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How Weev's prosecutors are making up the rules

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

#71

Post by twoodfin »

Volpe wrote: post #24
tptacek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legality of your actions depends on whether you know, as you interact with the automated system, that you have managed to find a path to data that you should not have had access to. So, if by incrementing ICC-IDs, you found random technical data about AT&T provisioning, it would be very hard to argue that you were knowingly accessing it without authorization. But when the information you find is so personal that…

Putting the burden on a user to "know" whether they are authorized or not, seems crazy. Even if they talked about selling to spammers. Hypothetically the police give me a Police report number that I can access at police.gov/crimes/:reportno I discover if I increment/decrement these I can get ALL reports. I then build a cool mashup of crimes in the area on a google map. It turns out the police didn't intend that, am I…

Indeed, it's a judgment call. That's why we have judges and juries.

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

#72

Post by throwawaykf02 »

quanticle wrote: post #61
jamesaguilar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same people who decide every other time the law calls for consideration of intent and mental state of defendants (which is a lot) -- the judge and jury.

And that gets back to what the authors of the article are talking about. The judge and jury have no idea what this long-haired, bearded internet troll actually did. So they accepted the prosecution's assertion of, "He's a witch!" and handed down a guilty verdict.

He accessed data belonging to other people that he should not have, and knew he should not have. (And then went on to make very unwise statements about his intentions of how to handle that data.)

That's all that really matters to the judge and jury. The technical aspects don't matter much to them.

Also: If ease of access to information means anyone can take it, do you mean to say the NSA should take whatever they want because people don't encrypt their data?

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

#73

Post by walod »

If you read the irc logs, weev and spitler's intent was obviously malicious. I think many things in this case are true at the same time. Oversentencing and prosecution yes, but how do you then prosecute someone like this? There was a reason they included the irc logs in the prosecution, because the intent counts, not just the physical actions by the accused.

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

#74

Post by thaumaturgy »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #39

I'm still kind of boggled that they were unable to get Weev on criminal harassment. Or anything else, for that matter, given that IIRC he had no employment of record but was independently wealthy and bragged about doing computer crime for cash. He absolutely belongs in prison; just not, perhaps, for this specific charge.

> He absolutely belongs in prison...

I would like to see this rhetoric about Weev stop. People are allowing themselves to be distracted by the character of the defendant rather than the stupidity of the laws involved.

Whether or not he belongs in prison is completely irrelevant to the conversation about the sentencing and laws and prosecutorial conduct involved.

Unless, of course, you want to defend bad laws so long as they apply to people who are not you.

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

#75

Post by wavefunction »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #74
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #39

I'm still kind of boggled that they were unable to get Weev on criminal harassment. Or anything else, for that matter, given that IIRC he had no employment of record but was independently wealthy and bragged about doing computer crime for cash. He absolutely belongs in prison; just not, perhaps, for this specific charge.

> He absolutely belongs in prison... I would like to see this rhetoric about Weev stop. People are allowing themselves to be distracted by the character of the defendant rather than the stupidity of the laws involved. Whether or not he belongs in prison is completely irrelevant to the conversation about the sentencing and laws and prosecutorial conduct involved. Unless, of course, you want to defend bad laws so long…

PhasmaFelis is being perfectly reasonable in noting that Weev's current prosecution seems inappropriate and dangerously precedent setting, while still noting that Weev is vile scum (by his own admissions) who should have instead been prosecuted for other more real crimes.

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

#76

Post by tptacek »

dctoedt wrote: post #67
pseingatl wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where were you when the Sentencing Guidelines were proposed in 1987? When they became law on November 1, 1989? The guidelines at that time were all about throwing drug dealers into jail for extended periods, but because you weren't a drug dealer, so what? Now those same guidelines are being used against average computer users. Because they said nothing before, it's too late now. What was the quote from the German pas…

> Where were you [@rayiner] when the Sentencing Guidelines were proposed in 1987? When they became law on November 1, 1989? Judging from the on-line information available about him, he was three years old, or thereabouts.

That. is. no. excuse.

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

#77

Post by tptacek »

quanticle wrote: post #61
jamesaguilar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same people who decide every other time the law calls for consideration of intent and mental state of defendants (which is a lot) -- the judge and jury.

And that gets back to what the authors of the article are talking about. The judge and jury have no idea what this long-haired, bearded internet troll actually did. So they accepted the prosecution's assertion of, "He's a witch!" and handed down a guilty verdict.

I have a pretty good understanding of what he actually did, and when I think about the implication of immunizing every similar action by anyone on the Internet --- any vulnerability triggered by a preauth GET handler --- I have no trouble seeing why what he did was illegal. You can safely monkey around with other people's systems under that reading of the CFAA. But, once you find yourself getting private information about other users, you know something's wrong, and you need to stop right away. He didn't. Coming into that knowledge and then continuing to exploit the system is the crux of the prosecution's case here, not the nature of URLs.

But, again: I think this case didn't deserve to be prosecuted, and I think CFAA's sentencing should be revised to ensure that in the future prosecutors have no incentive to push pointless cases like it.

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

#78

Post by thaumaturgy »

wavefunction wrote: post #75
thaumaturgy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He absolutely belongs in prison... I would like to see this rhetoric about Weev stop. People are allowing themselves to be distracted by the character of the defendant rather than the stupidity of the laws involved. Whether or not he belongs in prison is completely irrelevant to the conversation about the sentencing and laws and prosecutorial conduct involved. Unless, of course, you want to defend bad laws so long…

PhasmaFelis is being perfectly reasonable in noting that Weev's current prosecution seems inappropriate and dangerously precedent setting, while still noting that Weev is vile scum (by his own admissions) who should have instead been prosecuted for other more real crimes.

But that's not relevant. At all. And, it weakens the criticism of the prosecution: "I hate to defend this guy, but..."

It's akin to saying, "Alan Turing is gay, but he's done some good work in cryptography anyway..." ... that example only seems ridiculous now because social mores have changed.

Weev's character would have relevance in a discussion about whether or not he deserves a Great Justice award, not whether or not the prosecution in this case is just or not.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #77
quanticle wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that gets back to what the authors of the article are talking about. The judge and jury have no idea what this long-haired, bearded internet troll actually did. So they accepted the prosecution's assertion of, "He's a witch!" and handed down a guilty verdict.

I have a pretty good understanding of what he actually did, and when I think about the implication of immunizing every similar action by anyone on the Internet --- any vulnerability triggered by a preauth GET handler --- I have no trouble seeing why what he did was illegal. You can safely monkey around with other people's systems under that reading of the CFAA. But, once you find yourself getting private information…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by jamesaguilar »

quanticle wrote: post #61
jamesaguilar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same people who decide every other time the law calls for consideration of intent and mental state of defendants (which is a lot) -- the judge and jury.

And that gets back to what the authors of the article are talking about. The judge and jury have no idea what this long-haired, bearded internet troll actually did. So they accepted the prosecution's assertion of, "He's a witch!" and handed down a guilty verdict.

We aren't arguing about what he did. We are arguing about why he did it. Did you seriously just not read the entire conversation above the comment? The technical aspects of exactly what he did aren't important.
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