Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death • Hacker News Board

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#201

Post by mpyne » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

walid wrote: post #199

rayiner wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points: 1) You can disagree with a law yet concede that you broke it. I might disagree with the concept of copyright, but I can recognize and admit when my actions, fit the definition of infringement. 2) It was not a violation of Aaron's 4th amendment rights for MIT to hand over documents without a warrant. You cannot invoke 4th amendment protection over someone else's property, only that person can. And that per…

In your first point you skip that the reason why Aaron was able to get into the system was that MIT was a breeding place for the hack culture and didn't clamp down on security like keeping the door of the switches closet open and allowing highly privileged access to its network. If it was locked or entry was prohibited then it would have been outright against set rules. It wasn't. This means according to MIT's follow…

For your first point, Aaron was not an MIT student or MIT faculty so whatever traditions MIT might have regarding their lax security, they didn't apply to him.

Either way MIT made it actively clear to Aaron that his presence was unwelcome on their subnet. Keep in mind that your logic would excuse essentially any amount of computer crimes and actual vandalism if applied in general to anyone who cared to go to MIT. Note further that MIT 'hacks' are also famous for having the hackers treat the campus with great care to include not interfering with the rest of the students' study and cleaning up after themselves when they were done. And student 'hacks' certainly didn't last over a period of weeks and months.

As for your second point, MIT was the ISP (at least to the point of their network peers and upstreams) and since MIT is not the government the Fourth Amendment never applied between MIT Aaron. Aaron's Fourth Amendment rights (which range Aaron government) could never be violated by MIT unless MIT were working directly at the behest of the government, which is not something that happened here.

Rather MIT voluntarily cooperated with the prosecution after completing their own investigation (which is always the right of the victim of a crime). But ISPs don't get a separate legal immunity; if you are an ISP and act like an ISP (including following the law as an ISP) then you would have the same legal rights as any other "ISP".

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#202

Post by mpyne » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #180

mpyne wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People at MIT But Aaron was at Harvard. He was not an MIT student or part of their faculty. At what point does MIT get to take charge of their own network against third parties?

Harvard and MIT have a lot of crosstalk. If he knew people at MIT and was around, which I assume he did and was, it's generally socially acceptable to take part in "hacks" (breaking into locked places is one type).

But he wasn't "taking part in" a hack, he was the hack. Ringleader, sole proprietor, everything.

Crosstalk or not he should have started it at Harvard if it were so obviously on the up and up.

And in any event once he was kicked off the network to such an extent as to require entering a network closet (note it was never locked, so there was no 'hack' to be had here physically) to regain the subnet he should have taken that as notice that his 'hack' was unwelcome. Well, he should have taken the hint earlier too...

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#203

Post by Moocat87 » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:32 PM UTC

epipsychidion wrote: post #146

Moocat87 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you just repeating the first few words of the grandparent comment? I hardly think "suicide is a choice" is an appropriate thing to say. Take recent suicide rates in the military. Do all those soldiers decide to become so depressed as to kill themselves, or does environment have something to do with it?

Suicide is a choice. I fully agree that MIT acted abominably and in an ethically, if not legally, questionable manner with regards to giving evidence and support to the prosecution but not defense. But you can't blame them for his decision to take his life. It was an incredibly selfish act given the intense pain it caused his family.

Another word-for-word echo of the top comment in this thread.

Seriously? I'm not blaming MIT. What did I say that indicated this? I'm arguing about "suicide is a choice." It's not. Choice has something to do with it, but to say it is choice is asinine. To say that is to never have been depressed or truly known another person who was depressed or suffering from another mental illness.

Also, is it not selfish of a family to expect a person with mental illness (or other serious problems) to suffer for the rest of his/her life just so they can delay the loss?

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#204

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

walid wrote: post #199

rayiner wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points: 1) You can disagree with a law yet concede that you broke it. I might disagree with the concept of copyright, but I can recognize and admit when my actions, fit the definition of infringement. 2) It was not a violation of Aaron's 4th amendment rights for MIT to hand over documents without a warrant. You cannot invoke 4th amendment protection over someone else's property, only that person can. And that per…

In your first point you skip that the reason why Aaron was able to get into the system was that MIT was a breeding place for the hack culture and didn't clamp down on security like keeping the door of the switches closet open and allowing highly privileged access to its network. If it was locked or entry was prohibited then it would have been outright against set rules. It wasn't. This means according to MIT's follow…

Your first rebuttal point is totally eviscerated by the fact that regardless of whatever "hacker culture" May or May not exist at the largest non-profit defense contractor in the country, it is always the right of a private institution to revoke a right to use private property. MIT did precisely that. And Aaron knew his right to use the property had been revoke, otherwise he wouldn't have continued to access the property while disguised. He also violated the terms of use of MIT's network, which specifically mention copyright infringement.

Your second rebuttal point is simply a misstatement of the law. Only the government can violate your 4th amendment rights, not private parties like MIT, unless they're acting as agents for the government. But 4th amendment rights are not violated when a private party freely shares it's own documents with the government. The 4th amendment is only implicated when the government accesses your documents and you don't consent.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#205

Post by ericd » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 6:28 PM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #202

ericd wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harvard and MIT have a lot of crosstalk. If he knew people at MIT and was around, which I assume he did and was, it's generally socially acceptable to take part in "hacks" (breaking into locked places is one type).

But he wasn't "taking part in" a hack, he was the hack. Ringleader, sole proprietor, everything. Crosstalk or not he should have started it at Harvard if it were so obviously on the up and up. And in any event once he was kicked off the network to such an extent as to require entering a network closet (note it was never locked, so there was no 'hack' to be had here physically) to regain the subnet he should have take…

Sure, pulling off a hack, if that makes you feel better.

Where does it say he needed to go to the network closet to regain net access? It sounds like the admins didn't have him on their radar until after he had planted his download box. It just seems like a convenient place to leave a computer downloading things for a long time.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#206

Post by DonGateley » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 6:59 PM UTC

Frankly, my main takeaway with respect to Aaron Swartz was his willingness to terribly damage the people close to him. Could he have had insufficient self esteem to understand that consequence? Because if the answer to that is no, his behavior becomes sociopathic and all the blame that is being thrown around is misdirected.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#207

Post by pdonis » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 10:39 PM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #197

pdonis wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you see a drowning man and do nothing you are guilty of inaction. Yes. But if you take a man and throw him in the water with chains around his arms and legs so that he drowns, you are guilty of something worse. I'm not saying MIT is blameless; I'm saying that there are degrees of blame, and the prosecutors deserve more than MIT does, because MIT failed to help but the prosecutors actively sought to harm. In this c…

The article implies that MIT knew that students were downloading JSTOR files illegally.

Swartz wasn't a student, so even if MIT had issued some sort of warning to students, he wouldn't have seen it.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#208

Post by esbranson » Sun, Jan 05, 2014, 1:10 AM UTC

> They watched via video feed as their suspect removed the laptop, this time with a bike helmet obscuring his face.

Aaron Swartz did not attempt to obscure his face. The DOJ just chose a screenshot of when the helmet happened to pass over his face, making it falsely appear as though he was. That's malicious on the part of the DOJ, and that's slanderous and sloppy journalism on the part of Janelle Nanos and Boston magazine.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/12/swartz-video/

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#209

Post by mpyne » Sun, Jan 05, 2014, 7:00 AM UTC

ericd wrote: post #205

mpyne wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he wasn't "taking part in" a hack, he was the hack. Ringleader, sole proprietor, everything. Crosstalk or not he should have started it at Harvard if it were so obviously on the up and up. And in any event once he was kicked off the network to such an extent as to require entering a network closet (note it was never locked, so there was no 'hack' to be had here physically) to regain the subnet he should have take…

Sure, pulling off a hack, if that makes you feel better. Where does it say he needed to go to the network closet to regain net access? It sounds like the admins didn't have him on their radar until after he had planted his download box. It just seems like a convenient place to leave a computer downloading things for a long time.

> Where does it say he needed to go to the network closet to regain net access? It sounds like the admins didn't have him on their radar until after he had planted his download box. It just seems like a convenient place to leave a computer downloading things for a long time.

You should go study the whole thing again.

Basically he started off leeching off of Wifi only.

At some point JSTOR noticed and complained to MIT so they blocked (get this), his IP address.

So Aaron picked a different IP.

Then they blocked his MAC (this is all on Wifi, still).

So Aaron changed his MAC.

Eventually MIT and JSTOR figured out how to block him off of their wireless completely (or at least, to rate-limit the JSTOR access over Wifi).

It was only at this point that Aaron changed strategies into trying to hookup with a wired connection directly to the MIT switches, by finding and utilizing the network closet.

Re: Losing Aaron: Bob Swartz on MIT's role in his son's death

#210

Post by idle_processor » Wed, Jan 08, 2014, 4:04 AM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #168

idle_processor wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not consider this[0] evidence of them sabotaging cryptography systems? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6944118

In the context of NSA specifically, not really; the algorithm is meant to be secure for all uses except against NSA. I've noted before that I disagree with NSA's actions here but this isn't a case of them shipping crypto with a backdoor that anyone could target (contrary to the claim of the top comment from your link, only NSA could break the crypto in Dual EC DRBG).

Suppose I take your claim that "only the NSA could break [it]" on good faith.

You're missing the word "presently."

That back door is there. Others not having figured out how to interact with it yet is a matter of security through obscurity[0], and the system is still weaker for it, even though it's not yet fully cracked.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity