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This has been long time coming. These days if a student or young person does what Steve Jobs (phone device) or Bill Gates (exploiting bugs for more Computer tim

This has been long time coming. These days if a student or young person does what Steve Jobs (phone device) or Bill Gates (exploiting bugs for more Computer time) did and got away with, they face lawsuits and decades in Jail. It is up to Universities like MIT to aggressively intervene in these cases and ensure that young people are free to (some extent) break systems and exploit system weaknesses in the interest of learning. MIT did the opposite in the Aaron Shwartz case, their conduct was in large part responsible for Ortiz & Heyman getting Aaron over a barrel of 30 years in the pokey. They miserably failed in their moral obligations in that case - and the time is long past for changes to this policy.

rayiner 13y ago
The world in which Jobs and Gates grew up was very different, one in which computers didn't play as vital a role in everyday life, and compromising a computer system could cause less in the way of damage, simply because people did not rely on them as heavily. In our modern world, saying that young people should be free to break and exploit systems has very different implications. We do not tolerate young people "learning" how to pick locks by breaking into peoples' homes, and we certainly don't argue that universities have a moral obligation to support such "learning." So why should it be different in the digital world? There was a time maybe when we tolerated that because you could do a lot less damage breaking into a computer than breaking into a house, but that time is long gone.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Be careful what you wish for. History has shown that countries which are free to think will eventually outthink those that aren't. And what you're arguing for is restriction of thought.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    You're free to think whatever you want. This is about interfering with other peoples' property. Personally, I think people over-romanticize hacker culture in saying it's a key part of technological progress. Scientific advancement is a process that overwhelmingly happens purposefully, not through tinkering. It's DARPA funding defense contractors to invent TCP/IP, not some kids "learning" by breaking into other peoples' property. The stuff Bill and Steve did--they did it because they were smart kids and could get away with it. But saying it was a necessary component of their future success is just romanticization.
    - wolfgke 13y ago
      > Personally, I think people over-romanticize hacker culture in saying it's a key part of technological progress. Scientific advancement is a process that overwhelmingly happens purposefully, not through tinkering. It's DARPA funding defense contractors to invent TCP/IP, not some kids "learning" by breaking into other peoples' property. It's hacker culture that created GNU/Linux (and lots of other free software), not DARPA's funding.
      - tsotha 13y ago
        Based entirely on work done by professionals at AT&T. Color me unimpressed.
    - angersock 13y ago
      "Scientific advancement is a process that overwhelmingly happens purposefully, not through tinkering." Tinkering is exactly what got us Linux, what got us Unix, and what got us radio communication and x-rays. So, no, I do believe you are mistaken.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        Linux isn't a great example of scientific advancement, being a clone of UNIX. UNIX was the product of a commercial research lab. BSD was the product of an academic research lab. I'm not sure who you're referring to with radios and Xrays, but those were discovered in a very different time. A lot of those folks were professors and today would be doing funded work at universities.
        sillysaurus3 13y ago
        The important advancements in the recent modern world haven't really been scientific in the traditional sense of "scientific advancement." The advancements of the last decade are more like engineering than pure scientific discovery. Under that definition, Linux certainly qualifies, because it's a major feat of engineering regardless of its roots in Unix. Would you mind giving your thoughts on http://paulgraham.com/america.html http://paulgraham.com/america.html ? Specifically, point #7: If there are any laws regulating businesses, you can assume larval startups will break most of them, because they don't know what the laws are and don't have time to find out. For example, many startups in America begin in places where it's not really legal to run a business. Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and Google were all run out of garages. Many more startups, including ours, were initially run out of apartments. If the laws against such things were actually enforced, most startups wouldn't happen. That could be a problem in fussier countries. If Hewlett and Packard tried running an electronics company out of their garage in Switzerland, the old lady next door would report them to the municipal authorities. The reason I responded the way I did is because you seem to be arguing for a docile population, which to anyone who has studied history is a recipe for disaster.
- DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
  I'd say a university should support students learning to pick locks by ignoring (as long as no particular damage was caused) them using campus locks for practice.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  We do not tolerate young people "learning" how to pick locks by breaking into peoples' homes... "Due to the top secret nature of the work, Los Alamos was isolated. In Feynman's own words, 'There wasn't anything to do there'. Bored, he indulged his curiosity by learning to pick the combination locks on cabinets and desks used to secure papers." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Manhattan_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Manhattan_...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tzs 13y ago
> MIT did the opposite in the Aaron Shwartz case, their conduct was in large part responsible for Ortiz & Heyman getting Aaron over a barrel of 30 years in the pokey Swartz was, if he rejected the plea bargain that would have given him a few months at most and went to trial and lost on all charges, looking at around 7 years at the extreme outside, tops, not 30. If you would like the detail on why this is so, take a look at any of the dozens of prior discussion of the Swartz case here, since this has been explained in great detail in nearly every one of them.
- marvin 13y ago
  This does nothing to address suprgeek's point: Excessive prosecution has a chilling effect on technological exploration and entrepeneurship.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  Uh huh, but the prosecutor threatened him with 30 to try and scare him into bargaining, and Swartz apparently believed him, so I'm not sure what your point is.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    This is also totally false. Any competent attorney understands how charges group under federal sentencing law; not only was he not facing a 30 year sentence, he could not face a 30 year sentence. Swartz had competent legal representation from the jump. His counsel at the time of his suicide wrote in a postmortem on the case that he believed Swartz stood little chance of any custodial sentence, even were he to be convicted. It's not hard to see why: the sentencing guidelines for first-time offenders of non-remunerative CFAA offenses aren't very demanding. Swartz was likely to be ruined by the cost of defending a complex federal charge, faced the prospect of potentially spending months in federal prison, and an overall likelihood of the whole incident concluding with a felony conviction on his record, which may have been problematic for his future endeavors. He was oppressed by his prosecution in a variety of ways. It's unnecessary to manufacture new ways.
    - 13y ago
tsotha 13y ago
>This has been long time coming. These days if a student or young person does what Steve Jobs (phone device) or Bill Gates (exploiting bugs for more Computer time) did and got away with, they face lawsuits and decades in Jail. Jobs didn't avoid jail because times were more permissive. He stayed out of jail because he didn't get caught. People went to jail for phone phreaking. >It is up to Universities like MIT to aggressively intervene in these cases and ensure that young people are free to (some extent) break systems and exploit system weaknesses in the interest of learning. I don't understand how anyone could come to this conclusion. Students breaking the law should be expelled, not coddled.
- asdfologist 13y ago
  So by your reasoning, students caught smoking marijuana should be expelled? What about people like Edward Snowden? Should he have gotten the Aaron Swartz treatment too if he were at MIT? Right, because all laws are just.
  - tsotha 13y ago
    >So by your reasoning, students caught smoking marijuana should be expelled? Depends. If it's a felony where you are, then yes. >What about people like Edward Snowden? What about him? If the feds ever catch up with Snowden he'll go to jail, and that's where he belongs. >Should he have gotten the Aaron Swartz treatment too if he were at MIT? Right, because all laws are just. Justice is a subjective thing, and that's why legislatures write the laws. If you're going to have the rule of law you have the rule of law. The upside is people in power have to obey the laws just like everyone else. The downside is everyone else has to obey the laws too.
    - woofuls 13y ago
      You shouldn't put so much faith into our system. Your theoretical model for how the system works falls short of reality. If you truly think the law is applied equally among all, you need to do some serious research. The powerful among us don't have to obey the laws like everyone else. Finally, it isn't the powerless among us writing or influencing those who do write the laws.

rayiner 13y ago

The world in which Jobs and Gates grew up was very different, one in which computers didn't play as vital a role in everyday life, and compromising a computer system could cause less in the way of damage, simply because people did not rely on them as heavily. In our modern world, saying that young people should be free to break and exploit systems has very different implications. We do not tolerate young people "learning" how to pick locks by breaking into peoples' homes, and we certainly don't argue that universities have a moral obligation to support such "learning." So why should it be different in the digital world? There was a time maybe when we tolerated that because you could do a lot less damage breaking into a computer than breaking into a house, but that time is long gone.

sillysaurus3 13y ago
Be careful what you wish for. History has shown that countries which are free to think will eventually outthink those that aren't. And what you're arguing for is restriction of thought.
- rayiner 13y ago
  You're free to think whatever you want. This is about interfering with other peoples' property. Personally, I think people over-romanticize hacker culture in saying it's a key part of technological progress. Scientific advancement is a process that overwhelmingly happens purposefully, not through tinkering. It's DARPA funding defense contractors to invent TCP/IP, not some kids "learning" by breaking into other peoples' property. The stuff Bill and Steve did--they did it because they were smart kids and could get away with it. But saying it was a necessary component of their future success is just romanticization.
  - wolfgke 13y ago
    > Personally, I think people over-romanticize hacker culture in saying it's a key part of technological progress. Scientific advancement is a process that overwhelmingly happens purposefully, not through tinkering. It's DARPA funding defense contractors to invent TCP/IP, not some kids "learning" by breaking into other peoples' property. It's hacker culture that created GNU/Linux (and lots of other free software), not DARPA's funding.
    - tsotha 13y ago
      Based entirely on work done by professionals at AT&T. Color me unimpressed.
  - angersock 13y ago
    "Scientific advancement is a process that overwhelmingly happens purposefully, not through tinkering." Tinkering is exactly what got us Linux, what got us Unix, and what got us radio communication and x-rays. So, no, I do believe you are mistaken.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      Linux isn't a great example of scientific advancement, being a clone of UNIX. UNIX was the product of a commercial research lab. BSD was the product of an academic research lab. I'm not sure who you're referring to with radios and Xrays, but those were discovered in a very different time. A lot of those folks were professors and today would be doing funded work at universities.
      - sillysaurus3 13y ago
        The important advancements in the recent modern world haven't really been scientific in the traditional sense of "scientific advancement." The advancements of the last decade are more like engineering than pure scientific discovery. Under that definition, Linux certainly qualifies, because it's a major feat of engineering regardless of its roots in Unix. Would you mind giving your thoughts on http://paulgraham.com/america.html http://paulgraham.com/america.html ? Specifically, point #7: If there are any laws regulating businesses, you can assume larval startups will break most of them, because they don't know what the laws are and don't have time to find out. For example, many startups in America begin in places where it's not really legal to run a business. Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and Google were all run out of garages. Many more startups, including ours, were initially run out of apartments. If the laws against such things were actually enforced, most startups wouldn't happen. That could be a problem in fussier countries. If Hewlett and Packard tried running an electronics company out of their garage in Switzerland, the old lady next door would report them to the municipal authorities. The reason I responded the way I did is because you seem to be arguing for a docile population, which to anyone who has studied history is a recipe for disaster.
DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
I'd say a university should support students learning to pick locks by ignoring (as long as no particular damage was caused) them using campus locks for practice.
nitrogen 13y ago
We do not tolerate young people "learning" how to pick locks by breaking into peoples' homes... "Due to the top secret nature of the work, Los Alamos was isolated. In Feynman's own words, 'There wasn't anything to do there'. Bored, he indulged his curiosity by learning to pick the combination locks on cabinets and desks used to secure papers." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Manhattan_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Manhattan_...

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

tzs 13y ago

> MIT did the opposite in the Aaron Shwartz case, their conduct was in large part responsible for Ortiz & Heyman getting Aaron over a barrel of 30 years in the pokey Swartz was, if he rejected the plea bargain that would have given him a few months at most and went to trial and lost on all charges, looking at around 7 years at the extreme outside, tops, not 30. If you would like the detail on why this is so, take a look at any of the dozens of prior discussion of the Swartz case here, since this has been explained in great detail in nearly every one of them.

marvin 13y ago
This does nothing to address suprgeek's point: Excessive prosecution has a chilling effect on technological exploration and entrepeneurship.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
Uh huh, but the prosecutor threatened him with 30 to try and scare him into bargaining, and Swartz apparently believed him, so I'm not sure what your point is.
- tptacek 13y ago
  This is also totally false. Any competent attorney understands how charges group under federal sentencing law; not only was he not facing a 30 year sentence, he could not face a 30 year sentence. Swartz had competent legal representation from the jump. His counsel at the time of his suicide wrote in a postmortem on the case that he believed Swartz stood little chance of any custodial sentence, even were he to be convicted. It's not hard to see why: the sentencing guidelines for first-time offenders of non-remunerative CFAA offenses aren't very demanding. Swartz was likely to be ruined by the cost of defending a complex federal charge, faced the prospect of potentially spending months in federal prison, and an overall likelihood of the whole incident concluding with a felony conviction on his record, which may have been problematic for his future endeavors. He was oppressed by his prosecution in a variety of ways. It's unnecessary to manufacture new ways.
  - 13y ago

tsotha 13y ago

>This has been long time coming. These days if a student or young person does what Steve Jobs (phone device) or Bill Gates (exploiting bugs for more Computer time) did and got away with, they face lawsuits and decades in Jail. Jobs didn't avoid jail because times were more permissive. He stayed out of jail because he didn't get caught. People went to jail for phone phreaking. >It is up to Universities like MIT to aggressively intervene in these cases and ensure that young people are free to (some extent) break systems and exploit system weaknesses in the interest of learning. I don't understand how anyone could come to this conclusion. Students breaking the law should be expelled, not coddled.

asdfologist 13y ago
So by your reasoning, students caught smoking marijuana should be expelled? What about people like Edward Snowden? Should he have gotten the Aaron Swartz treatment too if he were at MIT? Right, because all laws are just.
- tsotha 13y ago
  >So by your reasoning, students caught smoking marijuana should be expelled? Depends. If it's a felony where you are, then yes. >What about people like Edward Snowden? What about him? If the feds ever catch up with Snowden he'll go to jail, and that's where he belongs. >Should he have gotten the Aaron Swartz treatment too if he were at MIT? Right, because all laws are just. Justice is a subjective thing, and that's why legislatures write the laws. If you're going to have the rule of law you have the rule of law. The upside is people in power have to obey the laws just like everyone else. The downside is everyone else has to obey the laws too.
  - woofuls 13y ago
    You shouldn't put so much faith into our system. Your theoretical model for how the system works falls short of reality. If you truly think the law is applied equally among all, you need to do some serious research. The powerful among us don't have to obey the laws like everyone else. Finally, it isn't the powerless among us writing or influencing those who do write the laws.