Hacker News
points by Aurornis 2 days ago | 0 comments
> He was charged with felonies for stealing PDFs for publicly funded research papers, he was tried as if he hacked these systems.

The Aaron Swartz case is important to know about and has catalyzed some good discussions about CFAA reform, but that specific case is a lot more complicated than your summary.

Before I begin: I agree that the punishment was too significant for the crime. I completely agree on that count. Discussing the facts of the case draws a lot of angry downvotes, so to be clear: I'm not saying he deserved any of these sentences nor that the laws are written well. I'm trying to explain the facts.

The PDFs were open to downloads on the MIT network. Straightforward downloading of the PDFs wouldn't have been a CFAA violation. The case became complicated because he started circumventing restrictions on the downloads. This escalated to breaking into a wiring closet and hiding a laptop in the closed-off infrastructure. Once someone breaks into physical infrastructure to circumvent access restrictions, it gets really hard to argue that they weren't doing a form of unauthorized access.

> He took his own life as a result of them throwing decades of prison time at him for what's hardly a serious hacking offense (seriously, Kevin Mitnick was way worse). Kevin Mitnick served five years, they were looking to throw up to 35 years at him, and a minimum sentence of seven years if he went to trial.

This is another part of the story that gets confused. Kevin Mitnick took a 5 year plea deal. The Swartz case plea deal was 6 months. The maximum sentencing numbers are repeated because they're shocking, but maximum sentencing was never on the table due to the low severity.

The plea deal (the correct comparison to Kevin Mitnick's case) would have been 6 months, not 35+ years.

[–] dannyobrien 2 days ago
One thing to note is that Aaron was, at the time, increasingly working in traditional politics, through his activist group Demand Progress[1] and his work with up-and-coming progressive politicians. I think he had come to the conclusion -- rather presciently -- that working in mainstream politics was the most effective thing he could do. Any criminal sentence would have severely hampered that work. I heard that played on his mind a lot.

There's a what-if story here: one of the people Aaron worked most closely with in this part of his life was a young Ben Wikler[2]. They shared a lot of views about how things should change, and how to change them. Watching Ben's career since then, I can't help but feel that Aaron would have followed a similar path. By 2025, Ben was senior enough in the Democratic Party to be a competitive candidate for Chair of the DNC.

I often wonder whether Carmen Ortiz[3], the U.S. Attorney whose office prosecuted the case, or any of the rest of that generation, realise what they did to the Democratic Party's future chances by unjustly targeting one of its most promising figures.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_Progress

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Wikler

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Ortiz

[–] mrheosuper 2 days ago
>Any criminal sentence would have severely hampered that work. I heard that played on his mind a lot.

If only he continued the work, he would be POTUS someday.

[–] shadowgovt 2 days ago
It's one of the parts of the story that highlights the tragedy of it: Swartz going through the process and out the other side could have bent mainstream politics. His story restonated, and continues to do so, with a technocratic community that itself gained a lot of political sway in the subsequent decades.

Sadly, we'll never know.

[–] giancarlostoro 2 days ago
> This is another part of the story that gets confused. Kevin Mitnick took a 5 year plea deal. The Swartz case plea deal was 6 months. The maximum sentencing numbers are repeated because they're shocking, but maximum sentencing was never on the table due to the low severity.

I'm aware, though I will note, in the case of Kevin Mitnick the crimes were abhorrent, and I am sure Aaron was 100% in the wrong, and I don't think he should have gotten a slap on the wrist, but felonies + prison time for a few publicly funded PDFs is a bit drastic.

To be fair, I'm trying to remember things that happened over a decade ago, I could get some things wrong. I think me and you agree for the most part either way.

[–] Aurornis 2 days ago
> To be fair, I'm trying to remember things that happened over a decade ago, I could get some things wrong.

The reason I know these things is because I remembered it the same way you did up until a few years ago. Then I re-read the case and was surprised at how much it differed from the version that has been repeated everywhere for years.

[–] tzs 2 days ago
> [...] for a few publicly funded PDFs is a bit drastic.

It was 4.8 million PDFs, which I think is a bit more than "a few".

[–] bayindirh 2 days ago
In today’s world, this is both a few and fair use. You just need to claim that you’re going to train models for research purposes.
[–] derektank 2 days ago
This is a serious misunderstanding of the Bartz case, which resulted in a $1.5B settlement on the part of Anthropic to authors whose works they pirated from LibGen
[–] jacquesm 2 days ago
Oh that's ok then. /s

ffs

[–] johnnyanmac 2 days ago
even back then, having 1 day in prison can forever impact your employment aspects. Perhaps the rising trend of internet influencer could have gotten around it, but it's less about the sentence and more about the federal government choosing to prosecute a young man over a situation both parties already settled.

Meanwhile, Claude does the same thing and it is deemed "progress" when the federal government profits from it.