[zmanji]

If anyone thinks weev deserves any sympathy, you don't know the full story. weev had malicious intent and wanted to harm AT&T by exposing users data. Instead of doing anything remotely rational he took all the data and wanted to sell it.

Laws take into account indent (mens rea) and there is a lot of evidence in his indictment that he wanted to profit off this act. He shouldn't be compared to Aaron Swartz

[rdl]

I know weev personally. He's "an unsympathetic defendant", and probably the 9th level Internet Troll, but his goal was fundamentally speech -- he wanted to draw a lot of attention to the issue, and embarrass ATT (hopefully enough that they'd stop being such fuckups about security), etc.

He wasn't trying to profit from this. If that had been his goal, he would have been a lot more stealthy.

It's arguable that he had "cleaner" motives in his act than aaronsw -- some people say aaronsw wanted to release all the files he recovered to the Internet (although there's no proof of that); weev just wanted ATT to suck less.

weev has said things far worse than what's alleged in this case (that they wanted to compile a list and direct market the users); yet, if you judge him by what he's actually done, he's just an asshole at times, but basically reasonable. Fortunately just being an ass isn't a federal crime (although I guess conspiracy to be an ass is).

[subsystem]

Being an "an unsympathetic defendant" frankly makes it even more important to support him. One of the worst things with these out of proportion indictments/sentences is that they leave too much room for other factors, which can turn into things like political repression.

[aneth4]

So he committed a crime and wrote words that characterize the intent behind crime in such a way as to increase prosecutorial interest and sentencing. Now you are saying he was just joking around when he said those things?

Perhaps it's true, but it's stupid and it's hard for me imagine anyone taking that explanation seriously, certainly prosecutors and judges.

If you walk into a bank with a gun and ask the teller for money, then say "just kidding", .... Good luck.

[zyb09]

Yeah but prison time, followed by secret service, not allowed to use computers, not allowed to take jobs... for what, compiling a list of email addresses that an public API was happily returning to him? Despite his questionable handling of the situation, I don't support that kind of draconian punishment.

[ghshephard]

Agreed - I can despise his behavior, and how he handled this situation, but at the same time say what he did should not be considered a felony, and, based on what I read on the ArsTechnica article, it's not even clear if I feel like it's criminal.

[jamesaguilar]

"That guy got life in prison all for moving a knife about two feet in a certain direction! The system is corrupt!"

I wish people could be a little more honest in the way they describe computer crimes. He knew or should have known that that api was not meant for public use. He is being punished for using it despite this knowledge.

[RyanZAG]

Seriously? That you actually believe his punishment fits the crime is incredibly saddening. If even the top voted comment on a site that understands the issue believes the punishment is appropriate, imagine the discussion in a law firm or in parliament. Anybody in the USA touching a computer will be in trouble soon. Can't wait for the next batch of laws.

[rayiner]

Punishing people for purposefully disclosing private information that is clearly not intended to be public is the path to "everyone touching a computer will be in trouble soon?" You act as if he was just playing around on his own computer minding his own business when the big bad government broke his door down.

In Texas, they don't convict homeowners who shoot trick or treaters trespassing on private property: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/In_Texas_can_you_shoot_someone_for....

Don't act so surprised and imposed upon that a culture that very much respects fences sees something wrong with intentionally poking your nose where it doesn't belong, online or offline.

[runn1ng]

More information about the case from ars technica, that supports your story

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/01/goatse-security-trolls-...

[greenyoda]

I don't approve of his motives or actions either, but still, it seems that spending years in jail is a disproportionate punishment for the amount of harm he may have caused AT&T or its customers. This article says that they had second thoughts about how smart their plans actually were and ended up deleting the data rather than selling it to anybody. And it's doubtful that their actions had any lasting effect on the stock price of AT&T - data leaks are a fairly frequent occurrence among large corporations.

[DoubleMalt]

The intent is immaterial if the actions are not against the law.

If accessing published information (and incrementing a number in an url cannot be considered breaking in ...) is against the law, there is something terribly wrong with the law.

That said if he tried to use the data to extort money from AT&T that would of course be a criminal offense (even if the "intent" was robinhoodian).

To illustrate with an analogy: If someone takes a picture of a hapless drunk girl dancing topless in a bar (AT&T), that is not criminal. If this person approaches the girl and asks for money to delete the incriminating pictures, that is extortion. If the person sells the picture to an interested third party, this might constitute the case for a civil lawsuit (see the texxxan case...)

In any case no special laws are needed for judging behaviour in the virtual world.

[lawnchair_larry]

There is no indication he wanted to sell it. He wanted to embarrass AT&T, and that isn't a crime. Changing the number in a URL is not identity fraud.

This is exactly the same thing that was thrown at Aaron, even if you don't find the target as sympathetic.

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -Thomas Paine

[whyenot]

That does not appear to be true. From the Ars Technica article on the case:

"Auernheimer then helped Spitler refine his script to harvest a large number of valid e-mail addresses of iPad 3G users, suggesting that a huge data set would be needed to "direct market iPad accessories" or start a "future massive phishing operation," noting that the data breach would be "huge media news."

[gokhan]

Yeah yeah. He should "man up" or something like that. Those bastard hackers, self declared trolls, activists and stuff...

Do you guys always know the full story behind the news and comment accordingly? If you do based on the articles you read around, I want to remind you that in Aaron's case what you could read about the case was less than half the truth and there are still things we're not sure.

[yardie]

Well, go on.

Unless you know something everyone else doesn't then what is published about the Schwarz case is on the record and in the books. So you're saying that the prosecutors were correct in the charges they brought?

[guard-of-terra]

So what? The reaction suggests that the next time he will pastebin his next hack all right. Is this what we as a society want?

[fleitz]

Absolutely not, he should have checked with a lawyer first about how to accomplish his objectives within the framework of the law. Then he would not be in jail but instead making lots of money.

It's really not that hard to compile a list of email addresses from a public API in a way that doesn't violate the law.

[pcl]

Laws take into account indent (mens rea)

That should be "intent", fyi. Legal code is not nearly as whitespace-sensitive as is Python.

[Centigonal]

One time, I indented my code with five spaces instead of four.

I did this because I despised Guido van Rossum, whom I think is unjustly beardy[1], and wanted to embarass him.

I was convicted of two consecutive five-year felonies, and am now awaiting sentencing.

[1] https://dl.dropbox.com/u/14204175/screencaps/AwesomeRossum.j...

[pprd]

People that describe themselves as trolls are generally bigoted idiots and I feel no sympathy. I'm sorry if that's a stereotype but I can't help myself, the internet hasn't been nice to me.

[Centigonal]

Whether they're bigoted or idiotic shouldn't affect how the law affects them, though. If the person committing this crime was a nice, inoffensive guy, would the law remain justified?

[rsingel]

May we see some proof of the full story. There's nothing to that effect in the IRC logs other than some jokes about how the data is valuable and how they could sell iPad accessories. As if. What did he do? Wrote a bunch of journalists to get press and then deleted the data.

[jcromartie]

If anything, he didn't want to sell the data, he wanted to sell the story.