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You're forgetting the context. The network is open and freely available to anyone. They're not trying to keep anyone out.

That's precisely what Swartz's defense team has pointed out -- there was precious little "hacking" involved because there was no defense to hack.



> That's precisely what Swartz's defense team has pointed out

Perhaps Swartz should have chose smarter lawyers then, because he wasn't charged with "hacking" but with "intentional unauthorized access" and other similar things.

It's not as if he accidentally logged onto an open Wifi and accidentally downloaded terabytes of information from JSTOR, they specifically blocked Swartz's machine multiple times. They may not be trying to keep everyone out but they were definitely trying to keep Swartz out (and they didn't even know it was Swartz until he was arrested).


> They may not be trying to keep everyone out

Which was exactly my point. That's why your original comment about "that laptop should've been discovered within 15 minutes" doesn't make sense.

Their network model deliberately doesn't care about an extra random laptop, until somebody complains.


To be clear, I wasn't the one who made the comment regarding whether the laptop should have been discovered within 15 minutes.

But in general, it does an individual who was trespassing (in this case, on a network) no good to complain that other people were allowed in. There are exceptions to that for MIT since it's a university, but given that Aaron was both white and male, I don't think he'd have been able to play the minority discrimination card.




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