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'Aaron's Law' Introduced To Curb Overzealous Prosecutions For Computer Crimes
SonicSpike writes: Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced bipartisan legislation today to better target serious criminals and curb overzealous prosecutions for non-malicious computer and Internet offenses.
The legislation, inspired by the late Internet innovator and activist Aaron Swartz, who faced up to 35 years in prison for an act of civil disobedience, would reform the quarter-century old Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to better reflect computer and internet activities in the digital age. Numerous and recent instances of heavy-handed prosecutions for non-malicious computer crimes have raised serious questions as to how the law treats violations of terms of service, employer agreements and website notices.
"Aaron’s Law would change the definition of 'access without authorization' in the CFAA so it more directly applies to malicious hacks such as sending fraudulent emails, injecting malware, installing viruses or overwhelming a website with traffic."
The legislation, inspired by the late Internet innovator and activist Aaron Swartz, who faced up to 35 years in prison for an act of civil disobedience, would reform the quarter-century old Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to better reflect computer and internet activities in the digital age. Numerous and recent instances of heavy-handed prosecutions for non-malicious computer crimes have raised serious questions as to how the law treats violations of terms of service, employer agreements and website notices.
"Aaron’s Law would change the definition of 'access without authorization' in the CFAA so it more directly applies to malicious hacks such as sending fraudulent emails, injecting malware, installing viruses or overwhelming a website with traffic."
"Access without authorization" is best defined as, well, access without authorization.
Creating separate sentencing guidelines or (better) separate offences for access causing damage (data destruction, copying) would be a good idea. But the whole "ETHICAL HAXOR SHOULD BE FREE" bull shit is like, "Well your lock was weak and this is why you found me watching your TV when you got home from work and using your Wifi to publish details about how weak your lock is."
...that this law has a somewhat serious contender for the republican presidential nomination behind it. I'll let others commenting on this to debate the individual merits of Rand Paul. I know they will.
For a first post?
Too Sane: has No Chance
Irony: $(AC CAPTCHA) == "mental"
who faced up to 35 years in prison for an act of civil disobedience... he was offered a 6 month sentence if he would plead guilty. 35 years was the "street value" of his sentence. He killed himself rather than serve 6 months.
FREE KEVIN!!
He broke the law. Stop acting like he was the victim.
Dear Slashdot editors/owners,
You are fucking morons. Your brains couldn't fill a thimble and even then they'd stink from the rot that caused you to put these stupid fucking ads that chew up cpu and bandwidth to sell fucking shit that only morons who watch daytime TV would buy.
Fuck You, fuck off and die.
Period
Hacking is relatively benign compared to the damage a prosecutor with an agenda can do. The latest round of these travesties is now going on in Wisconsin http://www.wsj.com/articles/ri... , It seems we get these popping up about once a year lately and it's been accelerating.
Hm? Same means to The End. Seth Rogan, are you listening? Movie idea for you.
What and why he did it.
I am currently doing some research and I can't you how many times I run across a paper that would be perfect or to see that I buy it or I could "rent" it for $$$ for 48 hours. If the author got a piece of it, then I could possibly stomach it, but they don't. And when you have to read dozens of papers, it could easily cost you thousands of dollars to research something that you won't see a single dime in income.
I once met an author/professor who wrote a case study for the Harvard Business School. He says they don't get paid. Harvard has no problem charging big bucks for those things.
Aron had a real point about the absurd pricing of journals and academic papers.
A kid gets a felony (a life ruining offense btw) for changing his technologically inept teacher's desktop wallpaper. How bout we remove the technologically inept from positions of power???
Why stop at "over" zealous?
Zealotry should also be stopped.
It is truly a travesty that a privileged asshole like Aaron who was handled with kiddy gloves all the way through gets this kind of credit, when there are numerous well documented cases of the actual overzealous persecution in the computer hacking world and beyond. People who were put into prison for decades, people who had the prosecuter lie and fake evidence, people who were unconstitutionally confined to solitary for months at a time.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Now can we prosecute the real criminal - the overzealous prosecutor who relentlessly harassed Aaron Swartz to the point of his suicide, merely to gain political points in his career? How someone like that can sleep at night is beyond me.
The prosecutor should be disbarred, charged with whatever can apply (malicious intent and vapid self-absorption describe both the crime and motive -- there must be something that applies), and placed in shackles as a warning to every hotshot prosecutor who puts their career above human lives.
There are some reports that MIT itself was the zealous party -- the prosecutors and the perpetrator were ready to cut a deal, but MIT wanted to make an example of him.
uh oh, slashdot's going to the big house now. Don't go around linking to interesting pages and stories in an attempt to ... be what the internet has always been about. Because if you are good at it kid, we'll have to lock you up in the pound you in the ass prison.
Jesus fucking christ. If some kid can overwhelm a site with traffic, it's the fucking ISPs incompetent IT staff we should be throwing to the lions.
What kind of asshole does that make you?
If George Bush was President.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I'm so tired of seeing people masterbating over chances to honor Aaron Swartz I wish I could vomit on the laps of these political idiots. Yeah, the prosecution was heavy handed but that completely overlooks the fact that Swartz broke the fucking law and was a total idiot about it. He had the constitutional right to defend himself in court and face his accusers. He did not, however, have any constitutional right to enter the wiring closet at the library and interfere with other peoples' ability to use library resources just to further his agenda.
I even agree that the papers should be accessible. But I do not agree with his methods. He could have downloaded all these papers from his own desk instead, but he had to make it into performance art and go enter the library wiring closet. And don't use the fact that the door was not properly locked as a defense, either - no reasonable person would have assumed that a wiring closet was intentionally left unlocked so people could monopolize library bandwidth at their leisure.
In short, let the dead kid lay dead. He doesn't deserve any honors. He didn't deserve the ones he has already been given and doesn't deserve any additional ones either. He was a fool and a coward to boot.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
In the decades since Roe v Wade, we've had a number of liberal presidents and a number of conservative presidents. None have moved the needle on abortion because it's not their decision to make. The Supreme Court decided Roe v Wade and other cases that limit what states can do. Individual states then make laws within the parameters laid down by SCOTUS. The president really has little to nothing to do with it.
About the only thing POTUS does to affect the abortion debate is that a liberal potus will nominate a liberal justice or two, who must be confirmed by the Senate, while a conservative potus will nominate a conservative- who also has to be confirmed by the same Senate. So yeah they'll be a little difference in which justice they ask the Senate to approve, but that's about it on the abortion issue. Other than that, abortion is a state issue, with all of the significant legislation occurring in the states.
At least I know which names to ignore. Thanks. Anon to avoid moderation loss.
"...for non-malicious computer and Internet offenses."
All crime is malicious. Committing crime in the name of a cause and slapping a label of so called "civil disobedience" does not nullify the fact of crime.
WELCOME TO THE NEW AGE WHERE EVERYTHING CAN BE JUSTIFIED JUST BECAUSE YOU "FEEL" SOMETHING.
We are living in a world under increasing threat of douche bags.
"...for non-malicious computer and Internet offenses."
All crime is malicious. Committing crime in the name of a cause and slapping a label of so called "civil disobedience" does not nullify the fact of crime.
WELCOME TO THE NEW AGE WHERE EVERYTHING CAN BE JUSTIFIED JUST BECAUSE YOU "FEEL" SOMETHING.
We are living in a world under increasing threat of douche bags.
I'm glad they are trying to fix the issue but what else are they sticking into this new bill? Are we giving up something to government to limit their abuse?
But this only seems superficially better to me, and possibly worse.
The problem is with the word "knowingly," to say nothing of the lack of any standard for a technological authorization method. "Knowingly," is mens rea -- a criminal mind -- and SCOTUS is currently wrestling with two other terrible laws on this very subject. There's an excellent article on this subject over at The Atlantic. The problem is that these laws are vague, probably unconstitutionally so. It's legislative laziness and hand-waving. "Don't do that thing we can't exactly define but you know what we mean!"
If we want a dividing line for criminally accessing a device, and I would argue that we do, then it needs to be directly proportional to damages. Accessing a device is just trespassing, and that's a misdemeanor, and hardly ever worth prosecuting. Taking something of no value from a device is likewise a misdemeanor. Making a copy of something is speculative damages, but probably risks felony levels of damage. Destroying data, or a network, or hardware should definitely be a felony. The circumvention clause is totally irrelevant, and shouldn't even be there.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
35 years was the combined maximum possible sentence. There is no such thing as "street value" of sentences.
During sentencing (if he was found guilty and accountable) is when the judge or jury decides on what punishment is dealt, CAPPED by the maximum. In white collar crimes, it is rarely if ever give the maximum sentence.
He was caught doing a similar stunt prior to the JSTOR incident, warned that what he was doing was illegal.
He trespassed onto MIT campus (he was not a member of the MIT community), trespassed into a building, trespassed into a network closet, installed unauthorized equipment on the network, subverted their access systems, subverted blocking/tracking attempts by MIT network operations, downloaded documents at a rate so great it made JSTOR servers inaccessible, subverted JSTOR's attempts to block him to the extent that JSTOR had to block large sections of the MIT campus, and then installed a second laptop when he wasn't getting documents as fast as he wanted.
JSTOR's fee pays for archiving, indexing, and data transmission. Bandwidth, power, servers, and administrators do not grow on trees. They are not "paywalling free research."
He killed himself because he had a history of mental health issues, proven by among other things publicly discussing the appeal of suicide.
Please help metamoderate.
Rarely are prosecutors held responsible for their antics. Arguably, they are worse than corrupt cops, as they are not doing what they do for the primary purpose of justice so much as making them look good by fulfilling quotas.
What happened to Schwartz is horrible, but it is relatively trivial compared to what prosecutors get away with every day.
Seems comparable to being civilly sued in the US by the RIAA for copyright infringement to the tune of millions unless you settle. Seems to me that the US justice system is pretty much built on legal intimidation...