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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

#81

Post by tptacek »

demallien wrote: post #66
mapt wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

♫ 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…

"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')." From Wikipedia: "A Stand-Your-Ground law is a type of self-defense law that gives individuals the right to use deadly force to defend themselves without any requirement to evade or retreat from a dangerous situation. It is law in certain jurisdictions within the Uni…

It is also the law throughout much of Europe.

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

#82

Post by demallien »

jessaustin wrote: post #69
demallien wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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')." From Wikipedia: "A Stand-Your-Ground law is a type of self-defense law that gives individuals the right to use deadly force to defend themselves without any requirement to evade or retreat from a dangerous situation. It is law in certain jurisdictions within the Uni…

This is the type of law that allowed Trayvon Martin's killer to walk away as an innocent man. Please stop. Zimmerman's legal team never even mentioned SYG. It wouldn't have made sense, since their claim was that at the time of the shooting he was pinned on his back and unable to move. In such a situation, no one has a "duty to retreat". I'm not claiming SYG is good or bad law, but if you'd like to argue against it pl…

Again from Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin)

"The "stand your ground law" was not used by the Zimmerman defense team during the trial, although it was considered at an earlier time. Some sources have pointed out that “Stand Your Ground” was mentioned in the Jury Instructions preceding the trial,[308] however, this is part of the required Jury Instructions in all Florida murder trials in which the defendant claims “Justifiable Use of Deadly Force” as part of their defense."

And: "The police chief said that Zimmerman was released because there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman's claim of having acted in self-defense, and that under Florida's Stand Your Ground statute, the police were prohibited by law from making an arrest."

Honestly, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that SYG played a role in the jury's decision-making process. But hey, don't take my word for it, what about the reaction of the Governor of Florida (again from Wikipedia): "Three weeks after the shooting, Florida Governor Rick Scott commissioned a 19-member task force to review the Florida statute that deals with justifiable use of force, including the Stand Your Ground provision."

If that's still to tenuous a connection for you, let's hear from one of the jurors on the case: "An anonymous member of the jury appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 on July 15 to discuss how Florida's Stand Your Ground law provided a legal justification for Zimmerman's actions. According to the juror, neither charge against Zimmerman applied "because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground" http://thewabashc3.blogspot.fr/2013/07/timothy-johnson-media...

So yeah, I really do think it's "sensible" to think that SYG helped Trayvon Martin's killer walk away as an innocent man.

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

#83

Post by demallien »

tptacek wrote: post #81
demallien wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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')." From Wikipedia: "A Stand-Your-Ground law is a type of self-defense law that gives individuals the right to use deadly force to defend themselves without any requirement to evade or retreat from a dangerous situation. It is law in certain jurisdictions within the Uni…

It is also the law throughout much of Europe.

Which, castle doctrine or stand-your-ground?

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

#84

Post by throwawaykf02 »

legutierr wrote: post #23
tptacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations, you just immunized probably 1/3rd of all the SQL injection exploiters on the Internet.

I think there is a clear distinction that you can make between an SQL injection attack and the unsecured API that weev accessed. SQL injection attacks depend on inserting malicious code into an application in order to traverse that application and access systems that stand behind it. The point of SQL injection is to circumvent restricted permissions that the owner of the server has attempted to impose. What weev did…

> What weev did was quite different in that he accessed this web service in exactly the way it was intended.

So is a thief who walks through a door carelessly left unlocked "accessing it exactly in the way it was intended." It's what he does afterwards that makes the difference.

> What is the difference, under the law, between someone accessing a private Google API and the private AT&T API that weev accessed? As a web developer with zero documentation, zero information beyond simply knowledge of the API URL's existence, there is no apparent difference beyond what content was being served by these APIs. So, if that is the case, at what point should web developers accessing undocumented APIs begin to be concerned about their criminal liability?

When the content you get back from a URL is other people's private data, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that maybe there's some criminal liability there.

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

#85

Post by throwawaykf02 »

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.

Not unprecedented. Remember, they eventually only managed to get Al Capone on tax evasion.

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

#86

Post by lawnchair_larry »

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 was not independently wealthy and didn't do crime for cash. He was broke and living on couches, and those claims were him trolling.

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

#88

Post by lawnchair_larry »

walod wrote: post #73

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.

No, the logs were taken out of context. They have a "special" sense of humor, but they didn't intend to actually do any of what was in the logs.

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

#89

Post by rayiner »

pseingatl wrote: post #65
rayiner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my thoughts on the CFAA have evolved. I agree it's not easy to trip. I agree sentences are the problem. But as far as I can tell, the US Sentencing Commission is full of crazy people. The Sentencing Guidelines are bizarre. And the whole process has caused judges to abdicate their good sense and anchor their sentences to this messed up document. If we can't trust sentencing as a process, and I'm beginning to b…

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…

I was a child in Bangladesh at the time, but with the hindsight of history I will agree with Justice Scalia's dissent in Mistretta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistretta_v._United_States):

"Dissenting Justice Scalia believed the sentencing commission to be an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power by Congress to another agency because the guidelines established by the Sentencing Commission have the force of law: a judge who disregards them will be reversed. Scalia noted that the guidelines were 'heavily laden (or ought to be) with value judgments and policy assessments' rather than merely technical, Scalia also disputed the assertion by majority that the sentencing commission was in the judicial branch rather than the legislative saying the commission 'is not a court, does not exercise judicial power, and is not controlled by or accountable to members of the Judicial Branch.'"

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

#90

Post by aestetix »

throwawaykf02 wrote: post #72
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.

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 wan…

If that information is so valuable, then shouldn't some burden be placed on AT&T for negligence? If this had been health care records, AT&T would have been required to notify users and possibly pay a fine. Perhaps it makes sense to have similar laws in place to protect all data, as Europe does (see ECHR).

The point here is, if we want to nail weev to a cross, AT&T should be nailed up right next to him.

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