You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
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Re: You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
#2free weev
Re: You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
#3It is a terrible decision
curl http://domain.com/showdocument?[00000-99999]
Re: You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
#4I, for one like Weev. He is a boundary pusher. Many even around here on hn might perceive his stuff as tasteless. But I sincerely wished more people were as dedicated to their "ideals" as Weev is.
Defending free speech means standing up for people who have controversial views - no matter how unease you personally are with these views.
Re: You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
#5I, for one like Weev. He is a boundary pusher. Many even around here on hn might perceive his stuff as tasteless. But I sincerely wished more people were as dedicated to their "ideals" as Weev is. Defending free speech means standing up for people who have controversial views - no matter how unease you personally are with these views.
Definitely. Free speech stands or falls on the most offensive speech.
It's easy to support free speech when all you say or hear is motherhood and apple pie. It's the things that make people uncomfortable that need protection from censorship.
Re: You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
#6The brief is actually quite readable: https://www.eff.org/file/37297
If you're already familiar with the background of the case, for the meat of the argument on appeal, skip to p. 15 (26th page of the PDF), starting with "Summary of Argument". That section lays out the five objections being raised on appeal, and is then followed by five sections making the detailed arguments.
edit: direct link, https://www.eff.org/file/37297#page/26/mode/1up
Re: You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
#7It is a terrible decision curl http://domain.com/showdocument?[00000-99999] should not be a crime!!
What if doing so killed a person for each ID at showdocument? Ok, that's pretty absurd. What if it wiped out their bank account?
Don't you think that the consequences should depend on what the action actually accomplished, rather than the action itself? Flicking a lighter is generally pretty innocuous, but if done to light a house on fire, it means it's a bit different - right?
Yes, it's their fault too for leaving it open, but you had a choice when you decided to access it N000 times, rather than saying "oops, that does something bad, I think I'll stop".
I don't think the punishment fits the crime in this case, but I don't think he's entirely innocent either. Once you've shown that someone stupidly left their door open, the polite thing is to let them know, rather than walking around in their house looking at all their things to show them the error of their ways. IMO a fine would more than suffice as a punishment, though.
Re: You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
#8I, for one like Weev. He is a boundary pusher. Many even around here on hn might perceive his stuff as tasteless. But I sincerely wished more people were as dedicated to their "ideals" as Weev is. Defending free speech means standing up for people who have controversial views - no matter how unease you personally are with these views.
How do you make this a speech issue?
Re: You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
#9I agree with the sentiment that computer use crimes need to be reworked, and that weev shouldn't have been hoisted by the fact he is a colossal dick but the article seems to gloss over things for the sake of the argument.
- `The spoofing was irrelevant; Spitler would have gotten the same email addresses if he had manually inputted the URLs on an iPad rather than a spoofed desktop browser.`, the spoofing is incredibly relevant, it's an important technical detail. Sure he could have sat and put each string in in a long laborious process, but they circumvented that and went straight to the faster option. Once they'd established there was a hole they could have stopped rather than going for the motherlode.
- `if there’s no technical barrier...`, there was a technical barrier, it was just very, very small.
He certainly didn't deserve the ridiculous amount of time that he got, but he's not an innocent in this example by any stretch of the imagination.
Re: You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal
#10It is a terrible decision curl http://domain.com/showdocument?[00000-99999] should not be a crime!!
Should I be allowed to brute force passwords then?