwing your food, and misbehaving, you'll quickly find yourself banned from the location. I think it varies by state, but as long as the banning isn't because you're part of a protected class[1], a private establishment can refuse service for any reason it sees fit, including none at all. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
        devcpp 13y ago
        Ah, yes, that's what I meant by most cases. If you establish rules that do not discard a class of the population, then it's very much acceptable to reject those who infringe them, in my opinion. In any case, I was just correcting your analogy, not your premise.
        baddox 13y ago
        Right, and banning a customer from a store is equivalent to a computer denying a request from a remote client. But in this case, the computer didn't deny the request.
- nanomage 13y ago
  This kind of thing used to happen with map makers, for 1000 years. Their solution was to make random small inaccuracies so they could detect when their maps were being stolen. Additionally, Google has been doing this to small start ups in 3rd world countries for years. This was an over produced decision, that should have been left to dealing with ignoring the cease and desist letter, instead of setting a president for banning VPNs and proxies, potentially.
- Zuider 13y ago
  I think you may be mistaken on this. Craigslist specifically argued that masking their IP address to bypass blocking "violated the CFAA and Penal Code § 502" and District Judge Charles Breyer agreed.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    Yes - because 3taps had already been given proper legal notice in the form of a C&D letter (which was CL's right to issue as a property owner), and 3taps knew that it was no longer welcome to access CL.
- gwu78 13y ago
  You could say it's even more narrow than that. It only applies to these two parties and this particular case. While it might be informative with respect to what and how this particular judge thinks, it's merely a decision on a pre-trial motion and provides no precedent that other parties could cite in future CFAA cases.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Karunamon 13y ago
On one hand, if a site has taken technical measures to keep you out, you have no right to be there and deserve some kind of punishment for circumventing it. On the other hand, the fact that this punishment is a felony record is just a little bit pathetic (c.f. Aaron Swartz). You don't get in that much trouble for trespassing IRL.
- justthetip 13y ago
  I know what you mean, everyone else knows what you mean. The problem I have is that this decision as written is very poorly worded and therefore has no business being law.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    I know what he means, but that doesn't alter the fact that he's wrong.
- Delenda 13y ago
  So many people seem to miss this point! Regular meatspace trespassing already has laws surrounding it. Laws that don't destroy your life. Step back into a store you're banned from in disguise and get caught? You're not faced with losing your ability to vote, no chances to acquire work, hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, decades of jail time, etc. Felony charges ruin lives, and shouldn't be just lightly sprinkled into otherwise mundane cases like these.
  - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
    I think you are stretching things a bit. Having a felony record is not the death sentence you make it out to be. Felony Disenfranchisement[1] (aka "losing voting rights") isn't really that much of a thing anymore (at least in the US). Outside of the banking industry, lots and lots of places don't care too much about a felony anymore. Some of them don't even ask you to divulge that info if it was x-years ago. And as far as hundreds of millions of dollars in debt... that would depend entirely on what sort of restitution you need to pay and how much your lawyer charges... but hundreds of millions of dollars is extremely high. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Unite...
parfe 13y ago
This is pretty much an analog of how trespassing in a public accommodation, such as Walmart, works. You're welcome until someone tells you otherwise. You can't legally go back in just because you changed your shirt and put on a hat.
- eli 13y ago
  As the article explains, the concern is that they violated a law originally designed to prevent malicious "hacking" and that carries penalties that may be stronger than are warranted for something that's a lot closer to trespassing. If you scroll past the first few pages, you can read the EFF explain in detail why this is a problem http://ia601209.us.archive.org/33/items/gov.uscourts.cand.257395/gov.uscourts.cand.257395.92.1.pdf http://ia601209.us.archive.org/33/items/gov.uscourts.cand.25...
  - mpyne 13y ago
    I don't think anyone disagrees that CFAA reform is needed. But this doesn't show a misapplication of the law as it's currently written, either.
- gcb0 13y ago
  Actually it's just so. They say "no shirt no service". You show up with a shirt and get service. You get blocked from one ip, you show up from another you get service.
  - epo 13y ago
    You didn't understand what he wrote did you?
  - saraid216 13y ago
    > They say "no shirt no service". You show up with a shirt and get service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent
- Delenda 13y ago
asolove 13y ago
"US court rules opening a door violates law" (... if you were ordered not to come onto someone's private property)
tomorgan 13y ago
and that, kids, is why making APIs is so darn important!
themodelplumber 13y ago
I'm just beginning to learn about scraping--how common is it for companies (even those with junk APIs or none at all) to take these sorts of actions against scrapers?
- eli 13y ago
  Probably most don't care, but it really depends on what you're scraping and who owns it. If the data is central to someone's business (e.g. Ticketmaster, airlines, or anything you had pay to access), I'd tread real carefully.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    In Europe there are database rights to consider too.
    - eli 13y ago
      Possibly in the US too. But that's almost beside the point: being sued kinda sucks even if you prevail.
tsaoutourpants 13y ago
Great, so now if I put a notice that no government employees are allowed to use my Web site, and they do anyway, I can sue them? :)
- jetti 13y ago
  This reminds me of all of the notices about the quoted the CFAA and amendments Bill Clinton signed into law in '96 that people had as txt files on their hard drives when using Soulseek. It said just that, if you are a government employee you are barred from accessing my files per the CFAA. I never thought it would actually hold water, but it seems it potentially could.
- qnr 13y ago
  My first thought when reading the article was to prohibit RIAA and MPAA from visiting torrent trackers etc. You can even preemptively send them a C&D letter in pretty legalese.
  - gwu78 13y ago
    If these servers used IP block lists and sent cease and desist letters to an organization on the list that they believed bypassed the restrictions and accessed the server anyway (how would they prove that?), and it turns out there is no evidence of contributing to copyright infringement, then would the server owners have a claim under the CFAA? The interpretation of the CFAA in this Order only applies to the facts of the 3Taps case, but assuming this case actually went to trial and in its decision the Court parroted what it has said already regarding the validity of CL's CFAA claims, then it one could at least argue that _any_ computer owner should be entitled to enjoy the protections of the CFAA against unauthorized access to that computer, in order to protect all information that through such access can be obtained. I hope others besides you and I will give this idea some more thought.
BWStearns 13y ago
Perhaps we need a bifurcation of US computer law to divide malicious hacking from more benign misuse like this case. It seems a bit absurd that a major bank hack should be prosecuted under the same law as unauthorized webscraping. Perhaps a civil misuse akin to a speeding ticket is necessary for the internet (though this clearly brings its own questionable enforcement questions).
- pc86 13y ago
  Everybody speeds. Not everybody even accesses Craigslist (eg) let alone accesses Craigslist after receiving explicit instruction they are no longer permitted to. I agree there should be a differentiation, but how? Hacking into BAML trying to steal money is obviously and should be a felony with harsh punishment. Scraping Craigslist is probably more benign, but you're still attempting to profit off the information obtained that you know the (supposed?) copyright-owner does not want you to access.
  - BWStearns 13y ago
    Hit them with copyright abuse then. Not every crime commissioned on a computer should be treated as a computer crime. Doing so functionally leads to double jeopardy on all manner of civil and criminal cases and the opportunity for excessively punitive sentencing and sanctions that are basically optional to apply. IANAL, but this seems to introduce an unacceptable degree of discretion in the law. As an example, if I send an extortion message via post, I get in trouble for extortion. If I do it via email should that be a computer crime as well? I guess it's up for debate since most everything is, but I feel comfortable enough to say clearly not.
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > Not every crime commissioned on a computer Commissioned? ITYM "committed". Yes?
      - BWStearns 13y ago
        <pedant> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/commission http://www.thefreedictionary.com/commission definition 3. </pedant>
justthetip 13y ago
Mask is a poor choice of words. It like saying you are banning me from taking a nissan sentra to your business. If I come back in a toyota corolla I've broken your law. What you really meant to say is that I am banned, not the car. Since you don't know who I am, you can't ban me...only the car. This law is stupid.
epo 13y ago
Why are people so obtuse? The IP has very little to do with anything. The IP ban was supplementary to a cease and desist. If 3Taps continued to attempt access via a non-banned IP after the cease and desist then they are in contempt of court. The attempt at bypassing the ban merely proves bad faith on 3Taps' part.
- IanDrake 13y ago
  >cease and desist then they are in contempt of court No. A cease and desist is a letter drafted by anyone asking someone to stop doing something. It's not a court order and the court is not involved in it, so you can't be held in contempt.
jetti 13y ago
Something that strikes me and is a bit tangential but this quote made me think of this: "The case in question, Craigslist vs. 3Taps, revolved around a copyright infringement claim by Craigslist against data gathering company" If Craiglists is claiming copyright on all content, wouldn't that make them solely responsible for all of that content? Wouldn't then the "safe harbor" that many online communities use not apply and wouldn't the illegal content that was/continues to be on Craigslist become Craigslist legal responsibility?
- IanDrake 13y ago
  >If Craiglists is claiming copyright on all content, wouldn't that make them solely responsible for all of that content? Yes, a million times yes. I've made this argument several times. However, this is no longer a copyright issue. Now we're just talking about access to their servers.
  - jetti 13y ago
    >However, this is no longer a copyright issue. Now we're just talking about access to their servers. I would disagree. The whole issue stems from a copyright issue. Without a copyright infringement claim you wouldn't get the cease & desist letter. Without that letter, you wouldn't have the specific situation which leads to this verdict.
    - sejje 13y ago
      Is this correct? Can't they send a C&D for violating their terms of use, which forbids accessing their servers with software? (On an aside, doesn't their terms of use disqualify access with a browser, or really any piece of software?)
      - IanDrake 13y ago
        >Is this correct? No, it's not. A C&D letter is a legal threat or warning. I could send you a C&D for sneezing too close to me. Having received a C&D letter myself from CL, I can assure you there are multiple issues they claim. You can find this C&D letter at DocStock. CFAA violations are one claim, copyright violations are another. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/76524735/Craigslist-Cease-and-Desist http://www.docstoc.com/docs/76524735/Craigslist-Cease-and-De...
beefxq 13y ago
The end of freedom.
RyanMcGreal 13y ago
And so the reach of the CFAA continues to creep outward, transforming more minor violations into felonies.
wil421 13y ago
At first it sounded like Craigslist was bullying someone but reading more into the article it seems that they had a valid reason to take them to court. They asked them to top multiple times, even resorting to blocking their IP block, and they still crafted deceiving ways to work around it. Although I feel Craigslist had a reasonable complaint, I do not like the precedence that this could set for further cases. This could set the stage for all kinds frivolous lawsuits.
- nitid_name 13y ago
  I thought 3tap get around the IP block by scraping the google cache?
IanDrake 13y ago
From 3Taps: https://3taps.com/images/pics/430_Statement%20Re%20craigslists%20Misuse%20of%20the%20CFAA.pdf https://3taps.com/images/pics/430_Statement%20Re%20craigslis... >3taps does not now scrape craigslist’s servers, and therefore, cannot be in violation of the CFAA This was my understanding of how their system works. CL (for their own benefit) allows other sites to index their content. 3Taps indexes from the cache of these sites, thus never touching CL's servers. Now as others have said, you got banned by walmart, now you're sending someone else to buy stuff for you...no more trespassing issues.
- sengstrom 13y ago
  Good extension of that analogy :) The real issue isn't scraping the data (which is very hard to prevent unless you put in some sort of access control), but what you do with it once you have it. This is where I can sympathize with CL's complaint. It comes down to ownership of the information in a particular listing and whether you can prove that it is yours or not.
gwu78 13y ago
I hope we see more discussion of the 3Taps case. The Order denying 3Taps Motion to Dismiss Craiglist's CFAA claims is an interesting read. Keep in mind this is not the final disposition of the CFAA claims. This is an order on a pre-trial motion. It just tells us the Court intends to consider those claims along with the others _if_ the case proceeds to trial. (There is always the possibility the case may not get there.) The Court vociferously rips through 3Taps' arguments for dismissing the CFAA claims. Anyone who is net savvy who has ever encountered the CFAA has no doubt pondered the problems in its vague, non-technical language and then in its (to no one's surprise) capricious application. The 3Taps case stands to be yet another example of the CFAA's flaws on parade. Do the Courts see gross deficiencies in the CFAA's language and how this can affect the CFAA's application? If yes, would they rather deal with them now or just leave them for another day? Consider what this Court says when faced with the question of what constitutes "without authorization" under the CFAA. Note this is when the computer in question is otherwise open to the public and lacks any access controls such as password protection or approved originating IP addresses: "To be sure, later cases may confront difficult questions concerning the precise contours of an effective 'revocation' of authorization to access a generally public website. This Court cannot and does not wade into that thicket, except to say that under the facts here, which include the use of a technological barrier to ban all access, 3Taps' deliberate decision to bypass that barrier and continue accessing the website constituted access 'without authorization' under the CFAA." A "thicket" indeed. And we shall let it grow. I often see the word thicket used to describe the problems with patents. And we all see how those problems have played out so far. Since access authorization and its revocation are apparently difficult standards to pin down in the computer context, just for fun, if you'll join me for a small thought experiment, I invite you to take a different angle and look at the CFAA in a "new" light. The second sentence of the Order defines the applicability of the CFAA in no uncertain terms: "The CFAA imposes civil and criminal liability on 'whoever... intentionally accesses a computer without authorization... and thereby obtains... information from any protected computer. 18 USC S.1030(a)(2)(c)." This is quite broad in scope. Anyone with an ounce of computer network savvy can see that. It's also very general in terms of who it protects. There's no mention of who the presumed victim might be. What if the protected party is an individual consumer? Might the CFAA protect individual persons, and not just entities like governments and companies? Let's assume the consumer has a computer. Let's further assume the computer stores information. Sound plausible so far? Let's further assume the consumer tries to protect the information on the computer. Still with me? OK, now let's assume that information has value to some third party. I don't want to limit the reaches of this thought experiment by giving examples (with which you might find fault), but in the case you just cannot fathom a scenario where a person wants to protect information stored on her computer: assume that some companies want access to her email address book or web browsing history and she would rather keep that information private. Finally, let's assume that the consumer wants to revoke the authorization of certain of these third parties to access the information, but the determined engineers employed by these third parties opt to bypass the barriers that the consumer puts up and obtain the information, perhaps by stealth.[1] Hopefully, if I've done a decent job, you can see the CFAA could, at least in theory, under this Court's very general statement of the law, be used by an individual to protect her information stored on her computer from companies who proceed to access it without her authorization, in addition to, as in the 3Taps case, protecting information of a company like Craigslist from competitors who wish to access CL's information without CL's authorization.[2][3] If not, pay no mind and resume your usual train of thought. Who wants to bet this case gets settled out of court? 1. You might ask how the consumer would go about revoking authorization. Does she need to send cease and desist letters? Maybe. Maybe not. I'd argue whatever she does it needs to be clear. 2. CL's protected information is of course information submitted by individual users. And see 3. 3. The weakness of CL's case, from a copyright infringement perspective, is, according to some commentators, that the information CL is seeking to protect is not created by CL but by users, who may or may not have transferred enforcement rights to CL. Here is another issue to consider: Did the drafters of the CFAA care whether the complainant has any rights to the protected information?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
signed0 13y ago
If this violates law, then surely ignoring robots.txt also violates the law. In this case website owners should be able to sue Cyveillance (Comcast outsourced copyright enforcement to them). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyveillance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyveillance
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  You would want to first take the stop of notifying Cyveillance that you had found they were ignoring your robots.txt and demanding that they stop doing so, or else face legal action. After that, yes, go for it.
burgreblast 13y ago
"Craigslist: the company that made IP address masking illegal." I hope Craig figures out how to unwind this. It would be a terrible legacy to have your good fame traded for bad. Who wants to be the big company that fought a startup so hard that it created new internet restrictions for the rest of us? I wish they had just bought 3taps and added the functionality.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Well, seeing as that's not what actually happened I think they don't need to worry about it.
graycat 13y ago
Yes, like the sun coming up in the morning, now that the Internet is important, the lawyers and lawyer legislators have goals. The candidates are, make the Internet faster, make it more secure, improve the quality of the content, lower the costs, improve access to it, write laws about it, bring legal cases about it, and tax it. May I have the envelope, please? The the winner is (drum roll), tax it. First runner up is write laws about it. And second runner up is bring legal cases about it. The way of the world. If a child has only a hammer, then each time they see something, they want to hit it. So, lawyers want to pass laws, raise taxes, and bring legal cases. Improve things? No. Be a leach on society? Yes. Here's the most astounding, incongruous thing of all: How did the Internet get so far without lawyers?
- NN88 13y ago
  Your point might even include the rise of the Dark Web...
- mindslight 13y ago
  I can only wonder at what doomsday scenario the lawlyers think would occur if this access wasn't a crime. Anything that could happen can already happen from foreign or anonymous addresses without recourse. I can only come to the conclusion that by not understanding or even shunning how the Internet works on a technical level, they can't appreciate that it actually already is just a system of rules. So they think it naturally needs to be "improved" with rules of the style they're used to working with (centrally dictated, overreaching, ill-specified, and inefficiently enforced).
  - graycat 13y ago
    Yes, nicely put. Since the only tool they have is a hammer, they see everything as a nail. And, as legislators, judges, prosecutors, and litigators, they like to see 'problems' everywhere; like some English major, and many lawyers were, who looks at formula fiction and sees good against evil, white hats against black hats, where the point of the story is for good to defeat evil and get the girl. Here as often elsewhere in our society, the lawyers should just go drink something sickening and just get the hack out of our lives, out of our way, and quit being dangerous, destructive leaches on the work of good and productive people. Time for a lawyer joke: Q. On the highway is a dead skunk and a dead lawyer. What is the difference? A. There are tire tracks ahead of the dead skunk. No one wants to run over a skunk; they are cute, sweet, harmless little animals and fun until threatened and turn and raise their tails. Lawyers, however, .... Lawyers, just quit causing trouble for normal, harmless people. Stop it. Please, just stop it. Go do something else. I'm putting this nicely. However, if I win a big bundle in the lottery, maybe I'll fund the ACLU, EFF, and even more aggressive legal organizations to go after any lawyers making trouble for harmless people, e.g., Aaron Swartz. Lawyers need some insight into people. Well, here's one: From grade school, high school, and college, it's not good to have everyone else in school think of you as worse than a rabid dog. And if people think of you this way, then there's nothing the school principal, teachers, and rules can do really to protect you. Instead, you can get hit in the back on the playground, on the way home find some tough, angry kids who don't like you, never get invited to parties, lose your homework and find it in the toilet, etc. Adults don't do such things, but the feelings can be the same and still you can be ostracized, rejected, hated, pushed out, scorned, avoided, friendless, etc. Really, you can be alone and learn what essentially every baby mammal knows from birth -- it's not good to be alone. Net, again, once again, either be hated or just quit, stop it, hurting harmless people. Dutch uncle advice. Word to the wise. I know; I know; in law school you were proud to be taught how to "think like a lawyer". Now, out in the real world with normal humans, you need to learn again how to think like a human. Again, yet again, just for you, quit hurting harmless people; this advice is good for both the harmless people and you. Are you getting this? Got it? Right, you noticed that this is not a legal issue. Right; in strong contradiction to what you learned in law school, not everything in life is a legal issue. Beginning to understand now?
MarcScott 13y ago
A prime example of when HN should allow titles to be editorialised.
NN88 13y ago
Is that...TOR?
gnicholas 13y ago
Great legal analysis on Volokh Conspiracy: http://www.volokh.com/2013/08/18/district-court-holds-that-intentionally-circumventing-ip-address-block-is-unauthorized-access-under-the-cfaa/ http://www.volokh.com/2013/08/18/district-court-holds-that-i...
andyidsinga 13y ago
hypothetically, lets say someone shares a link to a online newspaper article with me. I click through and encounter a pay-wall. knowing how these things often work, i simply google the title of the article, then go into the same article via the search results, get in and have thus successfully avoided the pay-wall. have i run afoul of the law?

138 points by tanglesome 13y ago

TL;DR: "this is a decision applying only to a narrow, specific circumstance." - Craigslist sent a legally valid cease & desist letter to 3taps, explicitly revoking their default-allowed access. 3taps changed their IP and continued scraping -- it's the ignoring of the cease & desist that's the problem; that they did so by changing IP is just a technical detail.

grecy 13y ago
> Craigslist sent a legally valid cease & desist letter to 3taps, explicitly revoking their default-allowed access. I can have a site on the public internet and ban certain people from visiting it, then enforce that in court if they do? That seems... strange.
- kd5bjo 13y ago
  Just like you can have a store on the public street but ban certain people from visiting it, yes.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- yebyen 13y ago
  You can have and enforce a terms-of-service agreement for users without strongly and strictly identifying every user at every moment. You can enforce copyright on a dataset from a database through the courts. You do not have to allow every use just because you have allowed a certain use. These things should not be surprising. EDIT: I googled it because I could smell the wrong in my statement, it's not called copyright it's called "database right" because a compilation of facts is not a creative work. Still the right is real regardless of the distinction. EDIT2: CraigsList is a US company and apparently if you read deeper into the WikiPedia article, US copyrights do not respect databases and so it's not a real thing. Sorry for muddying the waters, but it doesn't change that service providers can have terms of service irrespective of how strongly they work to identify and segregate their users.
- alayne 13y ago
  Why don't you try scraping book reviews from Amazon onto your own website and see what happens?
  - japhyr 13y ago
    Is it about visiting and scraping the site, or what they do with the content they scrape?
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      Both. CL wanted them to stop scraping their site because they were republishing content without CL's explicit permission.
      - sejje 13y ago
        What if they weren't republishing the data? I believe it's against TOS to scrape at all. Presume they were scraping the data to /dev/null, would that still be an issue? Further, aren't some things INTENDED to be scraped? Like their RSS feeds?
        res0nat0r 13y ago
        I believe all of that is against the law after they were specifically told not to via a C&D.
  - RyanMcGreal 13y ago
    You're conflating violating copyright with committing a crime under the CFAA. Then again, the Obama administration wants to make it a felony to stream compyrighted material, so maybe the conflation isn't so outrageous after all.
- bmelton 13y ago
  That seems perfectly in line with existing property rights. If I have a house and certain people are visiting it against my will, then I have legal recourse to prevent them from doing so. That it's digital doesn't really change the fact that, at the least, what 3taps was doing maps to trespassing. (Theft, at the worst, but I'm wary of invoking the 'copying isn't theft' mantra).
  - enry_straker 13y ago
    If you have a house, then it's your responsibility to have doors with locks and windows which are closed. You cannot have a house in a public space accessible worldwide, without doors or windows, and then randomly get to decide who can and can't visit, and have it enforced by courts.
    - bmelton 13y ago
      If you have property, and the house is on that property, then yes, you can. If I build my house in the public commons, on property that I do not own or lease, then I haven't any property rights as a homefront, and the relationship is more akin to one of a storefront than a home. If we're extrapolating from commercial property rights, then again, stores and merchants have the right to refuse entry to persons they choose as well, even though those buildings are in common areas, and their doors are commonly unlocked to allow free entry to all. Further, it is not incumbent upon you to have doors, windows and locks to prevent entry from your property, as the property needn't be a house at all, but could simply be land. I have the right to expel trespassers from land I own, whether or not any dwellings or structures exist upon such property. Even if you're assertion is just that I should have doors and locks to prevent them entering just my home, that is again a false claim. Whether or not my property is secure might be a matter of insurance liability, but does not obviate me from the expectation that others will respect my property rights. Even if I have no doors, windows, locks, or even walls, I have the right to expel others from my property.
    - DannyBee 13y ago
      "If you have a house, then it's your responsibility to have doors with locks and windows which are closed." Legally, it isn't. "You cannot have a house in a public space accessible worldwide, without doors or windows, and then randomly get to decide who can and can't visit, and have it enforced by courts. " Completely and totally false. Trespass to land, in fact, doesn't even require that you intend to trespass, only that you voluntarily traveled to the location. You do not need to know it's someone else's property or that you are trespassing to be liable. Getting injunctive relief is more difficult for other reasons, but you would at least get nominal damages. I think you will find trespass to land doctrines are not in your favor in this argument. You may want to try to argue it isn't like land at all :)
- AlisdairSH 13y ago
  I view it much like a bar owner. The bar is default-open to any patron. But, if a patron gets drunk and makes a scene, they can be asked to leave. If that patron sneaks around back and climbs in through an open window, they are trespassing. The actual legal details may be different, but that's how I see this case.
  - atmosx 13y ago
    That's a bit naive: If that's the case, then you need to put a user/password. Having a website on the internet is like shouting on a public square: it's main function is to be accessible world-wide (or internet-wide). So if you "shout" on a public square (blog, post, etc.) you can't tell which group of people can and can not hear what you say. The bar example would be fit for websites that raise paywalls, or some sort of access control. That's idiotic, it's just another case where the judge is 20 years behind current affairs, he is judging something he clearly doesn't understand.
    - processcontrol 13y ago
      Having a website is not at all like 'shouting on a public square' and is exactly like having a bar open to the public. Craigslist told a patron they couldn't come in any more. The patron put on a fake mustache and tried to come in the back door. Would you support someone scraping a blog to repost it elsewhere? Do you support crawlers that don't respect robots.txt? I don't see a problem with Craigslist saying 'No, you can't scrape our users content to post on your website'. The exact details of which laws and how the court case went may not be correct, but at a theoretical level the website as open-to-public bar/store/etc is a perfectly valid analogy.
      - sejje 13y ago
        And what makes it hilarious is that the fake moustache is seemingly illegal.
        Helianthus 13y ago
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  It seems...normal. Same way you can have a store on the public street and ban certain people from visiting it, then enforce that in court if they do.
- jemfinch 13y ago
  You can have a house or a business on a public street and ban certain people from visiting it as well. Why does it seem strange that the same law applies online?
  - devcpp 13y ago
    I have always considered websites to be comparable to public shops. Any "client" can enter and profit from a "[web] service" given by a "server", so it seems much more fitting than a private house or office, which would be comparable to the backend, itself off limits in most cases. And in most cases, in the areas I've lived in, you have no right to refuse service to "certain people". So, yes, this seems just as bad as a baker who would refuse a certain subset of people from even entering his shop.
    - ori_b 13y ago
      Just about any store in the USA can ban customers for non-discriminatory reasons. For example, if you go to a restaurant, start swearing at the servers, throwing your food, and misbehaving, you'll quickly find yourself banned from the location. I think it varies by state, but as long as the banning isn't because you're part of a protected class[1], a private establishment can refuse service for any reason it sees fit, including none at all. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
      - devcpp 13y ago
        Ah, yes, that's what I meant by most cases. If you establish rules that do not discard a class of the population, then it's very much acceptable to reject those who infringe them, in my opinion. In any case, I was just correcting your analogy, not your premise.
      - baddox 13y ago
        Right, and banning a customer from a store is equivalent to a computer denying a request from a remote client. But in this case, the computer didn't deny the request.
nanomage 13y ago
This kind of thing used to happen with map makers, for 1000 years. Their solution was to make random small inaccuracies so they could detect when their maps were being stolen. Additionally, Google has been doing this to small start ups in 3rd world countries for years. This was an over produced decision, that should have been left to dealing with ignoring the cease and desist letter, instead of setting a president for banning VPNs and proxies, potentially.
Zuider 13y ago
I think you may be mistaken on this. Craigslist specifically argued that masking their IP address to bypass blocking "violated the CFAA and Penal Code § 502" and District Judge Charles Breyer agreed.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Yes - because 3taps had already been given proper legal notice in the form of a C&D letter (which was CL's right to issue as a property owner), and 3taps knew that it was no longer welcome to access CL.
gwu78 13y ago
You could say it's even more narrow than that. It only applies to these two parties and this particular case. While it might be informative with respect to what and how this particular judge thinks, it's merely a decision on a pre-trial motion and provides no precedent that other parties could cite in future CFAA cases.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Karunamon 13y ago

On one hand, if a site has taken technical measures to keep you out, you have no right to be there and deserve some kind of punishment for circumventing it. On the other hand, the fact that this punishment is a felony record is just a little bit pathetic (c.f. Aaron Swartz). You don't get in that much trouble for trespassing IRL.

justthetip 13y ago
I know what you mean, everyone else knows what you mean. The problem I have is that this decision as written is very poorly worded and therefore has no business being law.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  I know what he means, but that doesn't alter the fact that he's wrong.
Delenda 13y ago
So many people seem to miss this point! Regular meatspace trespassing already has laws surrounding it. Laws that don't destroy your life. Step back into a store you're banned from in disguise and get caught? You're not faced with losing your ability to vote, no chances to acquire work, hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, decades of jail time, etc. Felony charges ruin lives, and shouldn't be just lightly sprinkled into otherwise mundane cases like these.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  I think you are stretching things a bit. Having a felony record is not the death sentence you make it out to be. Felony Disenfranchisement[1] (aka "losing voting rights") isn't really that much of a thing anymore (at least in the US). Outside of the banking industry, lots and lots of places don't care too much about a felony anymore. Some of them don't even ask you to divulge that info if it was x-years ago. And as far as hundreds of millions of dollars in debt... that would depend entirely on what sort of restitution you need to pay and how much your lawyer charges... but hundreds of millions of dollars is extremely high. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Unite...

parfe 13y ago

This is pretty much an analog of how trespassing in a public accommodation, such as Walmart, works. You're welcome until someone tells you otherwise. You can't legally go back in just because you changed your shirt and put on a hat.

eli 13y ago
As the article explains, the concern is that they violated a law originally designed to prevent malicious "hacking" and that carries penalties that may be stronger than are warranted for something that's a lot closer to trespassing. If you scroll past the first few pages, you can read the EFF explain in detail why this is a problem http://ia601209.us.archive.org/33/items/gov.uscourts.cand.257395/gov.uscourts.cand.257395.92.1.pdf http://ia601209.us.archive.org/33/items/gov.uscourts.cand.25...
- mpyne 13y ago
  I don't think anyone disagrees that CFAA reform is needed. But this doesn't show a misapplication of the law as it's currently written, either.
gcb0 13y ago
Actually it's just so. They say "no shirt no service". You show up with a shirt and get service. You get blocked from one ip, you show up from another you get service.
- epo 13y ago
  You didn't understand what he wrote did you?
- saraid216 13y ago
  > They say "no shirt no service". You show up with a shirt and get service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent
Delenda 13y ago

asolove 13y ago

"US court rules opening a door violates law" (... if you were ordered not to come onto someone's private property)

tomorgan 13y ago

and that, kids, is why making APIs is so darn important!

themodelplumber 13y ago

I'm just beginning to learn about scraping--how common is it for companies (even those with junk APIs or none at all) to take these sorts of actions against scrapers?

eli 13y ago
Probably most don't care, but it really depends on what you're scraping and who owns it. If the data is central to someone's business (e.g. Ticketmaster, airlines, or anything you had pay to access), I'd tread real carefully.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  In Europe there are database rights to consider too.
  - eli 13y ago
    Possibly in the US too. But that's almost beside the point: being sued kinda sucks even if you prevail.

tsaoutourpants 13y ago

Great, so now if I put a notice that no government employees are allowed to use my Web site, and they do anyway, I can sue them? :)

jetti 13y ago
This reminds me of all of the notices about the quoted the CFAA and amendments Bill Clinton signed into law in '96 that people had as txt files on their hard drives when using Soulseek. It said just that, if you are a government employee you are barred from accessing my files per the CFAA. I never thought it would actually hold water, but it seems it potentially could.
qnr 13y ago
My first thought when reading the article was to prohibit RIAA and MPAA from visiting torrent trackers etc. You can even preemptively send them a C&D letter in pretty legalese.
- gwu78 13y ago
  If these servers used IP block lists and sent cease and desist letters to an organization on the list that they believed bypassed the restrictions and accessed the server anyway (how would they prove that?), and it turns out there is no evidence of contributing to copyright infringement, then would the server owners have a claim under the CFAA? The interpretation of the CFAA in this Order only applies to the facts of the 3Taps case, but assuming this case actually went to trial and in its decision the Court parroted what it has said already regarding the validity of CL's CFAA claims, then it one could at least argue that _any_ computer owner should be entitled to enjoy the protections of the CFAA against unauthorized access to that computer, in order to protect all information that through such access can be obtained. I hope others besides you and I will give this idea some more thought.

BWStearns 13y ago

Perhaps we need a bifurcation of US computer law to divide malicious hacking from more benign misuse like this case. It seems a bit absurd that a major bank hack should be prosecuted under the same law as unauthorized webscraping. Perhaps a civil misuse akin to a speeding ticket is necessary for the internet (though this clearly brings its own questionable enforcement questions).

pc86 13y ago
Everybody speeds. Not everybody even accesses Craigslist (eg) let alone accesses Craigslist after receiving explicit instruction they are no longer permitted to. I agree there should be a differentiation, but how? Hacking into BAML trying to steal money is obviously and should be a felony with harsh punishment. Scraping Craigslist is probably more benign, but you're still attempting to profit off the information obtained that you know the (supposed?) copyright-owner does not want you to access.
- BWStearns 13y ago
  Hit them with copyright abuse then. Not every crime commissioned on a computer should be treated as a computer crime. Doing so functionally leads to double jeopardy on all manner of civil and criminal cases and the opportunity for excessively punitive sentencing and sanctions that are basically optional to apply. IANAL, but this seems to introduce an unacceptable degree of discretion in the law. As an example, if I send an extortion message via post, I get in trouble for extortion. If I do it via email should that be a computer crime as well? I guess it's up for debate since most everything is, but I feel comfortable enough to say clearly not.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > Not every crime commissioned on a computer Commissioned? ITYM "committed". Yes?
    - BWStearns 13y ago
      <pedant> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/commission http://www.thefreedictionary.com/commission definition 3. </pedant>

justthetip 13y ago

Mask is a poor choice of words. It like saying you are banning me from taking a nissan sentra to your business. If I come back in a toyota corolla I've broken your law. What you really meant to say is that I am banned, not the car. Since you don't know who I am, you can't ban me...only the car. This law is stupid.

epo 13y ago

Why are people so obtuse? The IP has very little to do with anything. The IP ban was supplementary to a cease and desist. If 3Taps continued to attempt access via a non-banned IP after the cease and desist then they are in contempt of court. The attempt at bypassing the ban merely proves bad faith on 3Taps' part.

IanDrake 13y ago
>cease and desist then they are in contempt of court No. A cease and desist is a letter drafted by anyone asking someone to stop doing something. It's not a court order and the court is not involved in it, so you can't be held in contempt.

jetti 13y ago

Something that strikes me and is a bit tangential but this quote made me think of this: "The case in question, Craigslist vs. 3Taps, revolved around a copyright infringement claim by Craigslist against data gathering company" If Craiglists is claiming copyright on all content, wouldn't that make them solely responsible for all of that content? Wouldn't then the "safe harbor" that many online communities use not apply and wouldn't the illegal content that was/continues to be on Craigslist become Craigslist legal responsibility?

IanDrake 13y ago
>If Craiglists is claiming copyright on all content, wouldn't that make them solely responsible for all of that content? Yes, a million times yes. I've made this argument several times. However, this is no longer a copyright issue. Now we're just talking about access to their servers.
- jetti 13y ago
  >However, this is no longer a copyright issue. Now we're just talking about access to their servers. I would disagree. The whole issue stems from a copyright issue. Without a copyright infringement claim you wouldn't get the cease & desist letter. Without that letter, you wouldn't have the specific situation which leads to this verdict.
  - sejje 13y ago
    Is this correct? Can't they send a C&D for violating their terms of use, which forbids accessing their servers with software? (On an aside, doesn't their terms of use disqualify access with a browser, or really any piece of software?)
    - IanDrake 13y ago
      >Is this correct? No, it's not. A C&D letter is a legal threat or warning. I could send you a C&D for sneezing too close to me. Having received a C&D letter myself from CL, I can assure you there are multiple issues they claim. You can find this C&D letter at DocStock. CFAA violations are one claim, copyright violations are another. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/76524735/Craigslist-Cease-and-Desist http://www.docstoc.com/docs/76524735/Craigslist-Cease-and-De...

beefxq 13y ago

The end of freedom.

RyanMcGreal 13y ago

And so the reach of the CFAA continues to creep outward, transforming more minor violations into felonies.

wil421 13y ago

At first it sounded like Craigslist was bullying someone but reading more into the article it seems that they had a valid reason to take them to court. They asked them to top multiple times, even resorting to blocking their IP block, and they still crafted deceiving ways to work around it. Although I feel Craigslist had a reasonable complaint, I do not like the precedence that this could set for further cases. This could set the stage for all kinds frivolous lawsuits.

nitid_name 13y ago
I thought 3tap get around the IP block by scraping the google cache?

IanDrake 13y ago

From 3Taps: https://3taps.com/images/pics/430_Statement%20Re%20craigslists%20Misuse%20of%20the%20CFAA.pdf https://3taps.com/images/pics/430_Statement%20Re%20craigslis... >3taps does not now scrape craigslist’s servers, and therefore, cannot be in violation of the CFAA This was my understanding of how their system works. CL (for their own benefit) allows other sites to index their content. 3Taps indexes from the cache of these sites, thus never touching CL's servers. Now as others have said, you got banned by walmart, now you're sending someone else to buy stuff for you...no more trespassing issues.

sengstrom 13y ago
Good extension of that analogy :) The real issue isn't scraping the data (which is very hard to prevent unless you put in some sort of access control), but what you do with it once you have it. This is where I can sympathize with CL's complaint. It comes down to ownership of the information in a particular listing and whether you can prove that it is yours or not.

gwu78 13y ago

I hope we see more discussion of the 3Taps case. The Order denying 3Taps Motion to Dismiss Craiglist's CFAA claims is an interesting read. Keep in mind this is not the final disposition of the CFAA claims. This is an order on a pre-trial motion. It just tells us the Court intends to consider those claims along with the others _if_ the case proceeds to trial. (There is always the possibility the case may not get there.) The Court vociferously rips through 3Taps' arguments for dismissing the CFAA claims. Anyone who is net savvy who has ever encountered the CFAA has no doubt pondered the problems in its vague, non-technical language and then in its (to no one's surprise) capricious application. The 3Taps case stands to be yet another example of the CFAA's flaws on parade. Do the Courts see gross deficiencies in the CFAA's language and how this can affect the CFAA's application? If yes, would they rather deal with them now or just leave them for another day? Consider what this Court says when faced with the question of what constitutes "without authorization" under the CFAA. Note this is when the computer in question is otherwise open to the public and lacks any access controls such as password protection or approved originating IP addresses: "To be sure, later cases may confront difficult questions concerning the precise contours of an effective 'revocation' of authorization to access a generally public website. This Court cannot and does not wade into that thicket, except to say that under the facts here, which include the use of a technological barrier to ban all access, 3Taps' deliberate decision to bypass that barrier and continue accessing the website constituted access 'without authorization' under the CFAA." A "thicket" indeed. And we shall let it grow. I often see the word thicket used to describe the problems with patents. And we all see how those problems have played out so far. Since access authorization and its revocation are apparently difficult standards to pin down in the computer context, just for fun, if you'll join me for a small thought experiment, I invite you to take a different angle and look at the CFAA in a "new" light. The second sentence of the Order defines the applicability of the CFAA in no uncertain terms: "The CFAA imposes civil and criminal liability on 'whoever... intentionally accesses a computer without authorization... and thereby obtains... information from any protected computer. 18 USC S.1030(a)(2)(c)." This is quite broad in scope. Anyone with an ounce of computer network savvy can see that. It's also very general in terms of who it protects. There's no mention of who the presumed victim might be. What if the protected party is an individual consumer? Might the CFAA protect individual persons, and not just entities like governments and companies? Let's assume the consumer has a computer. Let's further assume the computer stores information. Sound plausible so far? Let's further assume the consumer tries to protect the information on the computer. Still with me? OK, now let's assume that information has value to some third party. I don't want to limit the reaches of this thought experiment by giving examples (with which you might find fault), but in the case you just cannot fathom a scenario where a person wants to protect information stored on her computer: assume that some companies want access to her email address book or web browsing history and she would rather keep that information private. Finally, let's assume that the consumer wants to revoke the authorization of certain of these third parties to access the information, but the determined engineers employed by these third parties opt to bypass the barriers that the consumer puts up and obtain the information, perhaps by stealth.[1] Hopefully, if I've done a decent job, you can see the CFAA could, at least in theory, under this Court's very general statement of the law, be used by an individual to protect her information stored on her computer from companies who proceed to access it without her authorization, in addition to, as in the 3Taps case, protecting information of a company like Craigslist from competitors who wish to access CL's information without CL's authorization.[2][3] If not, pay no mind and resume your usual train of thought. Who wants to bet this case gets settled out of court? 1. You might ask how the consumer would go about revoking authorization. Does she need to send cease and desist letters? Maybe. Maybe not. I'd argue whatever she does it needs to be clear. 2. CL's protected information is of course information submitted by individual users. And see 3. 3. The weakness of CL's case, from a copyright infringement perspective, is, according to some commentators, that the information CL is seeking to protect is not created by CL but by users, who may or may not have transferred enforcement rights to CL. Here is another issue to consider: Did the drafters of the CFAA care whether the complainant has any rights to the protected information?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

signed0 13y ago

If this violates law, then surely ignoring robots.txt also violates the law. In this case website owners should be able to sue Cyveillance (Comcast outsourced copyright enforcement to them). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyveillance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyveillance

anigbrowl 13y ago
You would want to first take the stop of notifying Cyveillance that you had found they were ignoring your robots.txt and demanding that they stop doing so, or else face legal action. After that, yes, go for it.

burgreblast 13y ago

"Craigslist: the company that made IP address masking illegal." I hope Craig figures out how to unwind this. It would be a terrible legacy to have your good fame traded for bad. Who wants to be the big company that fought a startup so hard that it created new internet restrictions for the rest of us? I wish they had just bought 3taps and added the functionality.

anigbrowl 13y ago
Well, seeing as that's not what actually happened I think they don't need to worry about it.

graycat 13y ago

Yes, like the sun coming up in the morning, now that the Internet is important, the lawyers and lawyer legislators have goals. The candidates are, make the Internet faster, make it more secure, improve the quality of the content, lower the costs, improve access to it, write laws about it, bring legal cases about it, and tax it. May I have the envelope, please? The the winner is (drum roll), tax it. First runner up is write laws about it. And second runner up is bring legal cases about it. The way of the world. If a child has only a hammer, then each time they see something, they want to hit it. So, lawyers want to pass laws, raise taxes, and bring legal cases. Improve things? No. Be a leach on society? Yes. Here's the most astounding, incongruous thing of all: How did the Internet get so far without lawyers?

NN88 13y ago
Your point might even include the rise of the Dark Web...
mindslight 13y ago
I can only wonder at what doomsday scenario the lawlyers think would occur if this access wasn't a crime. Anything that could happen can already happen from foreign or anonymous addresses without recourse. I can only come to the conclusion that by not understanding or even shunning how the Internet works on a technical level, they can't appreciate that it actually already is just a system of rules. So they think it naturally needs to be "improved" with rules of the style they're used to working with (centrally dictated, overreaching, ill-specified, and inefficiently enforced).
- graycat 13y ago
  Yes, nicely put. Since the only tool they have is a hammer, they see everything as a nail. And, as legislators, judges, prosecutors, and litigators, they like to see 'problems' everywhere; like some English major, and many lawyers were, who looks at formula fiction and sees good against evil, white hats against black hats, where the point of the story is for good to defeat evil and get the girl. Here as often elsewhere in our society, the lawyers should just go drink something sickening and just get the hack out of our lives, out of our way, and quit being dangerous, destructive leaches on the work of good and productive people. Time for a lawyer joke: Q. On the highway is a dead skunk and a dead lawyer. What is the difference? A. There are tire tracks ahead of the dead skunk. No one wants to run over a skunk; they are cute, sweet, harmless little animals and fun until threatened and turn and raise their tails. Lawyers, however, .... Lawyers, just quit causing trouble for normal, harmless people. Stop it. Please, just stop it. Go do something else. I'm putting this nicely. However, if I win a big bundle in the lottery, maybe I'll fund the ACLU, EFF, and even more aggressive legal organizations to go after any lawyers making trouble for harmless people, e.g., Aaron Swartz. Lawyers need some insight into people. Well, here's one: From grade school, high school, and college, it's not good to have everyone else in school think of you as worse than a rabid dog. And if people think of you this way, then there's nothing the school principal, teachers, and rules can do really to protect you. Instead, you can get hit in the back on the playground, on the way home find some tough, angry kids who don't like you, never get invited to parties, lose your homework and find it in the toilet, etc. Adults don't do such things, but the feelings can be the same and still you can be ostracized, rejected, hated, pushed out, scorned, avoided, friendless, etc. Really, you can be alone and learn what essentially every baby mammal knows from birth -- it's not good to be alone. Net, again, once again, either be hated or just quit, stop it, hurting harmless people. Dutch uncle advice. Word to the wise. I know; I know; in law school you were proud to be taught how to "think like a lawyer". Now, out in the real world with normal humans, you need to learn again how to think like a human. Again, yet again, just for you, quit hurting harmless people; this advice is good for both the harmless people and you. Are you getting this? Got it? Right, you noticed that this is not a legal issue. Right; in strong contradiction to what you learned in law school, not everything in life is a legal issue. Beginning to understand now?

MarcScott 13y ago

A prime example of when HN should allow titles to be editorialised.

NN88 13y ago

Is that...TOR?

gnicholas 13y ago

Great legal analysis on Volokh Conspiracy: http://www.volokh.com/2013/08/18/district-court-holds-that-intentionally-circumventing-ip-address-block-is-unauthorized-access-under-the-cfaa/ http://www.volokh.com/2013/08/18/district-court-holds-that-i...

andyidsinga 13y ago

hypothetically, lets say someone shares a link to a online newspaper article with me. I click through and encounter a pay-wall. knowing how these things often work, i simply google the title of the article, then go into the same article via the search results, get in and have thus successfully avoided the pay-wall. have i run afoul of the law?