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Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

blog.achernya.com

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Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#141

Post by analog »

vor_ wrote: post #94
BrokenPipe wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but Aaron's activism resulted in him being bullied until he took his own life. It's a difficult topic. If you assume that ddos from a collective is similar to blocking a road by a collective during a strike or manifestation then I must say that some people won't be able to get to work that day and in general nobody would get hurt. This sort of pacific interruption raises awareness, which by itself is very import…

This "pacific interruption", as you delicately describe it, hurts innocent teachers and students who had nothing to do with the alleged bullying of Swartz, who was already suicidal prior to his prosecution. Regardless of what one may think of computer laws, there is no proven link between his suicide and the criminal charges he faced, and any claims to the contrary have so far been entirely speculative and coming fro…

"no proven link between his suicide and the criminal charges he faced, and any claims to the contrary have so far been entirely speculative and coming from people who never met the guy"

Please stop spreading lies and disinformation.

'killed by the government,' father tells mourners [1]

'depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful.' from his mother [2]

[1] http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-aaron-...

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5047398

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#142

Post by Firehed »

gojomo wrote: post #140
Yver wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how did that work out for him by the way? I head they've dropped their lawsuit? Also, if DDoS is "destructive" then copying a file is stealing.

How did it work out for him? For Aaron's causes, his constructive rather than destructive approach worked fairly well, creating change and earning wide awareness and respect. I wish he'd stuck it out; had there been a trial (and possibly sentencing), the public would have learned many of the same lessons about overzealous prosecution, the JSTOR project, the CFAA, the obsolescence of copyright, and importance of open…

I regretfully disagree with you, in regards to the case playing out actually being helpful to the cause. The public, by and large, doesn't give a damn about this kind of thing.

His suicide, tragically, appears to have helped the cause - the media loves the wild speculation and gossip that it brought about. So while his end goal may now stand a chance of coming to fruition, he won't be around to witness it.

The number of things that went wrong in order to generate this outcome is just astonishing. While I knew nothing of Aaron or his cause prior to this happening (see? media effects sigh), I at least hope the public outcry brings about what appears to be some much-needed change.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#143

Post by btilly »

BrokenPipe wrote: post #130
btilly wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction. MIT did not prosecute the case. They brought in the feds. There is evidence that they asked the prosecutor to go hard on Aaron. But the prosecutor is not directly affiliated with MIT.

Do you have a link to the evidence? My current understanding is that MIT didn't want Aaron to avoid jail. Is that correct ?

The evidence is comments by Aaron's lawyer as quoted in the Boston Globe.

See http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit... for the article.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#144

Post by Cushman »

Jach wrote: post #137
Cushman wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that twitter is stupider than anything I've seen on HN.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. All the tweets from that twitter account come from comments made by HN users.

I realize that. I'm just struggling to find one that seems unreasonable even out of context. It reads like as a list of valid opinions the curator disagrees with, which comes across as more than a little bit pissy.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#145

Post by geofft »

malandrew wrote: post #135
Yver wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how did that work out for him by the way? I head they've dropped their lawsuit? Also, if DDoS is "destructive" then copying a file is stealing.

A DDOS is a trespass to chattels. It denies others the use of a resource they own or have a right to use. I would rather see anonymous discover who at MIT is responsible for this matter and dox them than deny students access to their network. Doxing is like a sniper attack. DDoSing is like dropping napalm on villages.

Haven't there been lots of problems with doxxing the wrong people?

I don't think anyone will know, actually, who is responsible without the investigation that MIT is already doing. We can speculate, but we'll probably get it wrong.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#146

Post by sciurus »

jlgreco wrote: post #104
wavesounds wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not black and white. Sure Aaron built things but he also threatened to destroy JSTOR's business model. Likewise a DDoS may seem destructive but if it causes MIT to have better Ethics and Leadership as a result then its well worth the discomfort. If theres a bug in your system you sometimes have to replace some lines of code to make it better, this isn't destruction its just change.

> Sure Aaron built things but he also threatened to destroy JSTOR's business model. Yeah.. but not really. The non-public domain documents would still be copyrighted so nobody without a license to them would be creating a JSTOR competitor anytime soon. Furthermore, torrent of PDFs would never replace a subscription to JSTOR for any university. Universities that currently subscribe to JSTOR would still be subscribing…

http://www.generalist.org.uk/blog/2011/jstor-where-does-your...

"The figure of $145k for individual articles is definitely interesting – only 0.35% of JSTOR’s revenue came from pay-per-view cases? This is vastly lower than I expected; quite possibly the prices are so high (and JSTOR access so common, academically) that very few people are willing to pay and unable to circumvent it via a friend. The estimate quoted is $19/article as an average – so perhaps only seven and a half thousand articles over the year?"

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#147

Post by afarrell »

wavesounds wrote: post #55

To me this feels a bit like a lunch counter cook complaining all these black people showing up in his restaurant are causing him extra work. The whole point of a protest is to put pressure on the system your trying to change. Start a walkout/go on strike if you dont want to deal with the problems the organization you're working for caused. The school only gets power from its students. Without the students there is no…

Except the black protesters of Greensboro went and tried to order food so they could eat it and pay for it as they correctly claimed they were at liberty to do. They did not turn off the lights of the restaurant and block the door to the kitchen to deny the other patrons from being able to eat.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#148

Post by thefreeman »

analog wrote: post #141
vor_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "pacific interruption", as you delicately describe it, hurts innocent teachers and students who had nothing to do with the alleged bullying of Swartz, who was already suicidal prior to his prosecution. Regardless of what one may think of computer laws, there is no proven link between his suicide and the criminal charges he faced, and any claims to the contrary have so far been entirely speculative and coming fro…

"no proven link between his suicide and the criminal charges he faced, and any claims to the contrary have so far been entirely speculative and coming from people who never met the guy" Please stop spreading lies and disinformation. 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners [1] 'depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful.' from his mother [2] [1] htt…

Your links have absolutely no proof in them. A grieving Father's statement on who he blames for his sons death is not proof.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#149

Post by detst »

analog wrote: post #141
vor_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "pacific interruption", as you delicately describe it, hurts innocent teachers and students who had nothing to do with the alleged bullying of Swartz, who was already suicidal prior to his prosecution. Regardless of what one may think of computer laws, there is no proven link between his suicide and the criminal charges he faced, and any claims to the contrary have so far been entirely speculative and coming fro…

"no proven link between his suicide and the criminal charges he faced, and any claims to the contrary have so far been entirely speculative and coming from people who never met the guy" Please stop spreading lies and disinformation. 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners [1] 'depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful.' from his mother [2] [1] htt…

There are all sorts of unanswered questions but whether or not it affected his mental state is not among them. I'm angry about an unjust prosecution that should never have had the opportunity to cause this damage. I can't know if things would have ended differently but that's not a question we should have to ask.

Unfortunately this is part of deeper systemic problems and bringing up his accomplishments is rather irrelevant and distasteful. If exaggerating his accomplishments helps to spread the story, I have absolutely no problem with that because it has nothing to do with the real issues.

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