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I want to know who specifically at MIT was involved in this. It seems antithetical to the MIT IT people I know (Jeff Schiller, etc.).

There's no hope, really, of replacing the US Attorney Ortiz. MIT, however, actually has some indirect accountability to the tech community.

What would cause an MIT IT executive (and this would have to be an executive decision) to bring in the Secret Service for someone running curl against academic journal website.

I have done precisely that type of thing dozens of times in the last 10 years, and it would have never occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong. And yes, I always had to login first through a browser, figure out how the hell the cookie was stored, export it into a format that curl liked, figure out the URLs for all the docs, etc, etc...

And yes - when I was younger and more energetic, sticking my laptop in unlocked cabinet with an open ethernet port is exactly the sort of thing I would have done, without for a second believing I was doing anything "criminal".

I have to believe that MIT has hundreds (thousands?) of these types of webscraping events occurring all the time.

What made this one different from their perspective?

He wasn't a member of the MIT Community, and was in a wiring closet.

If they'd charged him with trespassing, I would have contributed to his legal defense fund and bought him a drink when he finished his ~30 days of community service or whatever. Minimal harm, minimal foul.

I did way worse stuff from my machines at MIT when I was an undergrad. I actually was called to testify in a federal case over it, but told them to eat a bowl of dicks (well, more politely, and through the awesome attorney Jennifer Granick -- I was out of the country and didn't return until the trial was over, because you NEVER win if you set foot in a federal court, even as a witness).

MIT sold out Drink or Die, too, so fuck them in general.

Secret Service was involved prior to MIT knowing who was web-scraping JSTOR. Does MIT normally call the Secret Service when they find Laptops w/Hard Drives in wiring closets, particularly unlocked wiring closets that Homeless people were known to store their stuff in? This is all very strange.

From: http://chronicle.com/article/Rogue-Downloaders-Arrest/128439...

"On January 4, MIT police officers were notified that a member of the university's technical-security staff had discovered a laptop in the wiring closet. That morning, a team including a Secret Service agent and police officers from Cambridge and Boston visited the site and installed a Webcam....JSTOR never contacted any law-enforcement authorities about the matter. The decision to pursue criminal charges, she says, was not JSTOR's."

That morning? Wow, that seems incredibly fast action.

"MIT sold out Drink or Die, too"

What did they do?

MIT undergrads and at least one sysadmin were allegedly involved in the software releasing group DoD (who did some stuff related to DeCSS, as well as commercial scene piracy).

Course 14 (economics) machines got raided during Operation Buccaneer.

http://tech.mit.edu/V121/N68/68piracy.68n.html

It wasn't handled particularly badly, but the 1994 La Macchia case was worse (which I followed more closely)

The folks at wherever, will do anything to save their skins. MIT is no different.

Jennifer Granick is an awesome attorney and person. I remember meeting her at DefCon III when she was getting into this world of digital defense.

Yeah, I remember she was winding down her drunk driving practice when I first talked to her. I kind of miss the 90s -- fighting ITAR was a whole lot less depressing than fighting hollywood-funded congresspeople.

What made this one different from their perspective?

He was downloading millions of articles, well more than the rest of the campus all put together. That caught their attention.

And they kept on stopping him, by locking out his MAC addresses. And he kept on working around the ways they were stopping him.

and it would have never occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong

When you are going into a wiring closet wearing a mask over your face to hide your identity, you pretty much know you are "doing something wrong." Probably not something that necessarily warrants Federal prosecution, of course, but he was under no illusion his actions were approved.

For an entirely different case, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._LaMacchia

You transposed my text a bit. The "wrong" reference was to me webscraping journals via curl.

I realize that sneaking into Wiring Closets and plugging in a laptop to get onto a privileged vlan isn't something sanctioned by the school. If I was caught, I probably would expect to get my hand slapped if I'm a student, and if I'm not a member of the community maybe even charged with trespass (though, I understand at MIT they dropped those charges)

But if I was a student, I wouldn't (and didn't) consider that behavior to be "criminal."

But what I find astonishing about the MIT case is that they pulled the secret service into the case (A) Just because someone was webscraping from a laptop and (B) Before they knew that the person doing the webscraping wasn't a student.

If it were me in charge of IT - I would have probably just asked campus security to lock the closet moving forward, make sure there are locks on all the wiring closets, and replace the laptop with a sign explaining campus-security had confiscated the laptop, and please go have a conversation with them to pick it up - return of Laptop being subject to (A) Apology for slamming JSTOR, and (B) Return of all the JSTOR IP.

Please read the indictment. It wasn't like he walked in on Monday to do this and they called the police on Tuesday. They were repeatedly trying to keep him out, and he knew it, and he kept on trying to get back in anyway. This went on for months. When they finally had a piece of physical evidence they called the Secret Service because they could get the guy. And he fled when campus police approached him.

I've read through the case - I understand what happened.

It's just that everything that was described was the type of thing that my university had to deal with all of the time. People were always spoofing MAC addresses, trying to get onto privileged VLANs, and the Campus IT was always playing Cat and Mouse with them, and, in a very, very few rare circumstances where the student did something really stupid, brought Campus Police into the conversation.

But Campus police was the absolute escalation - I don't ever recall my university calling in the RCMP (Canadian Federal Police, and municipal as well) to investigate someone doing the equivalent of what Aaron had done.

I absolutely agree with Aaron's parents. MIT and the Prosecutor over-reacted, and, when the truth of the matter surfaced, failed to course correct.

They made a choice to involve the feds. This could very easily have been handled internally, and the result would have been effective from their viewpoint. Catch him using the same methods and give him a stern talking to from campus police, then not press charges. Pretty much what happened to people bending and even openly breaking the rules on campuses around the world for decades, if not centuries.

But someone at MIT wanted to call in the feds. Make case hard and tough and send someone to prison for causing them inconvenience. This was a decision someone there made.

They made a choice to involve the feds.

Yes, because someone -- they did not know who, but someone -- kept on breaking into their network. Over and over and over and over.

handled internally

He wasn't a student.

the result would have been effective from their viewpoint

They kept on telling him "no" and he kept on going in anyway. It seems you think the 13th time they told him "no" he would have stopped, when he ignored the first 12 times.

By the time you get to the police chasing someone through the halls, you have passed the point where you can expect to get away with "a stern talking to." (I shouldn't have to say it, but I will anyway: that doesn't mean that a Federal prosecution for decades in prison is the proper response, either.)

Whether or not he was a student has nothing to do with whether or not MIT could choose to handle it internally.

And yes, I do believe that being taken in by campus law enforcement and read the riot act, so to speak, would have been effective. That's much more serious than the previous attempts to tell him no.

> When you are going into a wiring closet wearing a mask over your face to hide your identity, you pretty much know you are "doing something wrong."

I disagree. You know you're doing something that isn't allowed and will get you into trouble, but you might feel that it's morally right to do so.

I was responding to someone who thought that Aaron was doing this with absolutely no idea he wasn't allowed to.

I would appreciate it if you would stop misconstruing my position. I said that I had webscraped and didn't think it was wrong. I said as a student I would have stuck a laptop in an unlocked closet on campus with an Ethernet port and not thought that it was criminal. And, at no point, have I tried to characterize Aaron's thought and motives. Honestly - he working for higher principles than I ever have, so I am in no position to comment on his behavior, just mine.

Gosh, who hasn't hid a machine on MIT's network to get access to academic journals? (mine was a Sparc IPX in a drop ceiling for IEEE articles.)

MIT is amoral.

Not everyone wants to solicit support to fight their battles. I can see why Aaron chose suicide. I wish he had fled to one of the few places in the world where American depravity couldn't effectively kill him, but I can see why he didn't.

Realistically, he could have just gone ~anywhere outside the US and probably wouldn't have been pursued too aggressively.

Are we talking about the same US that tried to extradite Richard O'Dwyer over some copyright bs or nutcase Gary McKinnon? Both of them are not even US citizens, it only gets worse when you "belong" to the country that wants to put you on trial.

There are few countries that are not in bed with the US. Usually they don't feel like getting into even more diplomatic difficulties unless there is some gain for them.

Assange, for example, could've made a deal with the Kremlin - in exchange for keeping silent about Russia and friends... But he's a different category.

India would have been one possibility. We have hosted the Dalai Lama long enough.... and I would say ever since the U. S. started denying extradition of the 26/11 suspects, they wouldn't have had a lot of friends in the establishment here.

Accused of a crime thought so horrific it warrants 30 years in prison, I doubt that. The US has grabbed people on the other side of the world for lesser charges.

This was prosecutorial overreach. It was probably not in their short list of major issues, and thus I don't think they would have devoted huge resources to it.

Which makes this whole thing even sadder. It's entirely possible his (great) IP law firm could have gotten him off, or at least ended up with a brief or suspended sentence. Even though worst case he was facing 50 years, it would have almost certainly been far less. But I am sure he was depressed and so involved in it that he wasn't thinking about it rationally.

> It's entirely possible his (great) IP law firm could have gotten him off, or at least ended up with a brief or suspended sentence.

That is possible. But what life would he have then, with $1.5 million of debt? If not for my kids I'd probably jump off a cliff myself than work a lifetime paying that off.

I think he had some assets from Reddit, as well as some of the work being pro bono, and contributions.

Killing yourself over $1.5mm in debt is not rational. You can default on it and go bankrupt and be back to normal in 7-10 years. You can get most of it written off. You can do consulting for 5-10 years and live slightly frugally and probably pay enough of it off to have the rest written off. You can start 1/1000th of a kind-of-shitty photo sharing site. You can flee to China, start over, and no one will pursue you.

They basically don't expect you to put 100% of your income toward fines, back taxes, etc. even if it's to the Government (and hence can't be discharged in bankruptcy). In that case, you just live on 25-50k post-tax and either hide a bunch of cash income while making small payments, or find benefactors who cover most of your costs and work on free software or something.

We essentially ended debtors prisons a long time ago.

35 years in federal prison might actually be a case for killing yourself (although I'd just read a lot of books and be the hacker Mumia Abu-Jamal, and hopefully get out on appeal).

Depression isn't rational.

I can't say I've been depressed—I'm not qualified to diagnose that. I can say I've felt so hopeless I've made an attempt on my own life. Thankfully, it was a pretty lame attempt (after a lot of alcohol) that I aborted, leaving only a ring around my neck as evidence. I failed to even send myself to the hospital.

It's more than hopelessness. Life felt like an unbearable burden, a source of pain that would never end… until I ended it.

My life wasn't actually hopeless. My problems weren't as bad as they seemed—literally the day after this began the best two or three years of my adult life.

Had I been more competent, or maybe just more committed, I wouldn't have been around for that to happen. And there's no way you could've talked me into believing I'd appreciate living to see tomorrow—the very problem was I believed my life would be more of the same until I died, and I welcomed death over what I thought life had in store for me.

This story cuts deep for me because I survived and this man who's contributed so much more to society than I have didn't make it. It also cuts deep because I fear going back to that place, and seeing another man fall makes me fear a little for my own life. I've done my research since: if I try again, I'm convinced I'll succeed.

I'm among the most rational people I know. My own family thinks I'm just about incapable of emotion. Yet I've struggled with this.

People aren't rational. Not even the rational ones.

Based on what you've written, I think you'd handle getting charged with a crime a lot better than I would.

If it's a purely economic or "political" crime, I think it's a lot easier to deal with. I mean, even if you accept that Aaron did all these things and that they were crimes, there's nothing morally repugnant about it.

The worse thing is if you're accused of a morally repugnant crime. Say, rape, or child molestation, or maybe some kind of betrayal of trust (like embezzling), or even not a crime but something like snitching on a close friend over an immoral law and sending Anne Frank to the Nazis. Then, there's both all the moral scorn from other people and from yourself -- just the accusation is hurtful, even if you know at some level it's false.

If you could simply file bankruptcy then most everyone in that situation would do that. Presumably the lawyers are on to that strategy and mitigate around it.

You could be right that $1.5 million in debt is not worth killing oneself, but not everyone will take it that way. It would be a major drag on your life in any case. It would be difficult for all but the strongest people to go on enjoying life.

Yes. With all the information and POV accounts that have surfaced today, I can't help but wonder if I truly would have acted differently in his shoes.

The prospect of ruining your own family in a protracted legal battle with the DOJ is nothing short of a nightmare.

There but for the grace of God, as they say. This country can be a terrifying place, although I myself occasionally forget it.

I wouldn't be surprised if they made a law making the family responsible for the crimes.

This might not occur in this case, but I see lobbyists wanting money for all those movies your children watched for free.

> yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense

Was this a court limitation? Why couldn't he appeal openly for his own defense?