Aaron's Law Is Doomed and the CFAA Is Still Broken 134
I Ate A Candle (3762149) writes Aaron's Law, named after the late internet activist Aaron Swartz, was supposed to fix U.S. hacking laws, which many deem dated and overly harsh. But the bill looks certain to wither in Congress, thanks to corporate lobbying, disagreements in Washington between key lawmakers and a simple lack of interest amongst the general population for changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Representative Zoe Lofgren blamed inactivity from the House Judiciary Committee headed up by Representative Bob Goodlatte, which has chosen not to discuss or vote on Aaron's Law. There is still an appetite for CFAA reform, thanks to complaints from the security community that their research efforts have been deemed illegal acts, perversely making the internet a less secure place. But with the likes of Oracle trying to stop it and with Congress unwilling to act, change looks some way away.
Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fascists are never going to give up power now that they have it.
And, at this point, it is fairly obvious that both parties are more than willing to vote in favor of fascism.
This is all about government control and secrecy, and if anybody is going to hack into anything with permission it's the NSA et al.
Pathetic, in my lifetime, America has become a joke -- face it, you suck, your government sucks, and you've turned your backs on rights and freedoms.
America deserves what it gets at this point, and deserves a massive amount of contempt and distrust from the rest of the world.
You have become the fucking problem.
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's worse than that ... it's a nascent authoritarian state which is beholden to an oligarchy.
Which means whatever the government doesn't control is in the hands of the corporations.
So, if you're not being screwed in the name of secret national security by agencies which lie cheat and steal ... you're being screwed in the name of corporate profits. Or both.
As a free society, America has pretty much almost ran it's course.
Papers please, comrade, and don't forget to keep the economy going by buying stuff from one of our sponsors.
CFAA & Aaronsw (Score:4, Insightful)
CFAA may be broken but what Aaron did was still wrong and I don't think the law should be changed to make his behavior legal, which is the impression I get when the bill is named after him. I'm sure many others feel the same way. Sure, Swartz will be missed and many people are blaming themselves for not recognizing the signs of mental illness and helping him before he killed himself. However, I'd do the same thing MIT did if I discovered some creep walking in off the street and causing all the researchers to lose access to a major database, kept evading blocks over a period of months, and broke into a wiring closet to hook up his own equipment. Likewise, if some creep was trying to "keepgrabbing" my entire database, creating more traffic than all of my other customers combined, and jeopardizing my relationship with one of my biggest customers, you bet your ass I'd call the cops. Somehow, however, Swartz apologists keep trying to hitch this wagon up to the "I didn't read a web sites ToS and now I have a felony conviction" cause.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep.
I'm growing tired of counting all the things that supermajorities of the people want that the government will never ever allow us to have.
There are so many things that could be reformed/improved/eliminated/added in the context of government that the PEOPLE truly want (and want through large majorities) that it boggles the mind.
However, if any of these things have a negative impact on the power of our politicians, or the power of their lobbyists, or the power of their party leaders, or the power of their special interest groups, then screw us.
Will never ever pass (Score:5, Insightful)
When your lawmakers are low IQ low education level types that put more weight in the opinions of the lobbyists that stuff their pockets full of money... You will NEVER get fair and balanced laws.
DMCA and PATRIOT are two prime examples of how the people on capitol hill work. most of those idiots do not even READ the laws they are voting on.
The proper answer still remains, if you want to be a white hat, you MUST remain anonymous when you release any information. DO NOT ever let someone know who you are because good deed will be punished harshly by the scared and uneducated lawmakers.
And the laws are only going toget worse as big business buy even more legislation to shore up out of date business practices.
Re:Oracle trying to protect trade secrets (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what, this is precisely what happens when you decide corporations are people, and that money equals speech ... your democratic process becomes subverted by the will of corporations and ceases to be about representing the people.
It's pretty much all downhill from here.
Re:CFAA & Aaronsw (Score:5, Insightful)
Larger request (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:He didn't hack (Score:2, Insightful)
Fine, no. But worth 30 years in prison when even all the wronged parties did not want to continue the prosecution. FUCK NO.
Re:He didn't hack (Score:4, Insightful)
Fine, no. But worth 30 years in prison when even all the wronged parties did not want to continue the prosecution. FUCK NO.
Lets be completely honest about this.
He was neither convected nor sentenced. The claim that he faced 35 years jail time is highly disingenuous since he had been offered a plea bargain that carried only 6 months in a low security prison, but he turned it down.
The story after his suicide was one disingenuous load of crap after another. If the guy killed himself because of the jail time he faced, then even 6 months was too much for him.
I dont see how 6 months is out of line for the crimes that he admitted to committing.
Re:He didn't hack (Score:3, Insightful)
I dont see how 6 months is out of line for the crimes that he admitted to committing.
What crimes? He violated the system's terms of service. Purely a civil matter.
lack of interest (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a thousand laws where "lack of interest amongst the general population" was no obstacle to getting them passed.
Re:Larger request (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently the young man committed suicide due to the threat of severe charges and punishments.
He was offered a 6-month sentence in a low security prison. Turned it down.
What's the point? If I'm innocent then 6 months in any prison is wrong.
The grandparent has a lot of good points. Another much-needed reform is to force prosecutors to tell the jury the details of all plea bargains that were offered. When someone's facing 70 years in prison and the prosecutor has to sheepishly say to the jury "yeah, we thought 6 months was a reasonable sentence" then the jury's going to step back and say "okay, then what's up with all these charges?"
The other reform mentioned by the grandparent is to simply disallow adding charges after the initial charges. If they uncover other criminal activity then make it a separate trial or something - it needs to be more expensive in terms of time and money for the prosecution to bring more charges.