Computer Crime

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Computer Crime

Postby MojaveMike » Mon Jan 21, 2013 11:49 am

Aaron Swartz Tip of Iceberg in Justice System Rife w/Intimidation & Prosecutorial Overreach?
We should fire prosecutors who are more interested in winning and career advancement than in the pursuit of justice. This problem is not limited to this case. Prosecutors often go after people to score points in order to advance their careers.
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Re: Computer Crime

Postby BallaratBob » Mon Jan 21, 2013 12:57 pm

It's hard to see how such aggressive tactics were justified in a case like this. While many people buckle to the pressure and committ suicide when persecuted in this way, some externalize their anger and go on shooting rampages. Public officials should act in a more responsible manner, by aggressively prosecuting insignificant crimes they push people to the limits and put the rest of us in danger. Use tax payer funds to go after real criminals, not people like this guy!
:curse:
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Re: Computer Crime

Postby panamint_patty » Tue Jan 22, 2013 9:34 am

BallaratBob wrote:It's hard to see how such aggressive tactics were justified in a case like this. While many people buckle to the pressure and commit suicide when persecuted in this way, some externalize their anger and go on shooting rampages. Public officials should act in a more responsible manner, by aggressively prosecuting insignificant crimes they push people to the limits and put the rest of us in danger. Use tax payer funds to go after real criminals, not people like this guy!
:curse:

I think that prosecutors and detectives sometimes let their personal dislike for specific people cloud their judgement. It sounds like in this case some frustrated detective or prosecutor had a grudge against young computer genius types and decided to get even by abusing his/her power. People accused of crimes should always be given the benefit of the doubt and it's simply wrong to turn up the heat on someone when there's any doubt about their guilt or when they are accused of something trivial. It's bad enough to be accused of a crime without being treated unfairly on top of everything else. We hear a lot about bullying nowadays, but we don't do anything when public officials bully people like this guy. To my way of thinking the officials who persecuted this guy should receive the maximum time in prison that they threatened this guy with. That would be justice!
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Re: Computer Crime

Postby pcslim » Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:26 am

Aaron Swartz, Wikileaks, & Senator John Cornyn
This is a pretty good discussion of what motivated the government to go after Swartz. It's unusual to make a federal case (literally) out of a terms of service violation. The company involved recommended that the charges be dropped, but the legal authorities decided to pursue the case anyways with charges that could potentially have put this guy behind bars for 30 years! All for a TOS violation?
:wtf:
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Re: Computer Crime

Postby surfsteve » Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:33 am

What the Young Turks don't tell you is that the latest plea-bargain round had Swartz's proposed sentence down to six months and some charges - and they were still haggling.

It has also been suggested that Aaron faked his own suicide in 2007 but when I read the details and the actual note in his own words "When I get hit by a truck" sounded more like he was expecting to be murdered than commit suicide. I think he probably was.

I don't think he was killed over his computer crimes. I think it's much more likely that he was killed because he was about to expose a pedophile porn ring.
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Re: Computer Crime

Postby a2z » Wed Jan 23, 2013 7:39 pm

surfsteve wrote:I don't think he was killed over his computer crimes. I think it's much more likely that he was killed because he was about to expose a pedophile porn ring.

I'm callling BULLSHIT on this entire article. The guy who wrote the "article" is just full of crap and making up stuff with absolutely not concern for reality. Although I agree that it is possible that Swartz was murdered, I am 100% sure that it has nothing to do with some kind of pedeophile network. That kind of shit was debunked back in the 1980s. Remember all the lunatics raving about Satanic Ritual Abuse? Turns out there were no cults sacraficing children or having sex with children. NONE! That gets us to this:
In American society where tens of thousands of children disappear every year without any serious investigation or public concern, the young man assumed the burden of justice on his own and paid the ultimate price for it. Using the JSTOR issue as a mere cover for his covert investigation into MIT wrongdoing was an immature tactic, which now undercuts his reputation postmortem.

Reality check. Law enforcement goes apeshit any time a single kid is missing for more than a couple hours. Ever hear of amber alerts or Megan's law or any of the other over-the-top and unnecessary laws that have been made in the crusade to keep kids safe. "American society" is exactly the opposite of what this numbskull claims.

As for the slanderous comments made about Nicholas Negroponte and the One Laptop, One Child initiative, that's just some dipshit trying to make a scandal out of absolutely nothing. I don't know if the guy is trying to get attention or if he's just plain crazy, but his half-assed attempt to play the sex card (the child sex card no less) has absolutely no credibility. Although I'm a firm believer in free speech, this guy has gone way too far.
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Re: Computer Crime

Postby surfsteve » Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:38 pm

I don't know. You could be right. I still think the porn ring thing is more likely than a suicide. This guy was into so many things though that any number of people could have wanted him dead. Maybe the kiddie porn ring is a bogus story to throw people off track. I don't know but I'm still not buying suicide. That just doesn't add up. But what is starting to add up is that an awful lot of high profile people fighting for people's rights seem to be disappearing in one way or another at a stunning pace. I don't think he went to far. I think he would have gone a lot further if his life hadn't been cut short.
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Re: Computer Crime

Postby a2z » Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:58 pm

surfsteve wrote:I don't know. You could be right. I still think the porn ring thing is more likely than a suicide. This guy was into so many things though that any number of people could have wanted him dead. Maybe the kiddie porn ring is a bogus story to throw people off track. I don't know but I'm still not buying suicide. That just doesn't add up. But what is starting to add up is that an awful lot of high profile people fighting for people's rights seem to be disappearing in one way or another at a stunning pace. I don't think he went to far. I think he would have gone a lot further if his life hadn't been cut short.

I agree that it's very possible that he was murdered. He had a lot to gain by fighting the charges and considering his successful past it seems incredibly unlikely that he'd just give up and kill himself. I don't see Swartz as a kiddie porn vigilante. Those guys are total losers. Kind of like Don Quixote fighting imaginary adversaries. They go after the low hanging fruit and think they're geniuses or something! Swartz was above that BS and the idea that professors at MIT are into that shit is even more ridiculous. The guy who wrote the article pulled a lot of crap out of his ass and slandering people doesn't accomplish a damn thing. So, murder maybe, pedophiles... I don't think so!
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Re: Computer Crime

Postby surfsteve » Thu Jan 24, 2013 8:35 am

Wow. This might be the first time anyone on this forum has ever agreed with me. I went back and re read the article and he did pull a lot of crap out. Nothing that even remotely resembled a smoking gun was mentioned. At best it's a conspiracy theory and a pretty weak one at that. This is more like the kind of thing people like The Young Turks will try and use to show how ridiculous conspiracies are while neglecting to mention the more plausible theories.
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Re: Computer Crime

Postby panamint_patty » Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:10 am

a2z wrote:
surfsteve wrote:I don't know. You could be right. I still think the porn ring thing is more likely than a suicide. This guy was into so many things though that any number of people could have wanted him dead. Maybe the kiddie porn ring is a bogus story to throw people off track. I don't know but I'm still not buying suicide. That just doesn't add up. But what is starting to add up is that an awful lot of high profile people fighting for people's rights seem to be disappearing in one way or another at a stunning pace. I don't think he went to far. I think he would have gone a lot further if his life hadn't been cut short.

I agree that it's very possible that he was murdered. He had a lot to gain by fighting the charges and considering his successful past it seems incredibly unlikely that he'd just give up and kill himself. I don't see Swartz as a kiddie porn vigilante. Those guys are total losers. Kind of like Don Quixote fighting imaginary adversaries. They go after the low hanging fruit and think they're geniuses or something! Swartz was above that BS and the idea that professors at MIT are into that shit is even more ridiculous. The guy who wrote the article pulled a lot of crap out of his ass and slandering people doesn't accomplish a damn thing. So, murder maybe, pedophiles... I don't think so!
surfsteve wrote:Wow. This might be the first time anyone on this forum has ever agreed with me. I went back and re read the article and he did pull a lot of crap out. Nothing that even remotely resembled a smoking gun was mentioned. At best it's a conspiracy theory and a pretty weak one at that. This is more like the kind of thing people like The Young Turks will try and use to show how ridiculous conspiracies are while neglecting to mention the more plausible theories.

It doesn't seem likely that Swartz committed suicide. That doesn't add up. The pedo conspiracy theory is way out in Lululand as far as I'm concerned, though. As for the Young Turks, they often go after straw men in a weak effort to make their point. For some reason Cenk is fixated on Ted Nugent. The cheap shots they resort to do nothing but lower my opinion of them.
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