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Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

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Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#121

Post by GolfPopper »

jmward01 wrote: post #80
giantg2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe the real issue is selective outrage about legal injustice." The real issue is selective enforcement of the law. If it applied equally to everyone, then more people would be outraged as it affected them.

Perfectly equal enforcement really isn't possible, but it should be the policy to enforce in proportion to active harm. The bigger the ongoing active harm, the quicker to react we should be. Some individual torrents a single movie? NBD. No matter the side of the argument you are on this should be ignored. A company intentionally throws content strikes causing legitimate harm to large numbers of content creators? That…

Finland links speeding fines to income. I'd like to see something that get far broader application. That prevents the wealthy or huge corporations from seeing lawbreaking as a business cost, without destroying a small business or individual who commits the same crime.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#122

Post by hk1337 »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #64
sillysaurusx wrote: post #60

He wasn’t prosecuted for scraping. He trespassed into a room with a router, plugged his laptop into it, downloaded papers as quickly as possible, and then rotated his MAC address to dodge the bans that the admin was trying to place on him. That’s very different from downloading a webpage on the open internet. I’m not saying he should or shouldn’t have been prosecuted, but there’s some kind of rose tinted glasses filt…

Information should be free.

Agreed, to an extent, but that doesn't mean you can breach any barrier someone has in place preventing access, take it, and make it publicly available.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#123

Post by mmorriso »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #113
mmorriso wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real issue is that in the US, everything is for sale.

Humans have incentives everywhere. Its not quite the same. I dont think anyone bought the judge or prosecutor for Aaron

My implication wasn't that there'd be "low level" corruption of that nature, but that there's "high level" corruption in both instances; The direction to prosecute Aaron Swartz, and not investigate Meta, are both driven by an interest of the State to protect large enterprises, rather than citizens.

If we consider campaign financing and lobbying, I don't think it's a stretch to believe that almost any outcome can be bought in the US if there's enough money involved.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#124

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

mcv wrote: post #76
ignoramous wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> large part of the effort that dealt this injustice to him was facilitated by the fact that the vast majority of people willfully turn a blind eye when the same thing or worse happens to people are not of their ilk Reminds me of Marx's 1870 letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt: Every industrial & commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps ... The ordinary English wor…

The exact same mechanism is used to keep poor white Americans voting Republican: even if they're poor, they see themselves as the white ruling class over black and Hispanic people, despite the fact that they themselves are kept poor by the real ruling class.

The con is largely directed at the religious right, of which, poorer whites make up the largest cohort. That's how they convinced people directly targeted by the bigotry to still vote for them.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#126

Post by gertop »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #116
9x39 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#United_States_v._... The prosecution offered 6 months in low security in a plea deal. He had been mass downloading and evading them at MIT for months until he had MIT and FBI involved and was finally caught on camera. I bring this up because A. maximum exposure to charges are rarely applied but makes great headlines for outrage and B. the plea deal seems reasonable to someon…

> maximum exposure to charges are rarely applied and if you pay up to the mafia then they generally don't kill your relatives, but they still threaten to kill your relatives. I feel like they're only on the book as a means of intimidation. It doesn't feel like a healthy justice system, especially given its a non-violent crime in this case. If he was performing digital crimes to pay for human trafficking then I'd get…

You keep shifting the goal posts...

He did something illegal, repeatedly, he got caught, he got offered a lenient plea deal of a few months. Those are the facts.

Yet somehow y'all turn it into: he was harassed, his family's life was threatened, he was going to get life in prison.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#127

Post by 9x39 »

LostMyLogin wrote: post #117
9x39 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, intent matters. Evading security matters. It's a big point that his actions were intentional and not passive or accidental - not that IP infringement by corporations isn't its own discussion.

How is Meta using BitTorrent to download over 80 terabytes of copyrighted books while avoiding using corporate IP addresses not evading security?

Torrents are openly accessible, even if .gov might enable infringement claims by the rights-holder. They're not hacking into networks.

Changing your IP isn't a crime, even if it has the effect of making attribution to Meta more difficult.

The thing with Aaron was that it went on for months to the point JSTOR's complaints had activated MIT's organizational antibodies, let's say, and the IS department was turned loose to investigate repeatedly. They went to the trouble of upgrading their load balancers and traffic analysis to narrow it down and installed a camera. At that point, the hook was firmly set and with digital and video evidence, the Secret Service had him red-handed abusing MIT.

Keep in mind the thing that spiraled out of control was how Aaron (mis)used MIT resources persistently and with overwhelming evidence - in the end, the civil part with JSTOR was largely irrelevant. MIT called in the big guns with the FBI and Secret Service, and they ate it up. I'm not arguing in favor of it, I'm just familiar with the zeal they bring once they get on a trail.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#129

Post by s1artibartfast »

mcv wrote: post #73

I recently came to the conclusion that it was never about copyright. It's about corporate control, about punishing contempt for business model. Aaron Swartz was punished because he disrespected a business model. All the kids sued by the MAFIAA were punished because they disrespected a business model. Copyright was merely the mechanism to make it stick. But AI companies and Meta can disrespect copyright all they want,…

This is pretty close. They attacked the business model, which was an attack on the law itself, which was an attack on the civil structure, which was an attack on everyone who benefits from it.

Lots of people have a vested interest in civil structure, from the poor to the rich. Everyone would be worse off if the US looked like Haiti.

That said, people benefit in different amounts from the system at Large, and lose or benefit from Individual policies

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#130

Post by smt88 »

ComplexSystems wrote: post #90
sillysaurusx wrote: post #60

He wasn’t prosecuted for scraping. He trespassed into a room with a router, plugged his laptop into it, downloaded papers as quickly as possible, and then rotated his MAC address to dodge the bans that the admin was trying to place on him. That’s very different from downloading a webpage on the open internet. I’m not saying he should or shouldn’t have been prosecuted, but there’s some kind of rose tinted glasses filt…

So what crime was he guilty of that Meta isn't? "Scraping too unsophisticatedly?"

Physical trespassing (as far as we know), but they’ve certainly done all of the rest millions of times.
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