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How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture

nytimes.com

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Re: How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture

#4

Post by mpyne »

gnosis wrote: post #2

"'M.I.T. had to identify the hacker and assist with his apprehension in order to prevent further abuse,' the government argued in court." Or they could have just tried talking to him and giving him a verbal warning.

What would a verbal warning have been useful for? He already knew his behavior was unwanted, and that's what verbal warnings are for. He wasn't stupid, so the verbal warnings wouldn't have been the first time that he learned that there were actual laws against unauthorized network access.

Besides, what's there to warn him about, he's 100% right in what he was doing, wasn't he? To hear it from the hacktivists, he did nothing wrong (and so there's nothing to warn him about). If he did do something to warrant a warning then he was already past the point of needing one.

Re: How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture

#5

Post by tchalla »

In order to understand why this incident was even more shocking than usual, one just needs to read this snippet

    The arrest shocked friends of Mr. Swartz, as well as 
    M.I.T. alumni. Brewster Kahle, an M.I.T. graduate and 
    founder of the digital library Internet Archive, where 
    Mr. Swartz gave programming assistance, wrote: “When I 
    was at M.I.T., if someone went to hack the system, say 
    by downloading databases to play with them, might be 
    called a hero, get a degree, and start a company. But 
    they called the cops on him. Cops.”
I find the change of perspective - from hero to criminal - from MIT quite astonishing. I wonder if this incident makes current students wary about the change in MIT ethos.

Re: How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture

#6

Post by waterlesscloud »

"At 9:44 a.m. the M.I.T. police were called in; by 10:30 a.m., the Cambridge police were en route, and by 11 a.m., Michael Pickett, a Secret Service agent and expert on computer crime, was on the scene. "

Less than 1.5 hours from campus cops to Secret Service on scene.

Re: How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture

#7

Post by kanzure »

rdl wrote: post #3

I wonder what "activity from China" was. Also, looks like this went all the way up to the Chancellor, so it's not as if it was just the libraries or someone pushing for this.

"Counsel for the government understands that a number of external connections were made and/or attempted to the Acer laptop between January 4, 2011 and January 6, 2011, including from a Linux server at MIT and from China."

("Attempted" means his laptop probably had a public ip address assigned through dhcp and someone was knocking on ports from China. This "attempt" happens constantly 24/7 and is nothing to write home about.)

"7. Exculpatory Evidence. In paragraph H of the government's letter, the government described but refused to provide almost all of certain exculpatory evidence, including evidence that, during the period covered by the indictment, persons other than Mr. Swartz at Harvard, MIT and China accessed the Acer laptop that was seized by the government, and persons other than Mr. Swartz at MIT and elsewhere were engaging in "journal spidering" of JSTOR data using a "virtual computer" that can be hosted by anyone at MIT. The government has no basis for withholding the electronic evidence described as exculpatory in its letter."

http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/aaronsw-lost-pirate-treasure.txt

Re: How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture

#9

Post by gnosis »

mpyne wrote: post #4
gnosis wrote: post #2

"'M.I.T. had to identify the hacker and assist with his apprehension in order to prevent further abuse,' the government argued in court." Or they could have just tried talking to him and giving him a verbal warning.

What would a verbal warning have been useful for? He already knew his behavior was unwanted, and that's what verbal warnings are for. He wasn't stupid, so the verbal warnings wouldn't have been the first time that he learned that there were actual laws against unauthorized network access. Besides, what's there to warn him about, he's 100% right in what he was doing, wasn't he? To hear it from the hacktivists, he did…

First, by talking to him, MIT would have revealed that they knew who he was. That alone might have dissuaded him, as he was clearly acting under the assumption that he had successfully hidden his identity (or otherwise he would not have bothered to hide his face from the camera).

Second, they might have learned his motives and either found another way for him to achieve his objective (perhaps through some sort of compromise) or persuaded him to stop.

Third, they could have made clear to him what the penalties the government was ready to use against him in this case were, and that they had enough evidence to take him to court if he persisted.

Any of these might have been enough to lead to a less tragic outcome than what wound up happening when they immediately threw the book at him.

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