this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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Science Memes

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Never Forget (mander.xyz)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

He didn't even share them as far as I know, he just downloaded them. And the trial hadn't started yet when he committed suicide.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

He didn't get the chance to share them because he was caught downloading them, and his download requests were getting blocked.

And to be clear, he wasn't downloading from the Internet as one might download a car, he went into a restricted networking closet and connected directly to the switch, leaving a computer sitting there sending access requests. He had to keep going back to it to check on the progress, which is when they caught him.

And the trial hadn't started yet when he committed suicide.

Yeah, I agree with the sentiment of the post, but this is just wildly misleading. He was not sentenced to anything, he committed suicide before the trial.

He was given a plea deal for 6 months that he rejected, in an effort to make the feds justify the ludicrous charges they were pressing. Had it gone to trial, he certainly wouldn't have been found not guilty, but it's unlikely many of those charges would have stuck. It's extremely unlikely he would actually have served 35 years.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Downloading isn't a crime, is it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

He was being charged under the CFAA, a hacking criminal statute that prohibits unauthorized access to computer systems. It was controversially being stretched to cover Aaron's conduct that violated TOS by an ambitious prosecutor.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Are TOS violations felonies now?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Yes, technically any TOS violation is one ambitious prosecutor away from a felony, thanks to the CFAA.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

If you want to read about how we got into this fucked up situation I'd recommend The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling (a notorious cyberpunk sf writer among other things) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/101

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You wouldn't download a car would you??