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Comment by danielweber | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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