21–30 of 95 posts
Everything Aaron does is out of good intentions. I know, I've worked with him before.
His crime isn't "borrowing" the data...it's getting caught.
>The two MIT officers and Special Agent Pickett then tried to stop Swartz, who jumped off his bike and ran away, only to be caught and handcuffed by the Secret Service Agent, according to the report. RUN FASTER. I really can't stress this enough. The reason he got caught is because he didn't run fast enough. If you're going to do stuff like this, LEARN TO RUN FAST. Cops are fat and slow. You can usually get away from…
Ha, I was just thinking the same thing. Also, if we're talking pure logistics, don't jump off the BIKE either. Perhaps we should consider the fact that the secret service was involved.. I bet that guy is pretty fast. I don't know why I think that though, just seems more "tough". Another thing: Aaron is a really important person to have writing/researching/hacking outside of prison. Surely it's a net win to just pay a…
Totally blowing things out of proportion. 35 years? Secret Service? Just for JSTOR data...it's unusual punishment Everything Aaron does is out of good intentions. I know, I've worked with him before. His crime isn't "borrowing" the data...it's getting caught.
"For its part, JSTOR says it worked with Swartz’s lawyers to get the data back[...]" Interesting way of putting it. I would have said "removing the data from his possession"
Interesting way of putting it. I would have said "removing the data from his possession" This is part of a standard narrative to treat copyright infringement as theft analogous to theft of "tangible" traditional property. You will also notice terms like "documents were stolen" in the original indictment. Although to be fair to JSTOR, their official statement did not use such (imho) misleading language.
http://about.jstor.org/news-events/news/jstor-statement-misu...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ha, I was just thinking the same thing. Also, if we're talking pure logistics, don't jump off the BIKE either. Perhaps we should consider the fact that the secret service was involved.. I bet that guy is pretty fast. I don't know why I think that though, just seems more "tough". Another thing: Aaron is a really important person to have writing/researching/hacking outside of prison. Surely it's a net win to just pay a…
You ruined The Wire for me. I just started watching season 1.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about the most basic IDS on the laptop? He really should have know it was taken from the closet (and its network connection) and then replaced. Personally, I'd have been more patient and used wifi. Or one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug
It's hard to believe they'd go to all of this effort to catch someone who'd placed a laptop in an unmarked closet. There was no indication that a student was not allowed in the area, according to my reading. In hindsight we can think of lots of ways to defend against this kind of detection, but which of us would really think they would get the Secret Service involved to catch a person who was downloading public domai…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about the most basic IDS on the laptop? He really should have know it was taken from the closet (and its network connection) and then replaced. Personally, I'd have been more patient and used wifi. Or one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug
It's hard to believe they'd go to all of this effort to catch someone who'd placed a laptop in an unmarked closet. There was no indication that a student was not allowed in the area, according to my reading. In hindsight we can think of lots of ways to defend against this kind of detection, but which of us would really think they would get the Secret Service involved to catch a person who was downloading public domai…
I hate being pedantic[1] but I keep seeing people make this mistake: JSTOR is not just public domain works, and there is no indication that the downloading was limited to public domain works. I think people are getting confused due to the release (by someone else) of a torrent of public domain material from JSTOR, but that's not a torrent of what Aaron downloaded.
[1] Not really, but I hate that I don't hate it.
The actual damage done here was negligible, especially considering the questionable locking-down of the content in the first place (i.e. maybe it should always have been free, and it was still valued at only $50,000 by the school, not $1 million). Swartz maybe did something stupid, but his ability to contribute to society is still far greater out of jail than in. There is also every bit of evidence to suggest that his intent is to contribute positively to society.
In other words, if he serves more than a few months in jail for this, or is actually asked to pay a million dollars, I will be incredibly disheartened by the "legal" system.
manhunt for a slender guy with a backpack riding a bike on MIT’s campus Well that must've narrowed it right down.