Aaron Swartz commits suicide

General Discussion
41

He didn’t steal shit. The truth about academic writing is that most of the people publishing strong arm universities into paying outrages prices to host a bunch of PDFs. A couple of years ago it became a huge deal when the UC system decided not to keep paying Nature for their journals.

While it sounds nice and peachy, academics (especially those in scientific fields from either hard or social sciences) are supposed to publish material so that the public has access to it. Setting up shop in a way that cuts access to the public it is supposed to be serving.

Did he do it in a fucked up way? Yeah. Are there ways to get access to the stuff he got? Yes. Is it “robbery”? No, its civil disobedience; this used to be a time honored tradition in this country.

42

[media=youtube]a91WYyhnCP0[/media]

43

so let me get this straight, that guy was going to be facing 50 years in federal prison?

he could have helped al-Qaeda build a nuke, killed someone, and knowingly spread aids - for the same amount of time served?

yeah, shit is real out of control.

44

Now the media will of course spin this and say something like the following. It is a shame such a bright young kid went down the wrong path and committed suicide when the government was about ready to drop the case. They just wanted him to learn that breaking the law is wrong and comes with punishment.

Something along these lines will be said.

45

There’s a lot of truth about academic writing being fucked up. Universities try to put a fence around their golden eggs where a fence shouldn’t exist. Actually many or most universities and colleges act like profit making entities even though its not their mission (supposedly).

I think a better system would be to force openness with research results and have more public funding. Sadly I think we might be moving in the opposite direction.

I think my point is that there’s a minimum amount of information/knowledge that needs to be covert for some public servants to do their job properly.

46

It’s pretty disgraceful how the Government has pursued this. JSTOR didn’t care and they didn’t give them permission to act on their behalf WTF.

It’s been well documented how far they’ve been pushing him. They can’t backtrack on this or spin it to make it look like they are the victims.

47

You do realize this is the government right? If they can backtrack on there being WMDs in Iraq or backtrack on how The Patriot Act does not infringed on your rights, they can backtrack on anything.

48

There are still people who think the U.S. should’ve been in Viet Nam. Don’t you ever downplay how well the U.S. government handles its shit; they make people eat so much bullshit that the news looks like japanese scat porn.

49

Shame really. That people who do the right thing are pushed to this extreme.

And even more worrying that there are people who support the government on this issue, even though said bad guy is doing them a favor.

50

Fuck he was only 26, same age as me…

51

Shit, I should pinch myself before I hit Post Reply

52

One of the biggest problems in the world right now, are the universities and colleges. Not just t he ridiculous fees they charge, but the fact that they can now patent virtually anything their students work on, thus fucking over the students futures, and ensuring the school can just keep milking those trademarks while copyrights get extended decade by decade by century. If you’ve ever read the book Next by Michael Chricton (dude who wrote Jurassic Park), he goes into great deal about some of these issues (a school with a student studying a gene can patent that gene, and thus NOBODY ELSE ON EARTH CAN LOOK AT THAT NATURALLY OCCURRING GENE OR DO ANY WORK ON IT WHAT SO EVER. Even if research into that gene could cure cancer or baldness or whatever.

Add to that, the fact that at one point, post secondary educational institutes (colleges, universities, etc) were only allowed to make a certain amount of their profits from students.

Post Secondary schools need to face the fierce backhand that corporations will soon fear as well.

Yeah, but he didn’t even really hack fuck all, and more importantly, they still ended up setting up a fucking FBI special task force to take out a guy who pretty much went to hotmail and checked out Scarlett Johannson’s e-mail’s security question, then googled the fucking answer, then checked through her e-mails. Then put him away for a decade.

Because people with money and zero knowledge of technology got scared.

53

What would you know? You are an undercover white man. You would go to a jail with TV, internet, and conjugal visits. jk

54

It’s twofold…one is that the actual laws in place that cover “hacking” are incredibly vague and nonsensical. Second is that the legal punishments and fines associated are insane and have no actual relation to the crimes committed.

The US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is what he was being charged under, notes that illegal hacking is whenever access to “protected computers” is done “without authorization or exceeding authorized access”…which who knows what the fuck that means.

It’s incredibly vague because then it allows prosecutors to practically go after anyone they want for doing anything. Who defies what computers are “protected” and what it means to “exceed authorized access”? How can using the MIT network, which is open, and JSTOR, which is a free archive, mean that someone had unauthorized access to protected computers?

By the same standard of which they charged him, hypothetically they could do so with anyone that used a browser plugin that masked their exact IP or identity or even a remote VPN connection when logging into Hotmail. Because then you’re trying to access Microsoft’s protected computers anonymously which might be still allowed by them but is still technically without explicit authorization. BOOM, YOU ARE CRIMINAL

It doesn’t mean prosecutors can win the case very often, because these type of CFAA suits are often thrown out or not supported by judges or juries in court, especially in lawsuits between big companies…but it allows prosecutors to accuse anyone of anything, and for normal civilians without a team of corporate lawyers on retainer, you’re already screwed.

The penalties are also driven largely by the creative rights industries, which are big on pushing huge fines and sentences for copyright infringements. Minimum sentences for convictions for some of these laws are like 5 years, with it going up to like 20 or life in prison for computer fraud…like how does it make sense for anyone to be able to do anything with a computer that nets them LIFE IN PRISON, short of like physically using a computer to bludgeon a man to death?

There’s no basis in reality for the penalties of these types of crimes to have punishments of this scale.

The legal system in place to police computer stuff is crazy, largely because people with a lot of money are overly protective of all these young ruffian hacker types from cyberporting their money out of their e-coffers via internet tubes, so they have to crack down on any computer related crime in general.

Blame the Jews that run Hollywood and all the record industries. THAT’S WHO WE SHOULD DIRECT OUR HATE TOWARDS

55

So hitler was right after all!

Spoiler

jk

56

because he’s black :coffee: WOOF WOOF!

57

Every time someone downloads The Avengers, Bob Iger bribes a congressman.

58

Let’s bundle in the Wasps that run Monsanto for using IP law to copyright corn and soybeans and put farmers out of work. IP Law is just a tool for lobbyists and corporations to keep others out of the game.

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/50276_112171389304_4461048_n.jpg

59

Also the dirty Chinese immigrants that pirate our intellectual properties and undercut our economy with sweatshop labour.

60

No, we’re responsible for that.

Sent from my Made In China computer, through my Made In China router, through Made In China fiber optic cables. Designed in California.