Edward Tufte's Defense of Aaron Swartz and the "Marvelously Different"

zokuga writes "Data visualization pioneer Edward Tufte spoke at hacker-activist Aaron Swartz's public memorial. In his message, he described how he came to know Swartz at Stanford and how Tufte's own college hacking exploits had the potential to ruin his own life."

Comments

Poor young people

[Anonymous Coward]

The stupid stunts I did back in the '80s were as bad, if not worse, both in the real world and the BBS scene. The difference is no one stored my every stunt for posterity and instant access for all.

Re:Poor young people

[ColdWetDog]

Yeah, I was going to say pretty much the same thing. In high school, a friend and I had a running interaction with NASA security at the Manned Spacecraft Center (Lyndon B. Johnson Spacecraft Center to you modern folk). This involved penetrating the MSC by walking into places we *really* should not have walked into looking stupid / innocent. This was tolerated to a large degree until we found a place were we *** really *** should not have been.

Then we were politely told by security to cut it out. Enough fun. We weren't arrested. It was logged - when my friend went to get some high security clearance they brought it up (as well as asking for the every time we had done drugs since college - every time). Didn't seem to be a problem.

I hate to think what would have happened if we had done this in the past decade. We probably couldn't even get past the first gate now. We'd be in some high security prison somewhere learning really useful things like home made weapon production instead of being nominally useful members of society.

Re:Poor young people

[Reverberant]

Then we were politely told by security to cut it out. Enough fun. We weren't arrested.

Now what would have happened if you kept doing it?

Re:Poor young people

[ColdWetDog]

Dunno. We were stupid, but not that stupid.

Re:Poor young people

[Reverberant]

I suspect that if Swartz had stopped the first couple of times MIT tried to block him, that would have been the end of it.

(No, Swartz did not deserve years in jail for what he did and the whole situation was a tragedy. I'm just noting that you were warned and you stopped. Swartz was warned and he kept at it).

Re:Poor young people

[sjames]

The great hypocrisy is that the older adults implementing all of this zero tolerance all likely have a history that wouldn't stand up to the level of scrutiny they impose today.

The law doesn't care if you inhaled, it only cares if you had the tiniest trace of a dried plant in your possession.

Re:Poor young people

[Jmc23]

Of course you're comparing two stupid young kids fooling around and someone working towards a reality where knowledge is freed.

Re:Poor young people

[Jmc23]

Oh, I'm sure you were. Just as I fondly remember breaking into a top secret, guarded, military facility, to take out some rogue agents. ...though an outsider might just have seen some kids rolling around in the dirt at the local airport.

fuck the "justise" system

[Anonymous Coward]

more like injustice amirite?

RIP Aaron, we'll avenge you.

So Tufte was a phreaker. He and a pal did this "longest long-distance call" thing. AT&T caught onto it of course, and a tech rang 'em up. The tech just said, don't do it again, don't tell anyone, and nothing happens. But seriously, the tech (and by extension AT&T) could have seriously ruined Tufte's life. But didn't because it was just a silly prank that didn't actually harm anyone.

By extension, one of Aaron's legal team contacted Tufte who talked to JSTOR and convinced them not to participate in the ruining of this young man's life. After all, there was no harm to anyone, and nothing of value was lost or stolen (copies were made, which Aaron subsequently deleted after being caught).

So, in conclusion, fuck the system.

Let me guess...

[AliasMarlowe]

You were going for a "Funny" mod, weren't you?
The only plausible alternative would be a "Stupid Beyond Belief" mod, and they don't exist...

Justice system reform

[Kohath]

Glenn Reynolds just posted his essay Due Process when Everything is a Crime relating in part to the Aaron Swartz case.

Cases like the Aaron Swartz prosecution are a direct result of the huge, intrusive, abusive government we have. Unfortunately most Slashdotters seem to support this government and want to make it even larger and more involved in everyone's daily lives. Will Slashdot learn anything from Aaron Swartz's death? Or are we still just a few more government programs away from living in a utopia -- this time for sure?

Re:Justice system reform

[Anonymous Coward]

Libertarian Logic: I have chronic pain in my knee. Time to get out the bone saw and cut off my leg!

Re:Justice system reform

[MightyMartian]

Are you saying a Libertarian government wouldn't have data crime laws, or that it would suppress harsh prosecutions, or...

I'm having a hard time figuring out how Libertarianism would be linked to state prosecutions.

Re:Justice system reform

[godrik]

I think you are making a logical leap in your post. The fact that the law is so complex that everybody could be charged and jail for something is definitively true and a major problem. Though I do not see how government involvment is related to any of it.

Involvment and control are different things. The government needs (in my opinion) enough power to fix things, but not enough to screw things up. Associations and the government are the only entity somewhat interested in teh greater good. But associations typically completely lacks funding to solve large scale problems.

Re:Justice system reform

[Sique]

And the huge, intrusive, abusive government is a direct result of people actually wanting it that way. Democracy means that you get the government you deserve. If one can get elected on a "tough on crime" platform, and demanding stronger laws and harsher sentences secure votes, I don't see this as a problem of the government, but a problem of the people.

Re:Justice system reform

[Concerned Onlooker]

"Unfortunately most Slashdotters seem to support this government and want to make it even larger and more involved in everyone's daily lives."

You must be reading a different Slashdot that I am. For instance, you should check out any post that has to do with gun control, s/w piracy or net neutrality.

Also, Swartz's death is a sad story, but I'm a little irritated that so many people are using his suicide to further their own agendas, no matter how just they may be. He left no suicide note. The claims that he killed himself because of his legal woes will always remain conjecture. The guy suffered from depression, after all, and depression is a documented killer. Ten percent of people that suffer from it end up committing suicide.

Re:Justice system reform

[Kohath]

The government needs (in my opinion) enough power to fix things, but not enough to screw things up.

Enough power to "fix" things is always going to be a lot more than enough power to screw things up.

There's always something that needs to be "fixed" when someone wants more power. He'll always tell you you can trust him too. Sometimes you can. You can't trust all of his successors.

A better answer: fix it yourself.

Re:Justice system reform

[SuricouRaven]

Libertarianism in general seeks to abolish most laws, leaving in place only those relating to the protection of property and life. If your computers are hacked, it's your own fault for not having good enough security. Sounds almost good, except that they apply this everywhere. Your house burn down? That's your own fault for not paying the local private fire service to send the fire engine around to put it out. Rival business flooding your phone lines with fake calls, posting advertisments in your name promising ridiculous prices and DDoSing your website? Your fault for not paying enough for hosting, but you're free to do the same back. Go to a restraunt and got food poisoning because the chef lets his precious dogs run loose in the kitchen? That's your own fault too for not inspecting it personally, but don't worry - the invisible hand of the market will close the business down, once word gets around.

As with so many political ideologies, it's the core of a potentially good idea - that the role of government has grown excessive, expensive and invasive, and needs to be tamed - but taken to a ridiculous extreme.

Re:Justice system reform

[JaredOfEuropa]

Any government should suppress harsh prosecutions. Would a libertarian government fare any better on this score? At the very least they'd be more wary of any wrongdoing in that area, as they have an intrinsic distrust of government (hence the desire to keep it as small as possible). Contrast that with socialists who think everything government does is great, or at least fixable.

I've no idea who Glenn Reynolds is by the way, but he's spot on. I see the same in my country where the actions of (our equivalent of) the state prosecutor seem decidedly questionable, yet go more or less unchallenged. For example the notorious "Nekschot" case, where a cartoonist charged with the grave and unforgivable crimes of insulting muslims and black skinned people was arrested by an 8 man SWAT squad in the middle of the night, and detained for 30 hours. They generally go easier even on armed robbers and rapists. And the opposite happens as well: cases that seem to have merit are not even brought before a judge, for no good reason.

Re:Justice system reform

[anagama]

The fact that the law is so complex that everybody could be charged and jail for something is definitively true and a major problem. Though I do not see how government involvment is related to any of it.

I don't understand. Who makes the laws? It is the government. If the legal codebase is so large, vague, and complex, that every person commits a Federal felony every day, and the government made that law, how is the government not to blame?

http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.aspx

Re:Justice system reform

[anagama]

You know what, maybe instead of bringing out this offtopic canard about libertarians, you should read the article. It's thought provoking. Like how in the 80s prosecutors would play a game where they prosecute the person not the crime, i.e, pick a famous person like Mother Theresa and find a crime that would put that person in jail, not because they did anything wrong, but because you're such a clever prosecutor. That sounds not like justice, but persecution.

And how is the complaint that the government has made criminal so much stuff so divorced from common sense, entitled to some epithet about libertarians? Everyone should be worried because when everyone can be charged and sent to prison for random things, the government has total tyrannical power. That's an issue only libertarians worry about? I think not.

Read the essay. It's only 6 pages -- takes you a few minutes. Then come back and explain what in there sounded like the ravings of a "my property GTFO" type libertarian. It contains nothing like that all -- not even a hint. Instead it talks about how the decision to prosecute and what to charge is made in a milieu of total immunity without any consequences at all, and how that decision is perhaps the most important part of the due process rights which we are supposed to enjoy, but instead we have absolutely no protection at all when prosecutors decide to get medieval.

Re:Justice system reform

[stms]

Libertarian Logic: I have chronic pain in my knee. Time to get out the bone saw and cut off my leg!

That's a pretty good metaphor for Libertarian Logic. Cutting off a knee that's giving you a lot of trouble is a good solution if there is a better alternative. We're probably only a decade or so away from prosthetics that are as good or better than the real thing. When that happens I wouldn't be surprised if doctors recommend amputation as a treatment for chronic knee pain depending on severity of the pain lifestyle and age. Actually technology as a replacement for what government once did is one of the reasons I lean toward libertarianism in some cases.

Re:Justice system reform

[MightyMartian]

Indeed. Proclaiming adherents of an opposing -ism are gullible fools indicates a considerable lack of self awareness on the part of the adherent to the more favored -ism.

Socialism doesn't have all the answers, neither does capitalism or libertarianism. Reality is somewhere in the middle.

As to Government, it wasn't dropped down from a UFO. It isn't some alien construct forced upon us. It, like any human creation, can be a force for good or for evil.

Re:Justice system reform

[SpazmodeusG]

But when those evil Libertarians prey on your prejudices and get elected, the endgame in their master plan is ... to leave you alone.

The other "-isms" claimed the same thing.
 

So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.

That's a quote by Lenin btw. He claimed and probably truly believed there would be no state and thus some kind of utopia when his particular "-ism" was implemented. Of course it didn't work in reality. His "-ism" was nothing more than a bunch of sound bites designed to gain devout followers who wound up allowing some of the worst crimes in history to occur.

You always need to take a step back. If you believe your particular "-ism" will fix everything and you allow yourself to become fanatical about it you're setting yourself up to become a sucker. You're going to wind up blindly allowing someone to remove government oversight on themselves.

There is no magic philosophy that can fix the worlds problems. Sometimes less government regulation is the answer, sometimes it's not. But if you take it to the extreme where you feel the need to push your beliefs on others because you feel it's "the right one", I've got news for you; The people of the past who believed in their particular "-isms" felt exactly the same way. And they fucked things up tremendously.

Re:Justice system reform

[SpazmodeusG]

So you can't even acknowledge the clear quote i gave where a proponent of Communism has suggested there will be no state governing over you when he's elected? Do you not see that both Libertarians and Communists rose to power on the promise of a stateless society? Do you not see how easily corrupted such a belief is?

You do realize how ridiculous you are? Your post history shows absolutely nothing but religious fervor advocating Libertarianism dating back for months. I went a fair way back and couldn't find a single post about anything other than proselytizing for Libertarianism. You scare the hell out of me. Well formed examples of how similar you are to others in the past are just met with nothing more than "No we're different"; an attempt to end the conversation.

Looking at history it's quite easy to start a political movement. Just post to every media outlet wherever something bad has happened and claim "hey guys this wouldn't happen if you followed foobarism" (foobarism is my new made up philosophy that i created just then). "Foobarism wouldn't allow the state to do this". "With Foobarism you'd have the right to stop this". etc. You don't even need to explain yourself. Just say "nah we're different to all the others!". You do this long enough everyone will start to label their own beliefs as "Foobarism". They'll start supporting others who believe in foobarism even if their viewpoints are quite different - just look at the different types of Libertarians.

The fact is this trick has been pulled again and again. You have to ask people to take a step back and look at themselves and their beliefs. You try to highlight similarities with political movements of the past. It gets frustrating when the response to that is "No. They don't.". I guess some people just don't want to accept reality.

Re:Justice system reform

[sjames]

Because powerful people never amass a private army and become the government, except all the ones that have throughout history, of course.

It's all about liability

[denis-The-menace]

*IF* something would happen, OMG, someone could sue us!

Today, they find ways to make you regret you were even born.

So what's left to blow steam?
Doing bad things because that's all there is left.

You can't sneak into a flooded quarry to swim that's on private property.
You can't jump your bike into a river for fun.
OMG, someone could sue...

Re:It's all about liability

[SilverJets]

Blame the litigation happy culture that has arisen.

"My boy Jonny died on your property. Sure he had to climb a 10 foot electrified fence with barbed wire on top and then get past 5 security guards and surveillance cameras. But you should have done more to stop him. I'm going to sue!!!"

Re:It's all about liability

[DogDude]

So what's left to blow steam? Doing bad things because that's all there is left.

Kiddo, there are plenty of things one can do to "blow steam". If you want to do "bad" things, there are generally consequences, hence the "bad". I don't really know what point, if any, you're trying to make.

Re:It's all about liability

[sjames]

Blame also the courts that refuse to understand that their process is intrinsically harmful, even to an innocent defendant. Unlike a grieving parent, we have every reason to expect reasonable and rational behavior from our courts, but we don't get it.

Re:It's all about liability

[Anonymous Coward]

"Kiddo, there are plenty of things one can do to "blow steam". If you want to do "bad" things, there are generally consequences, hence the "bad". I don't really know what point, if any, you're trying to make."

      Because decades of kissing ass builds up during our rebellious period. I won't say teen years because it isn't always individuals in their teenage years that are affected. You know when you think most people are morons when you point out their fallacies in their reasoning but still won't listen to you and you have to go your own way which is our way of finding things out and a partial response to the hypocritical world we've created for ourselves. Whenever you push others boundaries it's always bad in their opinion, key word opinion, the other in this case is adults/government. The fact is most things aren't actually bad, others just don't want you to do them.
      Aaron broke a few minor laws that weren't intended for his situation to bring attention to a potentially illegal scam(as far as I know most federal agencies don't allow you to double dip) being perpetrated with public funds. Never mind fully public information being restricted from the public on profit grounds. And if it's not for profit what's the point in restricting it? And what were the prosecutors doing, torturing the guy for doing the public a service to build their careers. Fact is they didn't have shit and should have dropped it when JSTOR did.

Remember Aaron!

Who hasn't?

[SuricouRaven]

I'm guessing every half-decent engineer working in computing has some of this in their past. It's part of the process of how someone becomes an engineer - exploring, testing limits, finding way to use things in ways they weren't intended to be used. I know I did, I know my coworkers did. I work in education, and we've caught a student there trying to hack our network. Give him another ten years, and he'll be the admin trying to keep out the next generation of engineers-to-be. I'm not even an engineer: I'm a lowly technician.

Re:Who hasn't?

[ColdWetDog]

The problem now is that the law has sort of caught up with computing networks. In the Good Old Days, people did indeed hack into systems, piss off security and make long distance phone calls. But it was on a one off basis. It didn't rise to the level that people thought they needed legislation to protect themselves. There was little legal precedent to go after people with. Then the Feds decided that hacking into systems was a 'crime' and defined it in a nebulous, overbroad fashion. Well, they ALWAYS do that. They define EVERYTHING in a nebulous, overbroad fashion because it's easier and sounds better.

Then, they managed to ramp up the General Paranoia Level (after 9/11) just a bit more. It had dropped a bit after the evil Soviets became more pathetic than evil but 9/11 gave them a golden (literally) opportunity to raise the ante. Coupled with the tendency of police units everywhere to emulate their big brother (the military), you get a legal system with over intrusive laws and overzealous prosecution, both in the field and in the courts.

So remember kids. Walk that nice straight line. No need for nonconformity anymore. We've changed from a race of individuals to a hive. And you thought the Borg were fictional.

Yet Another True Confession

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Bush-the-first Administration a friend and I "hacked" into a password-less guest account and over-wrote the login shell script with ftp. This made the low-privilage account a lot less low-privilage than the system administrators wanted. We let the administration know after the fact. They fixed the problem.

By today's laws and possibly those of the time, we committed a felony under both state and federal law. Morally I knew it was probably criminal but common sense and the morals of the time would call it a wrist-slap misdemeanor. I guessed correctly that the computer administrators would be more interested in fixing the problem than punishing us. As far as I know neither of us got into any trouble over it. I didn't. The statutes of limitations are long since expired or I wouldn't be making this admission in public. Within a few short years social attitudes changed and what we did would've likely gotten us some serious campus discipline and a "scare/threat" of arrest at a minimum.

Prosecutorial discretion is important

[davidwr]

However, it must be wielded with - pardon the pun - discretion.

It's NOT okay to have strict liability crimes without almost universal knowledge of the crime and likely punishment.

It's NOT okay to use discretion to coerce plea agreements.

In general, the discretion should be based on published, preferably well-known guidelines that all prosecutors in a given geography and who are prosecuting given types of crimes agree on. In other words, there shouldn't be "good luck" and "bad luck" for the defendant when cases are handed out to prosecutors.

You do need proprietorial discretion so prosecutors can deal with things like local priorities, priorities that change over time, laws that have outlived their usefulness, etc. Prosecutors in a city with a high car-theft crime and a publicized crackdown would - and should - be less interested in offering mercy on new car thieves than prosecutors in a city without a high car-theft problem.

You also need to have proprietorial discretion to give leniency where the criminal act may warrant severe punishment but the criminal intent, while present, was not that of a hardened criminal or where "mother nature" has already meted out some punishment. For example, a person who steals a car to joy-ride and wrecks it causing himself severe injury should get a lot more mercy than someone who steals the car for profit. Why? The INTENT was to return the car intact, so the "criminal intent" is much less, and the person's injuries and medical bills will ensure he won't soon forget the experience.

In cases of civil disobedience, the prosecutors in an area should also have a "standard, well-known" response which may be to decline prosecution specifically to deny the citizen the public platform that he is seeking. Another "pre-planned response" may be to seek a very short jail sentence with a long probation period, with a prohibition of associating with other like-minded people during the probation period. Such a response will effectively separate those who are really willing to throw years of their life away for a cause from those who aren't, while appearing to the general public to be showing some leniency.

In the Swartz case, I wonder how differently things would have turned out if the prosecutor had said "Okay, here's our plea offer - 6 months in federal prison on reduced misdemeanor charges. If you don't take it, we'll ask the judge for a felony conviction and a sentence of 'A year and a day.' Talk it over with your lawyer and get back to us."

Re:When does a "prank" become a "crime"?

[davidwr]

I should be "made whole" in civil court.

Remember, in the United States, crimes are almost always "the people vs. the defendant" or "the government vs. the defendant" which is just two ways of saying the same thing.

Whether pulling someone's pants down like this should be a crime or not, and if so what the criminal penalty should be, depends largely on society's attitude. Is the frequency of such activity or the harm done by it high enough that the general public wants to stop it so badly that they want to make it a criminal offense? Will making it a criminal offense decrease the frequency enough to make criminalizing it worthwhile? Are there other alternatives, such as public education, that may decrease the frequency? If so, would their impact be helped significantly by pairing them with criminalizing the behavior?

This logic is independent of the impact on this particular victim.

By the way, this sort of "OMG, we have to stop this because of one event" logic is exactly what is playing out with proposed and recently-passed gun regulations in Washington and in some state legislatures. Whether the issue is guns or pulling people's pants down, we need to take a long, sober look at the overall effect of having a law vs. not having a law, not react to a specific circumstance.

Re:When does a "prank" become a "crime"?

[Dr_Barnowl]

The real bastards here are the people discriminating against you on penis size.

Carmen Ortizâ(TM)s Sordid Rap Sheet

[sesshomaru]

"In 2009, the 69-year-old owner, Russ Caswell, received a letter from the DOJ indicating the government was pursuing a civil forfeiture case against him with the intention of seizing his familyâ(TM)s motelâ"it was built in 1955 by Russâ(TM)s fatherâ"and the surrounding property. Ms. Ortizâ(TM)s office asserted that the motel had been the site of multiple crimes by its occupants over the years: 15 low-level drug offenses between 1994 and 2008 (out of an estimated 125,000 room rentals). Of those who stayed in the motel from 2001 to 2008, .05% were arrested for drug crimes on the property. Local and state officials in charge of those investigations never accused the Caswells of any wrongdoing."
-- Carmen Ortizâ(TM)s Sordid Rap Sheet
By Christian Stork

The article continues:

"According to the sworn testimony of a DEA agent operating out of Boston, it was his job to comb through news stories for properties that might be subject to forfeiture. When he finds a likely candidate, he goes to the Registry of Deeds, determines the value of the property in question, and refers it to the U.S. attorney for seizure. It is DEA policy to reject anything with less than $50,000 equity." -- Carmen Ortizâ(TM)s Sordid Rap Sheet
By Christian Stork

And, finally:

"Mr. Salzman doesnâ(TM)t buy the message of deterrence. He asserts that just up the street, a Motel 6, Walmart and Home Depot all operate with similarâ"in many cases higherâ"rates of drug crimes on their properties, referencing numbers obtained from the Tewksbury Police Department. " ...

"...But those corporations have extensive financial and legal resources, and would put up much more of a fight than a small business owned and operated by a single family. Before a public interest law firm took on his case, Mr. Caswell had already spent over $100,000 and was near bankruptcy."-- Carmen Ortizâ(TM)s Sordid Rap Sheet
By Christian Stork

What imbecile appointed Carmen Ortiz as a prosecutor, anyway?