4 ms·

Incompetence was perhaps too harsh. The outcome was unforeseeable. > Like when a burglar hits a small countryside town, and suddenly everyone has to start loc

by eck 13y ago

Incompetence was perhaps too harsh. The outcome was unforeseeable. > Like when a burglar hits a small countryside town, and suddenly everyone has to start locking their doors. I think your analogy just proves my point. They caught the burglar, but he turned out to be the local kid that everyone kind of liked. He was punished as everyone agreed the law required, but nobody was happy about it. And it would have all never happened had they just locked their doors to begin with. The small countryside town with no crime and the open MIT environment were always illusions. It was inevitable that sooner or later someone would try to steal. You can either prevent it from happening or punish it after it does. [edit] But you can't choose not to prevent it then claim you didn't want to punish it.

Wohui 13y ago
> They caught the burglar, but he turned out to be the local kid that everyone kind of liked. He was punished as everyone agreed the law required, but nobody was happy about it. Not one of the downvoters, but I want to add that criminals remain likeable when humans have no visceral reaction to the crime.
- Wohui 13y ago
  When an explanation (as opposed to an opinion) gets downvotes, it warrants a reply...
shiven 13y ago
Except in this case, the burglar is 'Robin Hood'-like or at least operating with the same intentions, the burgled houses are the 'Ivory tower' of the local clergy and the 'Rent collecting' landlord's castle. And, most importantly, the 'Valuables' that were burgled actually belong to the people of the village in first place. Assuming digital goods could even ever be burgled in the conventional sense.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
danielweber 13y ago
The MIT network was not and is not "anything goes." There are rules. MIT kept on gradually increasing their attempts to kick him off the network and then things escalated to physical trespassing.
kordless 13y ago
> everyone agreed the law required, but nobody was happy about it That's cognitive dissonance. Aaron was simply the voice of reason for one of the arguments being held in consideration - open and free information. Nobody is happy about following the law when they realize the laws in place are the less important piece of a greater discussion.
- raldi 13y ago
  If you had a home subscription to an online scholarly journal archive, and I snuck in through an open window, found your LAN equipment, and tampered with it until I was able to use your credentials, would you chalk that up to me being the voice of reason and a proponent of open and free information, or would you call it burglary?
  - kordless 13y ago
    The law is the law, so it's burglary. Not sure why I'm answering an obvious question for you - feels a bit ad hominem-ish as it's not the same situation Aaron was in. There would be circumstances where I'd be ok with it, like if you were a neighbor and I knew you and you apologized for it. My choice to prosecute. Sometimes laws need to be broken or bent when there is no other way to bring awareness of a newly forged wrong to light. Whether or not Aaron approached the freedom of information issue correctly here is not the issue, but how the school reasoned through 'handling' it is. They were the ones with the power to make a hard decision regarding the interpretation of the law. As for me, I'm simply trying to clarify how to spot cognitive dissonance in the wild - you look for statements that are conflicting and then try to understand why both sides of the 'argument' were weighed in making a decision. In this case the school would appear to hold some value in Aaron's actions, even though what he did was clearly wrong. It's worth wondering if they did the right thing when considering the validity of some portion of his actions. Frankly, I'm not sure how to feel about it other than what has become the norm. We (the US) tends to over-react to things a fair amount. It's getting a little old and needs to stop.
cowsandmilk 13y ago
> And it would have all never happened had they just locked their doors to begin with. This is an attitude that ruins communities. As a nonscholarly example, I like to run ~5 in the morning. Sometimes, something is off in my pre-run snack and I have to go to the bathroom. For a long time, public bathrooms along the esplanade in Boston would be unlocked at all hours. In modern times, due to attitudes like yours, they get locked at 8 PM and unlocked around 8 AM. So, there are no longer public bathrooms available for me to use, just because I like to run before work. (On a side note, I've talked to other runners who have the same issue. Some of them have been put in situations where physical necessity resulted in taking a dump right outside the door of a closed public bathroom. I'm quite sure this was not the intention of locking these doors) Another case is the Harvard library. You are required to have a Harvard id to enter the library. This is in stark contrast to what makes libraries hugely valuable to other communities. I've regularly had collaborations with Harvard that didn't rise to the point where I obtained a Harvard id, so I would need to drag my host along to the library to quickly look up some material in a book. It is incredibly frustrating. Tightened security spends a vast majority of its time quelling desired behavior while spending very little time actually disrupting undesired behavior.

by eck 13y ago

Wohui 13y ago

> They caught the burglar, but he turned out to be the local kid that everyone kind of liked. He was punished as everyone agreed the law required, but nobody was happy about it. Not one of the downvoters, but I want to add that criminals remain likeable when humans have no visceral reaction to the crime.

Wohui 13y ago
When an explanation (as opposed to an opinion) gets downvotes, it warrants a reply...

shiven 13y ago

Except in this case, the burglar is 'Robin Hood'-like or at least operating with the same intentions, the burgled houses are the 'Ivory tower' of the local clergy and the 'Rent collecting' landlord's castle. And, most importantly, the 'Valuables' that were burgled actually belong to the people of the village in first place. Assuming digital goods could even ever be burgled in the conventional sense.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

danielweber 13y ago

The MIT network was not and is not "anything goes." There are rules. MIT kept on gradually increasing their attempts to kick him off the network and then things escalated to physical trespassing.

kordless 13y ago

> everyone agreed the law required, but nobody was happy about it That's cognitive dissonance. Aaron was simply the voice of reason for one of the arguments being held in consideration - open and free information. Nobody is happy about following the law when they realize the laws in place are the less important piece of a greater discussion.

raldi 13y ago
If you had a home subscription to an online scholarly journal archive, and I snuck in through an open window, found your LAN equipment, and tampered with it until I was able to use your credentials, would you chalk that up to me being the voice of reason and a proponent of open and free information, or would you call it burglary?
- kordless 13y ago
  The law is the law, so it's burglary. Not sure why I'm answering an obvious question for you - feels a bit ad hominem-ish as it's not the same situation Aaron was in. There would be circumstances where I'd be ok with it, like if you were a neighbor and I knew you and you apologized for it. My choice to prosecute. Sometimes laws need to be broken or bent when there is no other way to bring awareness of a newly forged wrong to light. Whether or not Aaron approached the freedom of information issue correctly here is not the issue, but how the school reasoned through 'handling' it is. They were the ones with the power to make a hard decision regarding the interpretation of the law. As for me, I'm simply trying to clarify how to spot cognitive dissonance in the wild - you look for statements that are conflicting and then try to understand why both sides of the 'argument' were weighed in making a decision. In this case the school would appear to hold some value in Aaron's actions, even though what he did was clearly wrong. It's worth wondering if they did the right thing when considering the validity of some portion of his actions. Frankly, I'm not sure how to feel about it other than what has become the norm. We (the US) tends to over-react to things a fair amount. It's getting a little old and needs to stop.

cowsandmilk 13y ago

> And it would have all never happened had they just locked their doors to begin with. This is an attitude that ruins communities. As a nonscholarly example, I like to run ~5 in the morning. Sometimes, something is off in my pre-run snack and I have to go to the bathroom. For a long time, public bathrooms along the esplanade in Boston would be unlocked at all hours. In modern times, due to attitudes like yours, they get locked at 8 PM and unlocked around 8 AM. So, there are no longer public bathrooms available for me to use, just because I like to run before work. (On a side note, I've talked to other runners who have the same issue. Some of them have been put in situations where physical necessity resulted in taking a dump right outside the door of a closed public bathroom. I'm quite sure this was not the intention of locking these doors) Another case is the Harvard library. You are required to have a Harvard id to enter the library. This is in stark contrast to what makes libraries hugely valuable to other communities. I've regularly had collaborations with Harvard that didn't rise to the point where I obtained a Harvard id, so I would need to drag my host along to the library to quickly look up some material in a book. It is incredibly frustrating. Tightened security spends a vast majority of its time quelling desired behavior while spending very little time actually disrupting undesired behavior.