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Reading this article http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes... makes me feel not too terrible that he's being thrown in jail.
Of course he deserves to be in jail, but he should be in jail under harassment and identity theft laws instead of the hacking charges.
Now imagine that you come upon a computer and that you click on one of the favorites. It's a banking website. No password, no HTTPS, no access controls at all. Who is responsible for the security breach? You or the bank?
I would argue that if there are no technological access controls in place, there is no such thing as "unauthorized access" You can't be unauthorized if there is no authorization. The default on the internet is "can access"
They're prosecuting him for the digital equivalent of walking down a street and taking pictures of houses which don't display numbers on their mailbox.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Throwing him in jail is an awful outcome for justice and for the precendent it sets. I'm very much hoping he walks out of court a free man. Once outside the court, he could get hit by a bus as far as I'm concerned. When we want weev free, we're fighting for law and society, for just principles, not for the individual.
I was with you up until wishing another human dead.
Reading this article http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes... makes me feel not too terrible that he's being thrown in jail.
But he didn't stop there. Not at ten. Not at a hundred. What purpose does collecting thousands serve that just a hundred don't, in terms of white hat campaign?
Reading this article http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes... makes me feel not too terrible that he's being thrown in jail.
I still bailed him out of jail for the time leading up to and during his trial. Why? Because UNPOPULAR SPEECH SHOULD NEVER BE CRIMINAL, no matter how revolting. Indeed, it is the unpopular and revolting stuff that needs the most defending:
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." —H.L. Mencken
If you visit and internet cafe and someone's forgotten to log out of their bank account and you fiddle with it, that's probably a crime. Since in nearly all cases they probably didn't intend to do such a thing. We can surmise this by observing the banking website had a password to protect the account holder. This is evident by virtue of the "log out" link that's clearly visible and that the website is served over HTT…
Or is it like walking into someone's private home because they left the door open? Or merely unlocked?
The law likes to operate on analogies, because analogous situations are ones for which we have precedent, and precedent makes the law predictable. The sad thing is, precedent goes back to the pre-computer era, too, and isn't necessarily overturned just because new technology with new social expectations is involved. Maybe in a couple generations.
Reading this article http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes... makes me feel not too terrible that he's being thrown in jail.
He belongs in prison for a long time, but not for what he's currently being prosecuted for. It sets a terrible precedent, and I'm sure that, given his personality, he'll be prosecutable for something again soon enough.
If you visit and internet cafe and someone's forgotten to log out of their bank account and you fiddle with it, that's probably a crime. Since in nearly all cases they probably didn't intend to do such a thing. We can surmise this by observing the banking website had a password to protect the account holder. This is evident by virtue of the "log out" link that's clearly visible and that the website is served over HTT…
> I would argue that if there are no technological access controls in place, there is no such thing as "unauthorized access" You can't be unauthorized if there is no authorization. The default on the internet is "can access" Or is it like walking into someone's private home because they left the door open? Or merely unlocked? The law likes to operate on analogies, because analogous situations are ones for which we ha…
Well it was right in the same store you invited me in to! There was no sign or lock or anything saying not to look at the shelf.
This was a PUBLIC website... you are supposed to be able to visit it. If you make a request to a server without providing authentication and it returns data, that is not your fault. That is what you are SUPPOSED to do to servers. If it asks for authentication and tells you you are unauthorized, but you brute force the password or find an exploit, then THAT is a crime. There was not authentication in this case.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Throwing him in jail is an awful outcome for justice and for the precendent it sets. I'm very much hoping he walks out of court a free man. Once outside the court, he could get hit by a bus as far as I'm concerned. When we want weev free, we're fighting for law and society, for just principles, not for the individual.
I was with you up until wishing another human dead.
Read it as a figure of speech, since we technology people always speak about people who might get hit by a bus when thinking about the future of products.