Volohk Conspiracy1
I think everybody is way over complicating this matter and citing judicial precedent is not helping.
The issue at fault here asks the question who has the Power? Aaron Swartz had the knowledge and the means to imply action which transmitted to a discussion that still needs an answer. What is at stake here is bigger than a policy or an interpretation of Law or Consequence. The question is does Knowledge equate Power? In my experience in a short 44 years on this earth, if you have the ability to carry out a carefully, perfectly executed plan then you are successful. Of course by the same example, two other men were successful, but their goal was to inflict the most physical damage to human body & psyche for a name in history.
I don’t need to mention the names of either of the other two men in order for others to know what I am talking about, but I’m making a point to draw a line between what they did and what Aaron did to provide contrast.
The point is he did what was within his power to succeed in answering the question. He had the knowledge of the MIT Network and the Application which blocked him from copying a database that he had legal access to, but not the permission to execute the plan of making secure information free for everybody.
The purpose of the formal education system is to enlighten young minds to the formation of ideas that in this country we cherish because it provides to the greater good of everyone else. I believe that was what Aaron was discovering and promoting.
He hit a few roadblocks along the way in the form of blocking his computer from carrying out his plan. So what did he do? He changed his plan to accommodate a challenge to the very thing he was trying to make available to everyone. It’s called Hactivism!
Unfortunately, the U.S. Government does not view this sort of activity as valuable or even tolerable at any level, so they decided to charge him with enough overlapping crimes to put him away for life!
That is why I previously referred to the two men that we now know in households everywhere as “James Holmes,” and “Adam Lanza,” or the Aurora and Newtown Shootings.
You see how awful and politically incorrect that is for me to even mention those names along side another person who simply broke into a closet and connected a computer to a network that had no lock on the door.
It’s obvious that his action does not require the same reaction that attacking innocent unarmed people does, but in the infinite wisdom of the U.S. Attorney’s office it does? Therein is the question, does knowledge equal power? No, it does not! Not to the U.S. Government and not when it comes to computers.
The very concept of ownership is in itself an enigma of circumstance. The Golden Rule is “Possession is 99.9% of the Law.” What is the definition of possession when it comes to computers though? The memory of a computer is only as good as the user intends it to be.
How many times have you ever gone to look for something on your computer and to your own horror realized that you deleted it?
Sometimes, you can open the recycle bin and restore the file, but again 99.9% of the time it’s gone for good. So did you have possession of something or did you have circumstantial possession?
This is what I mean by Knowledge is Power and drawing a contrast line between something that is free based upon conditions and something that if you override those conditions can get you locked up for life.
It’s trap, a sham or a hoax that information is free in our society and it has or always will be because once you as an individual figure out how to circumvent the processes put into place to control your ideas then you will be either hired to do the bidding of the control system or you will be destroyed by it.
Such was the fate of Aaron Swartz. He was destroyed by a system that he no longer wanted it to be in control of his ideas and he wanted the rest of us to know it. I know what that is like because success brings you a lot of things, but mostly they are challenges for you to provide more success for somebody else or a system that does not care where success originates.
Take MIT for instance, successful at stopping Aaron by blocking his ip address from a laptop connecting to their network then successful at banning his MAC address on the same laptop. Aaron reacted by getting another laptop and “Spoofing,” his own address, so they would continue to believe they were successful than connecting directly to their network.
What is wrong with this picture? Well let me change the demographics of the scenario to put it in perspective. Please! Bear with me because for those who get it will realize that the analogy can’t help by being condescending.
Say Al Unser get’s a lesson from Dale Earnhart to provide strategy to win the Nascar 500. After the victory lap, Al pulls into the winners circle only to meet Dale who is waiting for Al to get out of the car, so he can punch his lights out! You see how wrong that is?
Well MIT or any technology school crying about a Harvard Student breaking into their network is either crazy, stupid or both because it was a pissing contest and MIT won because every person within their own sanity can see it for what it was.
Maybe that was the point! The U.S. Attorney’s Office lead prosecutor had to join in and make the statement, not to be outdone by men, but to ask for the top end of each count to be prosecuted for the most time to be served.
Talk about punishing success, this is it right here my fellow Americans. “Hypocrisy,” AND NOT “Democracy.” No wonder the Mayans predicted the end of the world. We are entering into uncharted territory indeed especially in the digital age.
When the elitist’s can’t even practice sportsmanship in the name of being above the fray then what hope is there for the rest of us? For those of you who have know idea what I am upset about. It’s essentially because the system destroyed the student.
The student was frustrated with the system and found a way to circumvent the process put in place to spoon feed knowledge to all students. So he said, “so what! Just try and stop me!” The school responded by calling in the highest authority in the land to lock the kid up for life. He was going to take documents that were the combined work of other students and make them available for anybody.
The charges were Wire Fraud and Computer Fraud which are pretty much the same thing and Unauthorized Access.
Again, the interpretation of the law was carried out to be equivalent to “Terrorism.” This is furthest from the truth. When armed men show up “Guns Blazing,” that’s terrorism, not a guy in a bikers helmet coming to collect his computer.
We will never know the outcome of the scenario because faced with all the charges and the maximum sentences they carried, Aaron Swartz hung himself. At his memorial service, his father said, “the Government killed my son.”
I know a lot of people can read this and say “Really,” one more lonely nerd got jilted and your upset? What about all those men and women in uniform fighting for us everyday?
Well you see that is the overall point again the system failed Aaron. The system failed Pvt. Or officer or Sgt.
Because freedom is what they fight for. Freedom to learn from your mistakes or even make mistakes at all.
Just because you’re a genius and have a I.Q. hovering around 200 or above doesn’t mean that your not only 26 years old and still just a kid yourself. Any time we allow this sort of thing to happen we hurt ourselves yet again.
"Eugene Volohk advocates campus speech rights and religious freedom, and opposes racial preferences, having worked as a legal advisor to California's Proposition 209 campaign. He is a critic of what he sees as the overly broad operation of American workplace harassment laws, including those relating to sexual harassment." Wiki...
I named this piece the same as website founded in name of Eugene which by some weird twist of fate has an article which a highly respected attorney makes the argument that the exact opposite of everything I just said is true according to the law, so what the hell do I know anyway.
