71–80 of 324 posts
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Which of the HN guidelines does this violate?
None of them. I think you'd be doing Aaron a favor to kill it, though.
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They are talking about theft of services, not copyright infringement. In any event these charges are going to be very difficult to beat since they're federal, even though there are some obvious holes in the indictment. It will be almost impossible to get any of the evidence thrown out even if there was an illegal search and seizure. His best bet is probably to get the Harvard legal team to go to bat for him, although…
I wasn't really commenting on the legal sufficiency of the indictment, just the rhetorical dishonesty of accusing someone of "steal[ing] well over 4,000,000 articles from JSTOR" (quote from the indictment) when JSTOR didn't own those articles. They could've just alleged violation of JSTOR's TOS and thereby theft of network services. I suspect JSTOR or people sympathetic to them had a hand in writing the indictment, t…
It does own its archive. They just may not own the exclusive copyright to the contents of the archive... there is a subtle distinction.
This is the most technically competent charging document I've ever read. I guess there must have been some hackers on the grand jury. Paragraph 35 & 36: which "protected computer" on MIT's network did he access? Certainly they're not trying to claim his laptop was a protected computer? Are they talking about the DHCP server or whatever registration frontend MIT has for the DHCP assignments? I have trouble with the co…
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If he isn't, he will be soon. I will be surprised if he is allowed into an airport.
Oh, you're trolling. OK.
You are, however, free to believe that I was trolling. I can't stop you.
I invite the moderators to delete my account, if they believe that I am a troll. As things are, I merely refuse to go along with the herd-think on this site.
This is the most technically competent charging document I've ever read. I guess there must have been some hackers on the grand jury. Paragraph 35 & 36: which "protected computer" on MIT's network did he access? Certainly they're not trying to claim his laptop was a protected computer? Are they talking about the DHCP server or whatever registration frontend MIT has for the DHCP assignments? I have trouble with the co…
The procedure as I understand it is:
* Prosecutor assembles evidence, writes indictment.
* Prosecutor presents evidence to Grand Jury. This may include witnesses or documents.
* Grand Jury votes on if there is enough there to approve indictment
If they've got a computer crimes division, then they're going to have hacker types in the prosecutor's office to do this stuff and get the details right.
The indictment is going to be the most slam dunk part of the evidence that there is, as it's written by the prosecutor and there's no counter to it. If it doesn't look airtight, then it's probably a very weak case.
Though, looking at it here, It's not looking very good for aaronsw. The combination of mac address spoofing and a locked wiring cabinet show physical and electronic security that was bypassed, repeatedly. That's easy to explain to a jury.
The title is inaccurate. It is alleged that he signed up for guest accounts on their network with different laptops, changed his MAC address and re-registered if the IP he was using was blocked (by JSTOR) or cut off of the network (by MIT), and finally connected a laptop in a basement networking closet. I guess you could say that is 'hacking' in the unauthorized access sense, but not in any meaningful sense. It isn't…
IANAL, but legally speaking unauthorized access is a crime regardless of how easy it was to gain access.
How long until posting a negative comment to a blog is "unautorized access" to that blog? Gaining access was easy: all you had to do was type a comment and hit submit. But some Powers That Be decided they didn't really want you to post that, so now it's a federal computer crime.
Land of the free.
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Oh, you're trolling. OK.
I have stated my honest opinion. You are, however, free to believe that I was trolling. I can't stop you. I invite the moderators to delete my account, if they believe that I am a troll. As things are, I merely refuse to go along with the herd-think on this site.