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Russia and The US Fight Over Who Gets To Extradite A Hacker (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CNN:
A young Russian alleged to have masterminded a massive hacking of social networks including LinkedIn and Dropbox is now at the center of an extradition struggle between the United States and Russia. Yevgeniy Nikulin was detained in October 2016, in the Czech Republic capital of Prague, after US authorities issued an international arrest warrant for him. He was on vacation there with his girlfriend. A grand jury indictment filed in 2016 in California charges him with computer intrusion and aggravated identity theft, among other offenses. Nikulin denies all the charges. If convicted of all charges, he could face a maximum sentence of more than 50 years in prison and more than $2 million in fines.
But soon after his arrest, Russian authorities also sought his extradition. The Russian charge referred to the alleged theft from an online money transfer company back in 2009. The amount involved was $3,450... The Foreign Ministry in Moscow said soon afterward it was "actively working with the Czech authorities to prevent the extradition of a Russian citizen to the United States."
But soon after his arrest, Russian authorities also sought his extradition. The Russian charge referred to the alleged theft from an online money transfer company back in 2009. The amount involved was $3,450... The Foreign Ministry in Moscow said soon afterward it was "actively working with the Czech authorities to prevent the extradition of a Russian citizen to the United States."
> Reminder: Aaron Schwartz was looking at 35 years in prison for nothing more than a clever wget script.
This is incorrect. Aaron Swartz [check spelling] was attempting to download all of JSTOR, and its index information, in order to republish it for free. Doing this was not only criminal. It was stealing the resources of a non-profit which collects information and publishes, organized and usable, for medical and scientific research all over the world. It could make the resources available, for a short period, at a reduced burden, but would reduce or even eliminate the resources to collect and organize the data for the next year, or the year after that. It was not only shortsighted, but the excessive resources used for downloading crashed JSTOR services and made them unavailable to the students, the doctors, and the scientists who use it every day. JSTOR could not continue to supply MIT with service under this stress, and that would cut off a vital library resource for approximately 25,000 employees and students at MIT.
The others are different stories, but for Aaron Swartz, he already had a competent legal team funded by other people who saw his action as a "free speech" issue. It was not: it was theft of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property in the organization and cross-linking of JSTOR, and of unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material that JSTOR makes available for licensed use.