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Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

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Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#91

Post by kronusaturn »

jrockway wrote: post #79
SpikeGronim wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but legally speaking unauthorized access is a crime regardless of how easy it was to gain access.

This is a very frightening belief. 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.

This problem extends way beyond hacking laws—the average person in the US probably commits several felonies a day: http://www.threefelonies.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx

Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#92

Post by dkarl »

_delirium wrote: post #59
Alex3917 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I hate to quibble over words, but a painting can be stolen "from the Louvre" even if it's there on loan from a private collection, just as you could say, "The necklace was stolen from my jewelry box," without implying that your jewelry box was the legal owner of the necklace.

Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#93

Post by sp332 »

a3camero wrote: post #84
sp332 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: This is more than one hundred times the number of downloads during the same period by all the legitimate MIT JSTOR users combined It sounds like he was using the majority of their resources. But maybe those servers serve lots of places, and they only mentioned MIT as an example.

They do. Universities across Canada also subscribe to this.

Yeah, my college also had it. But the article made it sound like only MIT was using these servers.

Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#94

Post by _delirium »

mukyu wrote: post #50

http://blog.demandprogress.org/2011/07/federal-government-in... “It’s even more strange because the alleged victim has settled any claims against Aaron, explained they’ve suffered no loss or damage, and asked the government not to prosecute,” Segal added. Nowhere do they say he did not do it however. cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

JSTOR is being very vague about their role in this, so that might unfortunately be wrong about just how settled JSTOR considers things on their side. Their statement feels extremely carefully worded: http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-misu...

Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#95

Post by tptacek »

jrockway wrote: post #79
SpikeGronim wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but legally speaking unauthorized access is a crime regardless of how easy it was to gain access.

This is a very frightening belief. 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.

Speaking of "TV drama levels of understanding of criminal justice"... :)

With only a few exceptions, persons accused of crimes are not presumed to have mens rea. Statutory rape, for instance, has "strict liability"; even if you don't know you're committing a crime, you're liable. Most criminal offenses are not like this. The state is required to establish mens rea.

A prosecutor could say that a ToS-infringing blog comment is a criminal violation, but unless that prosecutor can establish that the comment was made in purposeful, knowing, or reckless violation of the ToS, they'd be wasting their time.

Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#96

Post by sqrt17 »

mbreese wrote: post #72
_delirium wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> somehow "owns" its archive It does own its archive. They just may not own the exclusive copyright to the contents of the archive... there is a subtle distinction.

There is no non-exclusive copyright. J-STOR is not the copyright owner, period.

They do own the right to the composition of their collection, so someone who got the whole collection would be liable to infringing their right on the composition of the collection; in contrast, a random sample of articles would infringe on the publishers' IP rights rather than J-STOR's.

The subtle point is that J-STOR is absolutely not interested in the original copyright owners having to hunt down abusers, because that would (in all likelihood) appear like an additional, avoidable hassle to the latter and would make them less likely to agree to have J-STOR distribute their content. [edit: apparently it's the US Attorney General more than J-STOR who is pushing this case forward]

In comparison: if someone sneaks into a cinema to see a movie, you would accuse him of cheating them of the entrance fee, and not of "stealing the movie". If someone sneaks into a cinema and uses his camcorder to record the movie, he is cheating the movie theater of the entrance fee and misappropriating the production company's movie (with the suspicion that he might pirate it later), but he did not steal the movie from the theater. That would involve something like walking away with the movie theater's copy of the movie, which would fulfill the criterion that what's stolen is not there afterwards.

Misappropriation of IP is not stealing. It's unauthorized copying - that certainly has the potential to harm the bottomline of the copyright owner, but with an impact that is much harder to quantify than the stealing of an actual physical thing.

IP owners and friends of them who use the word 'stealing' want to frame the situation in such a way that appeal to the nonexistence of monetary loss is excluded - mostly because these same owners are investors in, and not creators of, the IP and do not have any other perspective than squeezing whatever value they can out of their investment.

(The authors of the original articles probably couldn't care less about some punk illegally downloading their texts, because they don't see any money from it anyways).

Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#97

Post by _delirium »

dkarl wrote: post #92
_delirium wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I hate to quibble over words, but a painting can be stolen "from the Louvre" even if it's there on loan from a private collection, just as you could say, "The necklace was stolen from my jewelry box," without implying that your jewelry box was the legal owner of the necklace.

This is more like taking a photograph of a painting on loan to the Louvre, though--- they're alleging that a copy was made, in violation of their terms of service, of a document that they don't even own (but do host). In that case, I would think that you might be violating the Louvre's camera policy, and you might even be colloquially "stealing" something from the painting's author (e.g. if you go on to publish illicit copies from your photo), but you aren't plausibly stealing anything from the Louvre.

Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#98

Post by ojbyrne »

From the JSTOR website (http://about.jstor.org/participate-jstor/worldwide-access)

"Our ultimate long-term objective is to make JSTOR available to everyone who wants access to it, while doing so in a way that ensures sustainability of the service."

Cynically, it seems like the bit about "ensures sustainability" can be translated as "we will aggressively prosecute in order to protect our bloated salaries."

Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#99

Post by asciilifeform »

jrockway wrote: post #80
asciilifeform wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You seem to have a lot of comments for someone who doesn't even have a TV Drama-level understanding of the criminal justice system. You know that even people accused of murder are often free during their trials, right?

A political prisoner is not usually granted bail. It isn't hard to see why.

Murder is a genuine crime recognized by all nations. One accused of murder will find few people who are automatically sympathetic.

On the other hand, the "crime" Mr. Swartz is accused of would be seen as an entirely moral act by a great many people around the world, myself included. It is quite possible that if he were to board a plane, he could find a place where he would not only be able to continue in his line of work, but would be respected as a hero who flipped the finger at the Evil Empire and its fat rent-seeking parasites.

The prosecutor would be quite foolish to grant bail.

Re: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs

#100

Post by maxniederhofer »

This reminded me of Jacques Mattheij's list of ideas for startups (see http://jacquesmattheij.com/My+list+of+ideas+for+when+you+are...):

"(45) OpenPapers

A place where all academic research that has been funded in part by public funds is published, journals be damned. Hopefully with deep pockets to fight off the lawsuits."

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