Every bully wants to 'discomfort' their opponents into changing. Those who use DDoS are more like the federal prosecutors -- making 'destructive' threats, expecting change through punishment -- than Aaron.
Also, if DDoS is "destructive" then copying a file is stealing.
I wish he'd stuck it out; had there been a trial (and possibly sentencing), the public would have learned many of the same lessons about overzealous prosecution, the JSTOR project, the CFAA, the obsolescence of copyright, and importance of open access. Plus, he'd still be with us.
I also believe Aaron's causes with regard to copyright and censorship will succeed in coming decades, easily within his natural lifespan, and he would have helped them succeed faster, so I'm sad he'll miss it.
DDoS is destructive (unlike any amount of copying) because it disables access and functionality and effectively censors content by blocking individual learning and communication. It causes more resources to be be wasted on paranoia and layers-of-defense. It causes a hardening of positions and growth of suspicion. It is much easier to portray Aaron's supporters as 'vandals' if they help by actually committing vandalism. (I'd guess that as an 'applied sociologist', Aaron understood this well.)
That these DoS effects are often temporary is no defense: it's destroying people's freedom-to-communicate for a time... and the early death of a young person should remind you that ultimately all we have is time.
His suicide, tragically, appears to have helped the cause - the media loves the wild speculation and gossip that it brought about. So while his end goal may now stand a chance of coming to fruition, he won't be around to witness it.
The number of things that went wrong in order to generate this outcome is just astonishing. While I knew nothing of Aaron or his cause prior to this happening (see? media effects sigh), I at least hope the public outcry brings about what appears to be some much-needed change.
But within the tech community that is already familiar with open access, copyright reform, and anti-SOPA efforts, a trial, ending in either acquittal or conviction, would have focused a lot of attention. The same defenses of Aaron's actions, and attacks on prosecutorial overreach, would have been aired. And any sentence beyond community service or perhaps a few weeks' jail time would have triggered enduring protests and similar petitions for pardon/redress.
How does that follow?
The reason we don't refer to copying as stealing is not because it's "not physical" but more because only the second part of the definition holds.
I would rather see anonymous discover who at MIT is responsible for this matter and dox them than deny students access to their network. Doxing is like a sniper attack. DDoSing is like dropping napalm on villages.
I don't think anyone will know, actually, who is responsible without the investigation that MIT is already doing. We can speculate, but we'll probably get it wrong.
Yeah.. but not really. The non-public domain documents would still be copyrighted so nobody without a license to them would be creating a JSTOR competitor anytime soon.
Furthermore, torrent of PDFs would never replace a subscription to JSTOR for any university. Universities that currently subscribe to JSTOR would still be subscribing to JSTOR, the only difference is that unaffiliated individuals would have other options. How much of JSTOR's operating budget is coming from selling individual articles to people not in universities?
"The figure of $145k for individual articles is definitely interesting – only 0.35% of JSTOR’s revenue came from pay-per-view cases? This is vastly lower than I expected; quite possibly the prices are so high (and JSTOR access so common, academically) that very few people are willing to pay and unable to circumvent it via a friend. The estimate quoted is $19/article as an average – so perhaps only seven and a half thousand articles over the year?"
Well, destroying someone's business model isn't, of itself evil. A business model doesn't have a right to exist for its own sake. For example, I'd love to see someone destroy the business model of patent trolls.
Not saying that JSTOR has an immoral or unnecessary business model. I don't know actually, but I'm just reacting to the idea that sometimes comes up that if there is a business model for something no one has a right to destroy it.
If there's a bug in your system, fix the bug. Don't delete a file in another directory and call it change.
In the Boston Globe, Aaron's lawyer says that a suggested plea deal with probation and no actual jail sentence was rejected by MIT, and that played a part in the prosecutor pushing for harsher judgement. If there is any truth in that, then there is evidence that MIT did indeed play enough of a role to have some of the responsibility here.
We won't have a full picture of what their role might have been until Abelson's report comes out. Which likely will take a good deal of time.
It is my belief that MIT as an institution should have a policy on the appropriate severity of response to actions such as Aaron's. They need to for the simple reason that they have made a conscious decision to choose to make themselves a natural lightning rod for this type of incident. Therefore they help set the bar for what an appropriate reaction should be.
My further belief is that if this policy is set in accord with the bulk of opinion of MIT students and alums, then we'd have had a different result in this case.
This does not mean that they should be held to be at legal fault for the suicide. However if you have even a passing familiarity with root cause analysis you'll know the value of habitually fixing systemic issues you identify which are several layers removed from the ultimate failure.
I am cautiously optimistic that Abelson's report will address this issue.
They brought in the feds. There is evidence that they asked the prosecutor to go hard on Aaron. But the prosecutor is not directly affiliated with MIT.
See http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit... for the article.
AS, for all of whatever it was good that he brought the world, was mentally ill. For whatever reason, he did not receive the help that is freely available in our society. (There was a lot more available before Reagan cut it to shreds, so he could pass on big bucks to his rich cronies, but I digress...)
THAT is the true tragedy here. Depression is a totally, totally fucked up brain function anomaly. People who have not experienced it are simply clueless and should STFU. The REST of you: get help. Get Help - Now!
I am absolutely looking forward to Abelson's report.