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Comment by bpolania | Hacker News Reader

Not much. This is not about him doing something dangerous, this is about a government agency trying to set an example clearly pressured by businesses.

In Aaron´s case it wasn't even the affected part putting the pressure, but a whole industry that feels threatened by what 'hackers' can do with easy-to-access information. They don't feel threatened by google because if it infringes a law they know they can sue and settle for several millions, but they know they can't stop hackers sitting in a computer in their homes or a public library, so they need to scare them away with preemptive strikes.

It Aaron's dead results in a change of this policies, not only lives but innovation will be saved and at least his dead won't been in vain. Hopefully.

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"Hackers" who access information they're not permitted to just because they can, against the law, are not to be lionized. They're nothing more than thugs and bullies, who think that their special talents give them the right to violate the rights of other people. The only difference is that their special talent is computer skills instead of physical strength.

I think if anything it's a disservice to Aaron's cause to mix him up with hackers who access information just "because they can" not to make some more meaningful point.

  | this is about a government agency trying to set
  | an example clearly pressured by businesses.

Which businesses? JSTOR recommended that the DoJ drop all charges. MIT possibly was pushing for the charges, but I wouldn't call that 'pressured by businesses.'

More likely that Aaron was: 1) a feather in the prosecutor's cap 2) a way to show the public that she is/was 'tough on crime', and/or 3) another attempt to stretch the Federal statutes on 'hacking' (setting precedent).

The rumor and innuendo I've seen so far suggests that MIT was more than "possibly pushing for charges."

Though some might see higher learning as a business these days, I still don't view universities in the same light as corporations, so no matter the level of pressure from MIT, I still wouldn't class it as, "pressure from businesses."

MIT isn't just a business, it's a quasi-corporate entity that is a key piece of the military industrial complex. It's a piece of the establishment that's open right up to the point where it's not. There is nothing wrong with that, and it's a true treasure to the U.S., but there is no need to pretend it is anything other than what it is.

People are demonizing JSTOR and making excuses for MIT in this situation, but their perception of who is the big faceless establishment entity here is wholly mistaken.

I think I wasn't clear enough on this point. I wasn't implying that Aaron's case was directly pressured by businesses, actually I said in my post that in his case the affected parts, i.e. MIT, JSTOR, et al, decided to not push anymore.

When I talked about "businesses" I was referring to the constant pressure they apply for regulators to punish these kind of practices, as the case of Andrew Auernheimer shows, he was also prosecuted for access publicly available information perhaps with the same severity they did with Aaron. Both cases demonstrate a common practice that initiated by the necessity of businesses of cover their backs against these "intrusions", and in both cases also the prosecutors went out of their ways to set an example.

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