Larry Ellison Killed Aaron's Law (2014)

(a) Even putting Larry Ellison aside, the notion that Oracle uses the CFAA to impede competitors is an extraordinary claim, for which no evidence has been provided, let alone extraordinary evidence. If this is true, surely someone on HN has some additional color to add to the claim? Is there a search we can do somewhere to see court cases revolving around CFAA filed by Oracle?

(b) Oracle does not in fact need the CFAA to sue people for violation of its license agreements, which is the claim other stories make for why "Silicon Valley" is resisting this reform. "Aaron's Law" does very little to change civil enforcement of terms of service agreements.

(c) In all stories about Aaron's Law, I think it's helpful to keep in mind that while the law was named in memory of Swartz, it is not in fact a particularly powerful reform to CFAA and probably would not have done much to help Swartz himself:

(1) It retains the damage-based sentence acceleration property that is the worst, most dangerous feature of CFAA, and entirely the reason Swartz wasn't assured of probation even had he been convicted.

(2) It removes ToS violations from the scope of felony CFAA violations --- something that's already happening in the federal courts, post Nosal and Drew --- but Swartz' felony charges were not over ToS violations.

(3) It doesn't modify the Wire Fraud statutes which Swartz was charged under.

(4) The felony damage threshold post-Aaron's Law is $5000 --- basically, the cost of two laptops, or 3 days IT consulting --- which virtually any charged computer crime easily clears.

You can reasonably believe any reform of CFAA is a good thing (I don't: I think once you pass something like "Aaron's Law", you then declare victory and put the reform effort to sleep for a decade), but I still think it's a good thing to remember how little this reform does to fix the real problem with CFAA. Exactly the same people we talk about on HN will be victimized in exactly the same way if the law is passed.

May I ask what HN's opinion on Aaron's Law is?

Still, when you actually look at what it meant, many other tech giants would be severely affected by Aaron's Law.

Only difference is their CEOs are better sociopaths at crafting a 'nice guy personality'.