[Steven W]

http://mashable.com/2014/04/11/hacker-w ... t-of-jail/

Infamous Internet troll and "iPad hacker" Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer will get out of jail early, after a circuit judge vacated his sentence on Friday.

This has to be one of the most ridiculous things that I've seen in my life.

For those of you who don't know:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/2/448674 ... conviction

Auernheimer and partner Daniel Spitler had discovered that private user information could be viewed by simply incrementing the number at the end of a public URL, and wrote a script to automatically scrape the public data from AT&T's site, which they then shared - without publishing it and after warning AT&T - with a journalist at Gawker.

AT&T is criminally stupid.

[Steven W]

I should point out that he's out on a venue issue:

(From the Mashable article linked to above)

The court ruled that this was an improper venue, and vacated the sentence. Technically, the feds could still charge him for the crimes in another state, but at this point it's unclear if they will.

American tax dollars at work!

You can follow the case at the Electronic Frontier Foundations site:

https://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-auernheimer

From the March 19th hearing:

https://www.eff.org/document/hearing-transcript-1

MR. KERR: The convictions in this case should be reversed because there was no unauthorized access under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. And that's true for a simple reason important to every internet user. When information is made available on the World Wide Web, such that anyone in the world can access it with a web browser by simply entering the website address into the address line, that information is effectively published to the world. Whoever makes the information available assumes the risk that others will discover that information and, as a result, collecting that published information cannot be unauthorized as a matter of law and is legal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

It's not illegal to type a URL in a web browser? Thank you, Mr. Kerr. Thank you, EFF. Thank you, Weev.

[Steven W]

From yesterday's (April 11th) opinion (based on the March 19th arguments):

https://www.eff.org/files/2014/04/11/weev.pdf

Although this appeal raises a number of complex and novel issues that are of great public importance in our increasingly interconnected age, we find it necessary to reach only one that has been fundamental since our country's founding: venue....

"Though our nation has changed in ways which it is difficult to imagine that the Framers of the Constitution could have foreseen, the rights of criminal defendants which they sought to protect in the venue provisions of the Constitution are neither outdated nor outmoded." Passodelis, 615 F.2d at 977. Just as this was true when we decided Passodelis in 1980 - after the advent of railroad, express mail, the telegraph, the telephone, the automobile, air travel, and
satellite communications - it remains true in today's Internet age. For the forgoing reasons, we will reverse the District Court's venue determination and vacate Auernheimer's conviction.

[I, user.]

...AT&T is criminally stupid.

Maybe what he did was wrong but shouldn't AT&T also be charged with maybe neglectant or something? Weird.

[Steven W]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/1 ... -310746692

"At this point, I've sacrificed three years of my life to overturn this unjust law, and I didn't do this to get a venue decision," he said. "The government should come litigate again. I'll risk prison again to do this once more. It's a terrible law."

Where are the laws against corporations that do little to nothing to protect consumer information?

[MasterOne]

I can't stand The Verge...their site layout is horrible and stupid; it looks like Windows 8 + fecal matter. What kind of site are they anyway; a computer site? A gadget site? An opinion-based political outlet with opinions that I could give two shits about? That's why I hate news anchors...I don't need a bunch of blabbermouths giving me their "opinion" off a teleprompter. The Verge has zero articles about BSD, Solaris or Linux, but rest assured that they are good shills for Microsoft and write tons of articles about Windows 8.1. Their comment sections are full of completely retarded sheep that have absolutely nothing interesting to say. And, it's obviously moderated so what you're seeing is not what you would be seeing save for moderation. I came across a blog recently where posters claimed that their posts had been altered. This is a reminder to pretty much not believe anything on the internet unless it has a verifiable source. These days, myriads of sheep read stuff on the internet and take whatever they've read as fact because it exists on the internet.

As for hair Weev, I really could give two shits about the case, but it looks like the law was improperly applied.

[Steven W]

I can understand your sentiment, especially about the Verge. The ways the Computer Abuse and Fraud Act (and really laws in generally) gets over-used, stupidly interpreted and aggressively applied are my main interest. It's also becoming way to blatant to ignore how far we'll go to protect and prop-up corporations here in the U.S.A.

[MasterOne]

I'm not trying to downplay the Weev case; it's just that with Pistorius and Snowden making headlines, the Weev case isn't all that interesting to me, not that it's unimportant. There just isn't a whole lot there. He did Y, the state did Z, and now the courts are doing X. There was no exciting drama or escape out of prison. It seems as though the bigger case law gets and the more they try to improve the legal system along the lines of following the constitution, the same amount of instances of misuse of the law will be made as law expands. It's an imperfect system and will never be perfect, but the USA has a damn good legal system.

[Steven W]

I can see where the case doesn't have all of the excitement, dare I say "sexiness" of other events going on.

Looking at the comments on any news story you read about this, it strikes me how ignorant the masses can be. It's as though you use the word hacker and it's mass hysteria. No one wants to know that their data is being stored in a foolishly designed way. No one want anyone to be accountable with the exception of those pointing out the stupidity.

This reminds me of an incident:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/05/m ... te-warrant

A boston college student had computer equipment siezed because of allegations made by his roomate:

...Calixte's former roommate was the subject of a mass e-mailing to the Boston College community in which he was reported to be gay. Based on some follow-up investigation by the police and by the Boston College IT department, police sought and obtained a search warrant for Calixte's dorm room on March 30, 2009, arguing that all of the above information amounted to probable cause that crimes had been committed.

Mr. Calixte to appear with unknown laptop computers which he says are given to him by Boston College for field testing or he is 'fixing' for other students," and that he "uses two different operating systems to hide his illegal activities. One is the regular B.C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on."

I hope this guy sued. Being accused of using prompt commands, let alone actually using a command prompt is not a crime. The other allegations are equally as ridiculous. They're even more ridiculous in light of what prompted the entire matter

I love this site, you guys keep me thinking.

[!]

I can't stand The Verge...their site layout is horrible and stupid; it looks like Windows 8 + fecal matter. What kind of site are they anyway; a computer site? A gadget site? An opinion-based political outlet with opinions that I could give two shits about? That's why I hate news anchors...I don't need a bunch of blabbermouths giving me their "opinion" off a teleprompter. The Verge has zero articles about BSD, Solaris or Linux, but rest assured that they are good shills for Microsoft and write tons of articles about Windows 8.1. Their comment sections are full of completely retarded sheep that have absolutely nothing interesting to say. And, it's obviously moderated so what you're seeing is not what you would be seeing save for moderation. I came across a blog recently where posters claimed that their posts had been altered. This is a reminder to pretty much not believe anything on the internet unless it has a verifiable source. These days, myriads of sheep read stuff on the internet and take whatever they've read as fact because it exists on the internet...

+1 ^ 1000!

Indeed, these are not news Web sites. They are just there to "build opinion" for the corporations. Pretty filthy. Same with Ars Technica. They always delete my posts as soon as it doesn't fit their current agenda, whatever that may be depending on the day. Those Web sites and their comments cannot be trusted at all because they delete and alter the comments to fit into their very specific agenda of the day. The idiots read those and think "aah, that's how other think" and round and round, it goes.

Creepy stuff.