US authorities accuse Internet activist of downloading 4 million scientific articles
The Massachusetts District Court considered the charges against Internet activist Aaron Swartz on several counts, including computer fraud and unlawful removal of information from a protected computer ( indictment , PDF). In the case of a conviction, he faces up to 35 years in prison and a $ 1 million fine.
What did the 24-year-old programmer, a Harvard University research fellow, co-author of the RSS 1.0 specification, known as aaronsw , founder of Infogami, bought by Reddit , founder and former executive director of the non-profit organization Demand Progress (500 thousand supporters), which requires authorities to modernize legislation in line with the development of information technology?
Before describing the crime of Schwarz, we note that the organization Demand Progress encourages its supporters, if possible, to download important public information from closed databases and share it in an open network where search engines can index it. He himself fell for it in 2008, when using the Perl script installed in the library, he downloaded and uploaded 19 million pages of court documents from the PACER public database to Amazon EC2. The FBI was in charge, but after unsuccessful attempts to talk to Schwarz, they left him alone.
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We are talking about the documents of the so-called Invisible Network - thousands of different databases that are closed from search engines or stored in a proprietary format. Traditionally, legislation on the Invisible Network includes databases on yellow pages, telephone directories, real estate registries, etc. In the case of the PACER public base, the interfaces and storage systems are outdated by 15–20 years, so laying out them on Amazon EC2, Aaron Schwartz, in fact, made an upgrade of the system - something that government bodies should do. But instead, they support the old PACER architecture and charge citizens 8 cents per page per page.
The problem is that often this free information is controlled by some company that charges for access to it. Although the “sale of guests” looks like gangsterism, in fact, such a business model fits into the current legal system, and not only in Russia, but also in the United States.
In this case, and burned Aaron Schwartz. His fault lies in the fact that he has downloaded over 4 million documents from the JSTOR database - an archive of academic journals and research papers in a gangster way. A kind of digital library, although non-profit, but some customers pay access fees. At the same time, access is free for students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
As follows from the indictment, Aaron Schwartz three times penetrated the body of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, illegally connected to the local local network, forged the MAC address and, hiding the laptop with external HDD, for several months downloaded more than 4 million scientific articles from JSTOR. Then he again entered the building in a bicycle helmet, which hid part of his face, and took with him a laptop in his backpack.
Surprisingly, the word “stolen” is used in the indictment, which is reminiscent of rhetoric in copyright cases. Moreover, on page 14, Aaron is even demanded to “return the stolen goods” (apparently, it is intended to return the profit received from the “stolen” documents).
The organization Demand Progress has already made an official statement : “There is no point here,” the statement said, “it's like throwing a man who has looked at too many books in the library. The fact that the authorities have filed a charge against Schwartz is also strange because the JSTOR organization itself has no complaints about it and has not suffered any damage from its activities. ”
In an official statement, JSTOR does not mention the absence of complaints against Aaron, the company only reported on cooperation with the authorities in this case.
Aaron Schwartz is now released on bail of $ 100 thousand, the next consideration of the case will be held on September 9, 2011.
via NY Times , Wired
What did the 24-year-old programmer, a Harvard University research fellow, co-author of the RSS 1.0 specification, known as aaronsw , founder of Infogami, bought by Reddit , founder and former executive director of the non-profit organization Demand Progress (500 thousand supporters), which requires authorities to modernize legislation in line with the development of information technology?
Before describing the crime of Schwarz, we note that the organization Demand Progress encourages its supporters, if possible, to download important public information from closed databases and share it in an open network where search engines can index it. He himself fell for it in 2008, when using the Perl script installed in the library, he downloaded and uploaded 19 million pages of court documents from the PACER public database to Amazon EC2. The FBI was in charge, but after unsuccessful attempts to talk to Schwarz, they left him alone.
')
We are talking about the documents of the so-called Invisible Network - thousands of different databases that are closed from search engines or stored in a proprietary format. Traditionally, legislation on the Invisible Network includes databases on yellow pages, telephone directories, real estate registries, etc. In the case of the PACER public base, the interfaces and storage systems are outdated by 15–20 years, so laying out them on Amazon EC2, Aaron Schwartz, in fact, made an upgrade of the system - something that government bodies should do. But instead, they support the old PACER architecture and charge citizens 8 cents per page per page.
The problem is that often this free information is controlled by some company that charges for access to it. Although the “sale of guests” looks like gangsterism, in fact, such a business model fits into the current legal system, and not only in Russia, but also in the United States.
In this case, and burned Aaron Schwartz. His fault lies in the fact that he has downloaded over 4 million documents from the JSTOR database - an archive of academic journals and research papers in a gangster way. A kind of digital library, although non-profit, but some customers pay access fees. At the same time, access is free for students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
As follows from the indictment, Aaron Schwartz three times penetrated the body of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, illegally connected to the local local network, forged the MAC address and, hiding the laptop with external HDD, for several months downloaded more than 4 million scientific articles from JSTOR. Then he again entered the building in a bicycle helmet, which hid part of his face, and took with him a laptop in his backpack.
Surprisingly, the word “stolen” is used in the indictment, which is reminiscent of rhetoric in copyright cases. Moreover, on page 14, Aaron is even demanded to “return the stolen goods” (apparently, it is intended to return the profit received from the “stolen” documents).
The organization Demand Progress has already made an official statement : “There is no point here,” the statement said, “it's like throwing a man who has looked at too many books in the library. The fact that the authorities have filed a charge against Schwartz is also strange because the JSTOR organization itself has no complaints about it and has not suffered any damage from its activities. ”
In an official statement, JSTOR does not mention the absence of complaints against Aaron, the company only reported on cooperation with the authorities in this case.
Aaron Schwartz is now released on bail of $ 100 thousand, the next consideration of the case will be held on September 9, 2011.
via NY Times , Wired
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/124562/
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