Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

rt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 101 posts

Re: Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

#41

Post by monsterix »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #36

I can understand how people might expect different behavior in the Swartz case. But what in the behavior discussed in this article is other than exactly what you would expect? Of course she is going to prosecute a credit card thief who has stolen tens of thousands of cards. How does this stack up as added evidence against her?

Please 'know' before taking sides. It's easy to comment, and opine, than to know. Here are some insights from Wikipedia:

US has had the highest incarceration rate in past decade [1]. Why so? Does it mean more percentage of citizens are lately turning into what one would qualify as a criminal, a thief or a murderer? Or otherwise.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

A. "The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population."

B. "imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid"

C. A graph showing a strange spike: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_incarceration_timeline-...

etc. etc. etc.

Also consider these - is it is profitable for a section/group of people (read prosecutors or ip enforcers) to persecute and push people over using tricks like applying one set of laws, if another set of laws couldn't be applied? Is it like we have provision for cheapness in trials, but none for justice or humanity. Is the intention of a trial to set an example, or to be fair? Is it not criminal wastage of money, time and talent this way?

I mean these are intricate details that reveal something is wrong at leadership level. Related to the direction of the country. This is not a working level problem which is where students, staff, entrepreneurs and hackers lie.

Ponder.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_James [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...

[Edits: Grammar, tone and with inputs from Ars below.]

Re: Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

#42

Post by jnsaff2 »

"Swartz’s attorney Elliot Peters accused Heymann of aggressively pursuing Swartz because the case “"was going to receive press and he was going to be a tough guy and read his name in the newspaper.""

This is very similar to how many SV startup founders and CEO's roll. Press-coverage and case-studies are more important than actually doing something worth doing.

Re: Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

#43

Post by rustynails77 »

kule wrote: post #40
greghinch wrote: post #3

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-...

This just feels like mob mentality to me. Someone messed up, albeit badly. I would guess the guy feels bad enough as it is without needing to get 25k people to kick him when he's down. EDIT: I guess what I'd really hope to have seen (not being a US citizen) is some petitions to get the laws/system changed rather than looking for someone to blame.

I see it differently. This person behaved extremely aggressively and clearly unethically. You want them to get off free? If nothing is done, this person will show remorse for a short time, and then be right back in the game. In my industry, some choose to behave unethically - even if it's within the bounds of the rules. I like to see these people smacked down because they -choose- to behave an a nasty manner.

Re: Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

#45

Post by dredmorbius »

kule wrote: post #40
greghinch wrote: post #3

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-...

This just feels like mob mentality to me. Someone messed up, albeit badly. I would guess the guy feels bad enough as it is without needing to get 25k people to kick him when he's down. EDIT: I guess what I'd really hope to have seen (not being a US citizen) is some petitions to get the laws/system changed rather than looking for someone to blame.

And here's why I disagree:

- The US is a democracy. Our government, elected, appointed, or career civil servants, is accountable to the people.

- The position of prosecutor has great power, and we all know that that requires great responsibility. Prosecutors can destroy reputations, livelihoods, lives, families, and more. Choosing on whom to bring the full strength of the US government to bear, and how much of that strength to loose at a particular target, is part of the critical judgment required for the position. Proper prosecutorial discretion has been shown sorely lacking in this (and other) protest-oriented hacking incidents.

I'll be happy to let Otiz, Haymann, and Garland speak for themselves to let us know just how badly they feel. To date, I've seen no word from any of them.

Speaking to your edit: there is a petition to change elements of the CFAA that the EFF has identified as particularly problematic:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-computer-fr...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/aaron-swartz-fix-draco...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5064448

Re: Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

#46

Post by ars »

monsterix wrote: post #41
jamesaguilar wrote: post #36

I can understand how people might expect different behavior in the Swartz case. But what in the behavior discussed in this article is other than exactly what you would expect? Of course she is going to prosecute a credit card thief who has stolen tens of thousands of cards. How does this stack up as added evidence against her?

Please 'know' before taking sides. It's easy to comment, and opine, than to know. Here are some insights from Wikipedia: US has had the highest incarceration rate in past decade [1]. Why so? Does it mean more percentage of citizens are lately turning into what one would qualify as a criminal, a thief or a murderer? Or otherwise. Quoting from Wikipedia: A. "The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of…

What does this have to do with what jamesaguilar posted?

> No. Surely, something else is broken.

Really? There are no other options you can think of? Perhaps the US is simply stricter? I quote from the article this image is from: "Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists."

So yup, the US is stricter, but it does not have more criminals, nor does it imprison more people.

> A graph showing a strange spike

There is no spike, this is the result of using a linear graph when it should have been a logarithmic one. (A very common mistake, and also frequently employed when trying to make a point without support in the data.) In this particular graph even better would be to normalize to the population level, but logarithmic is also OK. Either way, if you fix the graph you will find no spike.

This graph is better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1... It shows an increase, but no spike.

So why the increase? And especially why has it slowed down? Read this and you shall know: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368

Re: Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

#47

Post by [deleted] »

ars wrote: post #46
monsterix wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please 'know' before taking sides. It's easy to comment, and opine, than to know. Here are some insights from Wikipedia: US has had the highest incarceration rate in past decade [1]. Why so? Does it mean more percentage of citizens are lately turning into what one would qualify as a criminal, a thief or a murderer? Or otherwise. Quoting from Wikipedia: A. "The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of…

What does this have to do with what jamesaguilar posted? > No. Surely, something else is broken. Really? There are no other options you can think of? Perhaps the US is simply stricter? I quote from the article this image is from: "Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the i…

[deleted]

Re: Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

#48

Post by downandout »

The reality is that it is quite rare for a federal defendant to kill themselves. To have 2 of them (that we know about) stemming from prosecutions by one individual, I would have to say, is pretty remarkable. While it could just be a coincidence, the one common denominator in these two statistically rare incidents is Stephen Heymann.

We'll just call him "Suicide Steve".

On a somewhat related note, the callousness of the people that work in the MA US Attorney's office apparently extends to their spouses. The husband of US Attorney Carmen Ortiz posted on his (now deleted) twitter account criticizing Aaron's family for the content of his obituary (screenshot of his tweet here - http://imgur.com/IR5ah ).

Re: Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

#49

Post by laumars »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #36

I can understand how people might expect different behavior in the Swartz case. But what in the behavior discussed in this article is other than exactly what you would expect? Of course she is going to prosecute a credit card thief who has stolen tens of thousands of cards. How does this stack up as added evidence against her?

RT is a Russian national news service. They're quite anti-US, anti-NATO, etc.

I actually quite enjoy the RT TV station - they have some rather amusing reports. However, like all stations, they have their bias. So it's worth noting that their reports against the US should be taken with a pinch of salt (much like how I wouldn't trust any reports from Fox News).

Re: Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

#50

Post by BrokenPipe »

ars wrote: post #46
monsterix wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please 'know' before taking sides. It's easy to comment, and opine, than to know. Here are some insights from Wikipedia: US has had the highest incarceration rate in past decade [1]. Why so? Does it mean more percentage of citizens are lately turning into what one would qualify as a criminal, a thief or a murderer? Or otherwise. Quoting from Wikipedia: A. "The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of…

What does this have to do with what jamesaguilar posted? > No. Surely, something else is broken. Really? There are no other options you can think of? Perhaps the US is simply stricter? I quote from the article this image is from: "Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the i…

Increase ? Why does that look to me like a spike ? And are you denying either of these claims ? Because if not it seems like you are just nitpicking to me, the point of the parent is still fully correct regardless of the graph.

A. "The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population." B. "imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid"

Post reply on HN