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Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

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Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#161

Post by betterunix »

MichaelSalib wrote: post #124
ucee054 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swartz's actions would have been an "attack" on a research archive, which the article classifies as having "little" commercial value (and Swartz wasn't profiting, it was civil disobedience). The Reuters news for yesterday lists the LIBOR scandal, which was an "attack" on financial data. The fine alone, for UBS alone, was $1.5Billion . Now that's what I call "serious commercial value". JSTOR, not so much. Do you want…

Swartz wasn't profiting, it was civil disobedience As I've explained above, I don't think Swartz was trying to profit from this scheme. But I do think he was trying to destroy significant financial value (yes $50million/year is significant for me). And from a legal perspective, that's extremely serious. Now that's what I call "serious commercial value". JSTOR, not so much. So if I rob a bank and steal $30 million, th…

"But I do think he was trying to destroy significant financial value"

Lock me up then, because I have been pushing people to abandon the academic publishing industry and share knowledge more freely for a while now. Since when should any of us care about what happens to those leeches?

Is JSTOR's archive valuable for society? Not anymore because we have a much better way to spread human knowledge: peer to peer networking on the Internet. We do not need a centralized service that charges money for access in an age of widely available high-speed connections. JSTOR's search service may be valuable, but Aaron did nothing to threaten that service and I suspect that it would take a half dozen HN readers a few weeks to develop something just as useful that every university could run on its own servers or anyone else who wished to do so. We could probably make a distributed search system if we really put our minds to it; what holds us back is the copyright system itself and the publishers who will only allow JSTOR to access the articles at grossly inflated prices.

We are not talking about something debatable, like whether or not the RIAA and MPAA should continue to have their business models protected by copyright. Journal publishers and JSTOR could vanish and research would continue to happen, scholarly articles would continue to be written, and human knowledge would be more accessible than ever before. Journal publishers do nothing at all to continue the expansion of human knowledge: they do not pay the authors of articles, they do not pay the reviewers, and many do not even pay the editors of the journals. We stopped needing them when the world wide web was invented (and probably even before that -- once global computer networks became a real thing, academic publishing became obsolete, and it has been propped up by the copyright system ever since).

Rather than being charged with a crime, Aaron Swartz should have been asked to advise the President on how to improve our access to education and to knowledge in general.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#162

Post by MichaelSalib »

betterunix wrote: post #154
MichaelSalib wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JSTOR sells access to its archive for $50K/year. That seems pretty damn valuable. I think that if Swartz successfully released the JSTOR archive, their entire business would have withered and died. Once you can buy a DVD on the street for $3 that held the entire thing, it gets harder and harder for university libraries to justify paying $50K/year. Their customer base wouldn't dry up overnight but over a few years, yo…

1. There is no reason to think that any university or organization would have given up its JSTOR subscription because an archive was made available on BitTorrent. At the very least, universities would want up-to-date articles, and so anything published after the archive was amassed (which would be a large number in just a year's time) would still motivate a subscription. There is also JSTOR's search service, and the…

anything published after the archive was amassed would still motivate a subscription

For many journals, JSTOR doesn't have recent content available anyway; Universities typically subscribe to publishers to get electronic access to recent content while relying on JSTOR for access to older content.

Why should we care if JSTOR goes out of business because an archive is published?

It doesn't matter whether you care or not. But the law cares. Prosecutors care. Judges care.

human knowledge should not be restricted by copyrights.

You've decided that? Good for you! Do prosecutors and judges have to agree with that statement? What happens when they don't?

Copyright is the law. You don't like that. I get it. But prosecutors and judges have to enforce the law as it is, not the law as some hackers on HN fervently wish it were.

we have this thing called the Internet that is vastly more efficient and costs far less.

This internet thing, that I've never heard of before (thanks for telling me about it!), does it make scanning and digitzing old paper journals free also? Does it make it so that data entry techs typing in metadata describing old paper journals don't have to paid?

we should let them and all the leeches whose publications they sell subscriptions to die quickly

How are we going to do that exactly? By not enforcing copyright laws or the CFAA, just for them? So, copyright laws will be enforced when it comes to stealing proprietary source code, but not for old journals?

what exactly can they claim to be contributing to human knowledge

I'm not sure I get your argument here. Is it that copyright law shouldn't be enforced because you've decided journal publishers are rapacious parasites (I think they are too actually)? Or that copyright law should only get enforced for entities that contribute something to human knowledge?

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#163

Post by raldi »

DanBC wrote: post #137
GHFigs wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was responding to a comment making the argument that something cannot be a crime if no damage is done and no one is hurt. He even quoted the as much of the comment he was replying to. Please, please, please , pay attention to context before accusing someone of ignoring context. It makes it very difficult for people to have nuanced debates about complex events if nobody is allowed to isolate a part of the problem i…

> cannot be a crime I don't think I said that! I did say that if I had to chose between "federal crime" or prank that I'd chose prank. But if you extended the list to include misdemeanour or somesuch I guess I could see that.

> I did say that if I had to chose between "federal crime" or prank that I'd chose prank.

Sure, but that's a false dichotomy. The author was under no such constraint, so it was sensationalist and misleading for him to keep referring to it as a prank.

And when I say that, I'm not casting judgement here. The Boston Tea Party and the Rosa Parks protest weren't pranks either.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#164

Post by MichaelSalib »

vacri wrote: post #140
MichaelSalib wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most here would prefer that they take home a lesson not to throw the book at people who are trying to make things better. Swartz thought that JSTOR was an illegitimate institution and he thought that justified him doing whatever he wanted to them. Why should prosecutors respect his moral judgments in that regard? He thought the law was wrong...so you think prosecutors should assume that everyone who thinks the law is…

A relative of mine embezzled money from her family business, to the tune of high five-figures. If you don't take motivation into account, how should she be sentenced? She was found guilty and sentenced, but before reading further, what do you think should have happened to her? If we take motivation into account (as the court did), does it change how you think she should have been treated by the court to know that she…

Motivation can be used during sentencing but it can also be used to figure out what crime someone's committed. If the police find a guy in my house, he might be trespassing or he might be a burgler: it depends on whether he's freezing and homeless or whether he lockpicks and a receipt indicating I bought a safe.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#165

Post by malandrew »

mpyne wrote: post #146
vacri wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A relative of mine embezzled money from her family business, to the tune of high five-figures. If you don't take motivation into account, how should she be sentenced? She was found guilty and sentenced, but before reading further, what do you think should have happened to her? If we take motivation into account (as the court did), does it change how you think she should have been treated by the court to know that she…

> Motivation is an important aspect of any crime, and prosecutors should be looking for appropriate sentences, not the harshest one they can make stick. I don't think the prosecutors here would disagree. That's why sentences are pushed for (on both sides) based on what the motive behind the crime was. There was a plea bargain on the table for no jail time, which MIT rejected, and then later some number of months in j…

But that's part of the problem. US Citizens have a right to a trial by jury. It's one of the basic rights. If the prosecutor is abusing their power to deny that right there is something fundamentally wrong. Trying to throw every possible crime at someone no matter how tenuous in order to extort a plea bargain or get just one to stick to improve your prosecution record is an obvious distortion of the original intent of the system. Also, bankrupting the defendant and/or freezing/seizing assets in cases where the crime is not related to the assets being frozen is also extortionous.

Avoiding trials altogether because of the structure of the legal system is the wrong approach. Improving the expediency by which the legal system can provide justice is the right approach. I can't believe people are willing to sanction and even justify means that avoid justice. The fact that we have one of the greatest rates of incarceration that we have a failed justice system.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#166

Post by ahna »

mpyne wrote: post #146
vacri wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A relative of mine embezzled money from her family business, to the tune of high five-figures. If you don't take motivation into account, how should she be sentenced? She was found guilty and sentenced, but before reading further, what do you think should have happened to her? If we take motivation into account (as the court did), does it change how you think she should have been treated by the court to know that she…

> Motivation is an important aspect of any crime, and prosecutors should be looking for appropriate sentences, not the harshest one they can make stick. I don't think the prosecutors here would disagree. That's why sentences are pushed for (on both sides) based on what the motive behind the crime was. There was a plea bargain on the table for no jail time, which MIT rejected, and then later some number of months in j…

> The thing they were really trying to do was not have the trial, which is something I would expect them to do given the structure of the legal system.

So basically, charge someone with something ridiculous, and then be offer a sweet sweet deal, such as "only 6 months jail time and confess to 15 felonies. Oh and if you want to go trial it will cost you and your family years of drama, all your savings, and risk 50 years in prison". How nice of them! Let's suppose someone offers you this deal. Does it even matter if you're innocent? Your life is going to be messed up either way. Maybe you cave under pressure and take the deal. How is that furthering the cause of justice?

Oh, and in theory, there's this little thing in the US called the Sixth Amendment:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence"

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#167

Post by coderdude »

mpyne wrote: post #142
temphn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The press will never get everything 100% accurate, but let's look on the bright side. A week ago, many lawyers (example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052339 ) were assuring us that seeing any accountability for Ortiz and Heymann would be a "fantasy", that this wasn't the way things worked, that hackers had to wise up and embrace their impotence. That wasn't the way things played out. With this (as with the mo…

> This week, at least, the lawyers' worldview was proven wrong and the hackers' worldview was proven right, in both the empirical and moral senses of the terms. Let's hope that continues. I've seen more prevaricating (and sometimes outright lying) this week from the hackers than from the lawyers so I, for one, hope that the lynch mob ceases immediately.

I agree with you but I think instead of lies it's likely ignorance or people blinded by emotion.

Ever since Aaron killed himself people have been saying the most logically unsound things about this case and others. Such as: he was a hero, he didn't commit any crimes, others who did similar things were not criminals, copyright shouldn't even exist, MIT is evil for not not caring about the breach, calling other cases bogus because the perpetrator was a young programmer, and so on. Many of the people commenting seem so out of touch with reality that it looks like trolling.

It's all the emotions. Makes it hard to write a sound argument.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#168

Post by MichaelSalib »

nitrogen wrote: post #159
MichaelSalib wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swartz wasn't profiting, it was civil disobedience As I've explained above, I don't think Swartz was trying to profit from this scheme. But I do think he was trying to destroy significant financial value (yes $50million/year is significant for me). And from a legal perspective, that's extremely serious. Now that's what I call "serious commercial value". JSTOR, not so much. So if I rob a bank and steal $30 million, th…

It seems to me you are arguing four separate points: 1. JSTOR has a commercial value of $50mil/yr. This is a fair point, if that is indeed JSTOR's revenue (though "commercial" isn't exactly the right word to describe a non-profit organization's activities). 2. Aaron's intention was to destroy JSTOR. Unless you have another source beside the Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto[0] and the recent summaries posted online by…

There's a nice two step shuffle here. On the one hand, people say "JSTOR is keeping this vitally important knowledge away from THE PEOPLE!" and imply that Swartz was going to rectify that by releasing the JSTOR archive. Then, when I point out that releasing the JSTOR archive would completely undermine JSTOR's viability as a going concern, the same people argue that "there's no way that the JSTOR archive Swartz was going to release could possibly substitute for the service JSTOR provides now!".

Well, if that's true, then I can't see how Swartz's actions were going to help anyone. After all, if the archive torrented is completely inferior to the JSTOR service, then no one would find it valuable. It wouldn't help anyone. So why exactly was Swartz interested in it?

Aaron's intent, as expressed by the manifesto, was to increase access to knowledge.

I doubt he particularly cared about destroying JSTOR one way or another. But he did care about making it so that everyone on earth could have completely free access to every single JSTOR article. If he had achieved that goal, there's no way JSTOR could function as a going concern now. I mean, maybe JSTOR could continue as an company charging $1/month for a search index, but it wouldn't be scanning in new material like crazy right now.

Making a particular business model obsolete is not in itself criminal.

Of course not. But violating the CFAA is. Copyright infringement, on a large enough scale certainly is.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#169

Post by mpyne »

malandrew wrote: post #160
mpyne wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This week, at least, the lawyers' worldview was proven wrong and the hackers' worldview was proven right, in both the empirical and moral senses of the terms. Let's hope that continues. I've seen more prevaricating (and sometimes outright lying) this week from the hackers than from the lawyers so I, for one, hope that the lynch mob ceases immediately.

Examples please.

* "Aaron was just violating TOS"

* "They were pushing for 35/50 years in prison"

* "This is just like using my neighbor's Wifi"

* "They were trumping up charges to make an example of Aaron" (before you downvote, read Kerr's posts).

* "They were aiming for harshest possible sentence"

* There was also the very nice individual who doxxed Ortiz, who I'm sure is a fine representative of all that is right with hacktivism.

And on and on.

And in the meantime there has been very little commentary over the major (not only, but major) cause of this (untreated depression), presumably because that doesn't play into the agenda. Likewise there is little discussion on ways to amend CFAA to make it better-aligned with what we intuitively feel would be appropriate (because in the hacktivist mold the only good change would be to repeal CFAA entirely). Feel free to say I'm seeing it wrong, but I don't think I am.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#170

Post by MichaelSalib »

MichaelSalib wrote: post #115
smsm42 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swartz never intended to destroy JSTOR. He wanted to provide access to the articles (many of them, I'm sure, public financed and should be publicly accessible anyway) to people that do not have 50K/year to pay to JSTOR. That would by no way destroy JSTOR, but if the access to the storage could be provided much cheaper - in theory, if it would be possible to do all the functions of JSTOR without JSTOR - I see no reaso…

With respect, the fact that he wrote the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto suggests that he did want to destroy JSTOR as a going concern. Now, maybe he didn't think releasing their archive would be enough, but he was clearly gunning for them. He wanted to provide access to the articles to people that do not have 50K/year to pay to JSTOR. That would by no way destroy JSTOR JSTOR prorates its fees so that poor institution…

Wow, downvoters really don't want anyone to know about how JSTOR is free for institutions in Africa or prorates its costs for poorer institutions the world over!

I wonder if Swartz, who was very concerned about information access in the global south (according to his manifesto), knew about that.

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