Reader Tom

******************************************************

*************************************

Re: Betty Boop: Death By Hanging From a Doorkn....

I saw the excellent article about the deadly doorknobs in the news lately and had never heard of Aaron Swartz, so I looked him up to learn more. Wikipedia describes his particular crime as, "connecting a computer to the MIT network in an...unlocked closet, and setting it to download academic journal articles systematically from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT", for which they "charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act...penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release"(Wikipedia). The Staties came down hard and mean on Mr. Swartz for uninterruptedly downloading 'academic articles' from MIT's system (possibly double-speak for a massive child-porn stash he had somehow stumbled on-?) with his own account and using his own computer which was left unattended and unlocked until they finally (duh) traced it down. It seemed a bizarre way for a millionaire super-techie to intentionally crash and burn. Further, the million dollar fine and 35 year room and board offer became a six month plea offer (undoubtedly with standard no disclosure clause), TO WHICH SWARTZ SAYS NO THANKS! Okay, ya got my FULL attention now--I mean, he was obviously guilty--so, no thanks? His attorney would have been LIVID unless they helped him plan it out beforehand. I sifted this absurd tale from several angles trying to gain some insight--and then it hit me. He probably was approached as a capable hacker and told exactly where to look (I mean MIT--seriously--like encrypted in plain sight?) by someone he may have known personally who had been impacted by what they saw or had heard about. Being a stand-up-guy of the first order, he knew he had to do something, and perhaps with some legal guidance, came up with a solution; get popped hacking JSTOR to create the need for a court-documented legal defense (the 35 years part may have come as a wee surprise), post a trillion bytes of the sickest extenuating circumstances the legal record has ever seen where every paper, blog and investigator can access it and tell the world the truth of this abomination (why host all that bandwidth when Justice will do it for free?), take your lumps and go home. For his crime, this outstanding young man was shown to the doorknob. Oh--I should mention that this is a work of fiction (I think I counted 19 doorknobs in my flat...)

******************************