Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

blog.erratasec.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 97 posts

Re: How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

#51

Post by reginaldjcooper »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #27
Volpe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble agreeing with this. I know nothing of the law around this, but also realise given the international nature of the internet, the law probably doesn't mean much in perspective. Would Aurenheimer be prosecuted if he were Chinese? The grandparent making the point about status 200 has a point, especially in regards to this case. If a website is returning 200s for a get request. Then you are implicitly 'auth…

In northern Maine, everyone I know keeps their house doors unlocked and their keys sitting in the ignition of their cars. However, it's still illegal to steal their cars and enter their houses. There doesn't even need to be a metaphor here: the data physically existed on a private server, and weev was not authorized to access it.

That's not how HTTP servers work. They are not cars and when they send information back it is not as if you have set foot on property.

Re: How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

#52

Post by kropotkin »

tptacek wrote: post #15
meritt wrote: post #13

I love how it's illegal to adjust part of URL but perfectly legal to wiretap, decrypt personal communications and spy on billions of people.

Similarly: if I shoot you, it's murder. But if a cop shoots you...

... he gets paid leave or maybe a medal.

Re: How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

#53

Post by Amadou »

shardling wrote: post #22
meritt wrote: post #13

I love how it's illegal to adjust part of URL but perfectly legal to wiretap, decrypt personal communications and spy on billions of people.

This seems like one of those things people say to score points, rather than to actually engage in the process of using their brains. There are a myriad of things that are legal for the government to do that are illegal for a common citizen. There's no irony in that.

There are a myriad of things that are legal for the government to do that are illegal for a common citizen. There's no irony in that.

If the government does not require a warrant to do something, then it should be legal for anyone to do. After all, the entire purpose of a warrant is to insure oversight in the use of government power.

Re: How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

#54

Post by anigbrowl »

ericd wrote: post #49
anigbrowl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but nor do I think much of the author's snide dismissal of law clerks as 'people who use Facebook a lot,' (and who, by implication, are incapable of parsing the defense team's arguments). This is a popular trope on HN, but not a very well-founded one. There is intense competition for clerking assignments, which means they go mostly to the cream of the academic crop, and good law students and lawyers are the kind…

I agree with your opinion of law clerks as generally competent people, which probably extends somewhat to technology with the younger set. That said, I know a lot of young, competent engineers and scientists who know next to nothing about the workings of computers and networks. They could figure out a lot if they had the time to put into it (I've seen a couple switch into development successfully), but usually they d…

I get where you're coming from, but I'm not willing to join you over there - I honestly think your position is flawed and that programmers are terrible at judging such issues.

I may just not be seeing the value in the judges' attempts at finding consistency, though, and I'm curious as to why they strive so hard for it versus trying to find the correct interpretation.

This is very much an epistemological question. I'm personally a utilitarian but as we are not granted with the gift of foresight I accept that we need to work within an established framework (ie maintaining consistency with precedent) because what is correct is not nearly as obvious as we would like it to be (eg in this article I think the assumption of what user agent strings are for is too pat by far). A good, accessible, and affordable book on this subject is Bad Acts and guilty Minds by Leo Katz - written by a law professor but for a lay audience. I would be a good deal more utilitarian than he is, but then I'd have approached the defense of Weev's case far differently too.

Re: How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

#55

Post by azernik »

Amadou wrote: post #53
shardling wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like one of those things people say to score points, rather than to actually engage in the process of using their brains. There are a myriad of things that are legal for the government to do that are illegal for a common citizen. There's no irony in that.

There are a myriad of things that are legal for the government to do that are illegal for a common citizen. There's no irony in that. If the government does not require a warrant to do something, then it should be legal for anyone to do. After all, the entire purpose of a warrant is to insure oversight in the use of government power.

The government doesn't require a warrant to take your property by taxation or for eminent domain.

The government doesn't require a warrant to prevent people from entering or leaving the country.

The government doesn't require a warrant to block off city streets or do any of a number of things to public property.

The only things that the Constitution requires the government to get a warrant to do are "search and seizure", which are terms with very specific meanings in the Common Law. The NSA somehow argues that intercepting people's traffic isn't a "search" until an analyst actually looks at it, which I think is a ridiculous argument; however, the response isn't "everything you do needs a warrant", but "that's a search, and searches need warrants".

Re: How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

#56

Post by Amadou »

azernik wrote: post #55
Amadou wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a myriad of things that are legal for the government to do that are illegal for a common citizen. There's no irony in that. If the government does not require a warrant to do something, then it should be legal for anyone to do. After all, the entire purpose of a warrant is to insure oversight in the use of government power.

The government doesn't require a warrant to take your property by taxation or for eminent domain. The government doesn't require a warrant to prevent people from entering or leaving the country. The government doesn't require a warrant to block off city streets or do any of a number of things to public property. The only things that the Constitution requires the government to get a warrant to do are "search and seizu…

Your examples are just word games. The intent of a warrant is oversight, all of those examples require oversight, some more so than others, but all of them require some sort of accountability.

Re: How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

#58

Post by mapt »

guelo wrote: post #40
tptacek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly: if I shoot you, it's murder. But if a cop shoots you...

Nope. Depending on the locality, the situations where a cop is allowed to shoot you and I'm allowed to shoot you are similar, having something to do with the perception of an immediate threat.

♫ Now every month there is a new Rodney [King] on Youtube. It's just something our generation is used to ♫

...

Citizens in the US have a duty to de-escalate the situation, a 'duty to retreat', unless they're backed into a metaphorical corner ('castle doctrine').

Police are presently seen as having a duty to escalate - to allow someone potentially hostile to back down and leave without handcuffs is seen as a dangerous failure, extending even to periods when the police officer is off-duty. Meek compliance with 'lawful orders' is the penultimate goal, and people will be bossed around, arrested, tortured (Who the fuck thought 'drive stun' mode was a good idea), or shot for failing to show appropriate amounts of submissiveness.

Assault against a police officer is seen as a crime against the state, whereas assault against a citizen is essentially mandated for a police officer to do their job.

The rules for actual murder are only slightly less assymmetrical.

Examples abound.

...

First breaking off civil relations with the citizenry via the drug war and then paramilitarizing our police force post 9/11, and finally having their behavior revealed with Youtube and smartphones, has severely damaged the credibility of the police in this country, good and bad; It's going to take some severe changes to bring it back - changes explicitly designed to "make it harder for them to do their job", as they would describe it.

Re: How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

#59

Post by Zak »

tptacek wrote: post #2

One of our many lawyers can relate to us how meaningful the complaint about the word count in the prosecution's brief is. Maybe it's a big deal; I have absolutely no clue about that point. But the central argument to me in this piece is that the DOJ is simply criminalizing URL editing. That is to me a gross oversimplification of what's happened. The CFAA is constructed not to criminalize accidental or reckless unauth…

I didn't find the user-agent and responsible disclosure points particularly compelling

I think you may be right from a legal perspective but I find it troubling that the law is so structured. I think it's important that when dealing with a system that's designed to serve some information to the public, but not other information, it's critical that there be no ambiguity about what a given person is allowed to access.

I do not mean to say that all security mechanisms must be effective, else the issue of unauthorized access would be moot, but that no reasonable, technically adept person would think the security mechanism is not a security mechanism. In the case of a website or web service, a number of well-known industry-standard mechanisms exist, and it's reasonable to expect people to use them.

Re: How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

#60

Post by venomsnake »

mapt wrote: post #58
guelo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Depending on the locality, the situations where a cop is allowed to shoot you and I'm allowed to shoot you are similar, having something to do with the perception of an immediate threat.

♫ Now every month there is a new Rodney [King] on Youtube. It's just something our generation is used to ♫ ... Citizens in the US have a duty to de-escalate the situation, a 'duty to retreat', unless they're backed into a metaphorical corner ('castle doctrine'). Police are presently seen as having a duty to escalate - to allow someone potentially hostile to back down and leave without handcuffs is seen as a dangerous…

I recommend the recent Warrior Cop book by Balco that explain how it got to the point where the police have the duty to escalate and not defuse the citations.

Other parts of the world take the idea of excessive use of police force somewhat more seriously and are weary of it.

Post reply on HN