Congress plans to make computer crime law much, much worse In the wake of the tragic suicide of Aaron Swartz, there have been many calls to reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act used to prosecute him. Work is currently afoot for "Aarons Law" legislation, which simplifies and brings a measure of sense to the law, but now the House Judiciary Committee has begun circulating an update …
Three strikes and you are out rule... Life Sentences for downloading Justin Beiber songs....
Still it will help the economy by helping to populate the US prisons, therefore increasing demand for spaces, leading to increases in building new prisons, which will lead directly to more employment in the prison sector..
It's comparable to a Ponzi scheme, when the US runs out of prisoners they can export the laws and make them applicable to other countries and import prisoners to help fill prisons, to increase prison building programs, to employ more people in the prison sector......
Either that or the death penalty, but where the profit in that?
"I think that everyone should let the politicians know that if they pass this act, they will be unemployed after next election......" Well, if you had actually thought at all, you would realise that is where your whole premise falls over - the electorate will probably choose to disagree, they have more pressing concerns than letting Internet criminals get off with a slap on the wrist.
"......This is sickening to see this kind of crap." Why? Part of setting sentences for crimes is that they should act as a deterrent, and by the shrieking and whining going on all over the Web it looks like the dweebs are starting to realise they can't treat the Internet as their personal tantrum room and get away with a few harsh words. Don't like it then find a politician willing to stand for the same (lack of) values as you hold dear and vote for him, or learn to follow the laws set by society.
Except someone hung himself over the current laws being threatened against him. I think the laws are already strict enough?
If you merely want laws to act as a deterrent, why not simply implement the death-penalty for everything?
To be fair though - you did say "Part of setting sentences" - so I'll admit that I'm of course misrepresenting you...
on the internet...
dammit, that's like 2 years in prison right? :)
The other part of sentencing (watch out for a false dichotomy - who says there's only two parts to it), is rehabilitating. Giving some computer criminal 50 years in prison is likely to not only rehabilitate him, but in-habilitate him. When he gets out there'll be holographic wrist computers and think-web. At least then he can't commit more crimes. Of course he'll never contribute to society again either.
".....someone hung himself over the current laws being threatened against him....." The only person that knows why Aaron Swarz hung himself is Aaron Swarz, and seeing as he can't really tell us your statement is mere conjecture based on your WANTING The Man to be to blame. The EVIDENCE - such as the fact Aaron had said he felt suicidal years ago, and that he knew a major chunk of the evidence against him could be thrown out of court - suggests you are talking out of your rectum, but from the tone of your dribbling post it is very obvious you wouldn't let mere facts get in the way of your bleating.
Someone ought to notify wikipedia. 'Everyone who feels suicidal eventually will commit suicide'. Just cite Matt Bryant @ this thread.
Oh, and "he knew a major chunk of the evidence against him could be thrown out of court." And if you buy a 100 lottery tickets, you could win the lottery.
"To be fair though - you did say "Part of setting sentences" - so I'll admit that I'm of course misrepresenting you...
on the internet..."
If that the case, all the politicians will wind up in jail because we know they misrepresent all of us (Americans)...
Mine's the one with the Pirate Box install disc in the pocket...
"Still it will help the economy "
You have hit the nail on teh head there - one of the 2 worst things in the US justice system is how much of it is privatised. Private prisons make profits with more prisoners (and also, by having worse conditions in prisons). The prison lobby pushes hard to make sure that they keep getting more and more new 'clients' and to be able to keep them inside for longer. When it becomes the commercial interest of some very rich and powerful people for there to be more and more people incarcerated, that's what you get.
The other one, of course, is having elected prosecuters, sheriffs etc. In theory this is great for more openness in the system. In practise, the electoral system rewards the people who say "I'm going to be tough on crime, impose higher penalties etc" against those who say "I'm for better justice, I want to make sure that no-oneinnocent goes to jail". Possibly it's to do with basic psychology - if I'm a law-abiding citizen I can never imagine that I will be the one caught in the net of some trivial misdemeanour so I'm all for "those who trespass against me" getting the book thrown at them
"....The prison lobby pushes hard to make sure that they keep getting more and more new 'clients'..." Yeah, cos every time some gormless sheeple like you hacks a computer or deals drugs or holds up a store or does something else illegal and equally stupid, there was a prison company guy telling you what to do and putting the drugs/keyboard/gun into your hands, right? Were you home-schooled by drug-addled hippies or what? Seriously, you must be a troll as I find it very hard to believe anyone could be as dumb as you.
That sounds good in some ways, but the ultimate result is something totalitarian - where everyone has broken some laws, so it is easy to pressure and control those that The Man doesn't like. And once again, the wrong approach to computer security, where it can't be even discussed (!) seems to have been taken. What next, government control of all strong crypto?
Those who fail to learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them, is probably the best advise a history professor ever said. Plainly, someone hasn't been reading history over there. Look what happened to the Roman Empire, then look at the USA.
In summation, then: Super Power = De Facto Absolute Power = Clear Evidence of No Responsibility towards others.
Screw you indeed, with knobs on.
Someone want to lend the US Senate a fiddle and a box of matches?
AC because, well. Obvious, really.
Britain still has a higher density of surveillance cameras than the US.
true, but our infrastructure is crap, so it hasn't had much impact - a few percent of crimes are solved using them
(ANPR is another thing altogether - tho there is a cool hack for that, alledgedly - http://kossovsky.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/sql_injection_traffic_camera-300x231.jpg)
The big difference is that merkin's in general and politicians in particular actually believe that 'the end justifies the means' (probably 'work will make one free' as well! - fucking godwin) and that executing 100 innocents is ok so long as no criminal evades justice. (members of congress excepted, duhh!)
Having the big stick with no one ready to use it, is quite different to having the big stick and having it used constantly... RICO ffs!
"Instead, these types of laws are designed to give prosecutors a strong negotiation position with which to threaten suspects and avoid all the expense and hassle of actually holding trials."
You'd have to be absolutely blind not to see the gob-smacking unfairness of both the proposed and even existing systems. Basically, intimidate someone into saying they're guilty whether they are or not.
There are many great things about the U.S. but this element of their judicial system is definitely not one of them.
"There are many great things about the U.S
name 2?"
Well, Walt Disney World for one, and the technical and scientific community that gave you the PC, tablet or smartphone and the Internet you used to post your dribble for a second. But I suppose the greatest appeal of the States would be that you are obviously not there.
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It is quite clear that the US has gone quite mad. Have your day in court they used to say. Innocent until proven guilty they used to say. Everyone is equal in the face of the law they used to say.
Smedley Butler was right. The US cares naught for the working man. Only business.
Utter disgrace.
Tha's 'bidness' ta ya'll, son! Ya know, son, what makes 'Merika GREAT (really, the whole earth) is that you can poke holes in it 'n' awl 'n' gas jest comes a bubblin' up!! [see: http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-congress/2013/03/stockman-the-best-thing-about-the-earth-is-if-you-159944.html]
There's a preposterous disconnect in the potential penalties for things like this and actually horrific crimes like murder or rape, or things like selling hard-core drugs. The claim that they're some sort of prosecutorial "bargaining position" is small comfort, since the very existence of the penalty means a prosecutor has the right to ask for it and a judge is free to apply it. The idea of actually scaling the penalty to the harm done (or threatened) seems right out the window. This, sadly, should be no surprise, as I feel we have been seeing similar problems in copyright infringement cases as well.
The idea of actually scaling the penalty to the harm done (or threatened) seems right out the window
Do you realize that's about the only sane argument with which one could attempt to defend the indefensible? That particularly serious instances of computer crime may have a cost measured in billions of dollars, or even in lives lost?
Well the good news is that this is still in committee in the House so it has a ways to go.
As much as the lack of Senate being able to pass any legislation drives me nuts some times, there are other times I find it quite comforting since the feces throwing monkeys in the House will pass just about anything except for a sensible budget.
Translation for the British: One of 500+ folks in the lower House has proposed something, and even a committee of folks who are the oversight in the area of interest before the whole Congress even bothers to debate this hasn't even taken a look. The "prosecutors need more arbitrary power" argument needs to be nipped in the bud, though.
To intimidate a potentially innocent person to plea guilty? I think the brief noise, followed by the bang that smashed all the windows the house, was the word corruption passing my lips faster than my brain could process it, and then breaking the sound barrier.
How can any conviction gained under that kind of duress possibly be deemed safe? Far from being the land of the free, the US looks increasingly like a nation of deluded idiots who think it will never happen to them!
"To intimidate a potentially innocent person to plea guilty?....." By his own admission Aaron Swarz was technically as guilty as sin, it was his own decision to commit suicide that robbed himself of the small chance of clearing his name in court. Either way, everyone knew he wasn't looking at fifty years or whatever figure the sheeple are bleating about. Aaron Swarz committed suicide because he was depressed a long time before he tried his last hacktivist publicity stunt.
This is a ridiculous ad hominem. Holder admits to abuse of the judicial system, your response is to argue that one person subjected to judicial abuse was guilty. You are the reincarnation of Sen. McCarthy and I claim my $5.
given your propensity for setting you hear alight, jumping up and down, and talking bollocks on here I would have thought you'd be against a piece of legislation that would see you in gitmo for the rest of your natural.
Oh you think it's just targeting a different kind of crazy.....
Uh-ho - look out US.
Here in the UK draconian laws tend to suffer from unintended consequences.
For example, in the NHS, any naughtiness will mean end of career, full stop, period.
That is the law!
But the practice is that nobody will put their colleagues career at risk otherwise the action might be reciprocated and your career might be put at risk (this is an example of severe law making for even poorer practice and further intensifying risk within an organisation. Naive really)
Sounds like a very Japanese method of crime resolution. They should go the whole hog, get rid of juries, allow days long lawyer free interrogations, no requirements to tape record investigations, write and print out confessions for the accused. If they did that I'm sure it would help out with the clear up statistics.
There's one massive problem with that. IN a two-party state (such as the USA), first off, thre isn't much choice as to who to elect (there being no "none of the above" option available on the ballot paper or computer), and second, you have to convince the rest of the sheep - I mean electorate - as to the merits of your argument.
It's like rolling dung uphill. Tends not to happen, and you get covered in shit.
Not easily done for various reasons, not least that, as earlier posters observed, a large fraction of the citizens are too occupied with their personal diversions to take time to understand what's going on and have too little imagination to see how the laws might apply in practice, and to themselves. In addition, aside from the strangeness associated with political campaigns, most citizens accept the present regime as fully legitimate with a few occasional problems that need a fix. How else should we understand the high incarceration rate for drug related offenses that do little measurable harm to anyone but for being illegal? This is fine for political stability, but gives prosecutors a great deal of latitude in framing charges and leaning on defendants; and they want yet more.
But Yorgo is correct: whining has not and will not do much good.
Can't see a reason for the downvotes.
According to the venerable Beeb this approach of threatening massive jail (gaol) sentences is widely used in the US to encourage accused (but not convicted) drug offenders into informing on dealers etc in return for a reduction in their sentence (if convicted - but in the US the conviction rate is ~90%). This has included asking these people to take part in police sting operations involving seriously unpleasant people - IIRC there has been at least one such person killed when the stingees found them carrying a bugging device.
More generally it is a very efficient system if you can get a chain effect going, and it gets round those irritating entrapment laws by using people outside of the police & justice system. One side effect is that someone right at the bottom level of offending and with no contacts of interest to the police may well have to choose between a long jail sentence and fitting up strangers.
So you can see the attraction of applying the same model to the exciting world of cyber criminals.
Really Yorgo? The issue is that the age of the people involved is often so young that their frontal-cortex hasn't even developed yet, so they basically CAN'T really make proper decisions based upon long-term consequences. Yet you think that it is fair to ruin their future or basically give them a life sentence for what is most of the time a victimless crime?
If you were any kind of a caring human being and not a sociopath you would have at least amended your comment with a suggestion for making the whole thing make more sense, instead of regurgitating uneducated crap quilted into pillows by Quakers .
I say, find them the equivalent of fixing Y2K date entries in code, or manually converting one database to another, or something, anything other than locking away a person that was most of the time literally too smart for their own good and too young to weigh the consequences. Give them a chance to pay back society in a way that their talents could offer the most benefit for everyone involved. Chances are if you stick a 20 something in jail for hacking, they are going to come out with new violence related skill-sets, a chip on their shoulder, and no job prospects higher than fry-cook, and that is just asking trouble.
".....The issue is that the age of the people involved is often so young that their frontal-cortex hasn't even developed yet, so they basically CAN'T really make proper decisions based upon long-term consequences....." Yeah, cos Aaron Swarz, Sabu and countless other Anons that have been caught were all in diapers, right? And even if they were under the age of eighteen, you're suggesting the equivalent of just shrugging at teenage vandals that trash bus shelters or spray graffiti and saying "Oh, they'll grow out of it" - wrong! Studies show that kids that grow up without learning right from wrong turn into adults that can't tell right from wrong. When I was a teen I definitely knew when I was doing wrong so your whole cerebral cortex baloney is just liberal, pseudo-science claptrap.
"...... his career is ruined at the age of 26." Career? What career? His whole "career" had turned into being a self-publicising "activist" for the freetards, a criminal conviction "for the cause" would have boosted him with those numpties. It definitely didn't stop out-and-out criminals like Bill Ayers going on to have a career in higher education so the was no reason to think it would have stopped Swarz landing a cushie tenure alongside his buddies like Lessig.
The US (of which I'm a citizen for 73 years) Justice System achieves 95% of its felony convictions via plea bargain. Obviously the federal government sees an increase of the penalties as an even more expeditious pathway to elimination of the pesky, time-consuming trial by jury system ... which is already hopelessly clogged. Waiting for one's case to come to trial is now measured in years rather than months. How much more efficient it is, to pose the question: life in prison and financial ruin for one's family, or simply take the plea and settle for five years and a criminal (felony) record.
That is exactly where the United States is today. Lest one say the people deserve it, stop to consider that the people have had very little voice ever since Corporations were declared by the Supreme Court to be 'people' with all the rights thereof, but none of the burdens of accountability. Add to that the decision of the Supreme Court that unlimited rivers of money are equivalent to free speech, and cannot be encumbered with limits or controls.
Lest anyone hold out too much hope that more rational heads in the Senate will prevail over the House of Representatives' chaotic madness ... consider the permanent state of filibuster which has the US Senate locked down and paralyzed. Someone will let these draconian new computer crime penalties 'slide through' in exchange for some pork of their own getting a free ride on its shirttail.
Computer criminals and domestic terrorists, God Bless Us, each and every one.
" Instead, these types of laws are designed to give prosecutors a strong negotiation position with which to threaten suspects and avoid all the expense and hassle of actually holding trials."
So let me get this strait. It's too much trouble to find out if HE ACTUALLY DID IT, so let's just make him so scare shitless his life is over, regardless of actual guild, that he admits to having done it. Last time I checked, that's called torture.
The world needs to adopt minimum, uniform, mandatory prison sentences and fines for digital crimes. Japan has the correct approach with 2 years for piracy and 10 years for facilitating piracy or hacking - plus fines of hundreds of thousands of Euro. These should be the minimums worldwide. Then there is no escaping accountability for a crime. All countries should agree to extradite any and all accused of digital crimes for judicial process where their crime has impacted the specific entity.
Then everyone is fully aware of the punishment and there is no excuse what so ever to use when they are convicted, prosecuted and shipped off to priosn for at least the minimum sentences and fines, but not limited to the minimums where a more severe punishment is justified. It's time to get real about digital crime.
Not at all there is no way in my mind that piracy/hacking is in any way shape or form worse than :
Rape
Robbery (As in with the person present by force.)
Other terrible crimes.
I think both should be a civil offence where the punishment is related to actual damages.
(Incompetence on the part of the company makes them pay a fine.)
Japan has good ideas in many areas (Like the grope train (classic !)) but this isn't one of them.
Computers are not like bedrooms. Computers are like sidewalks. No one can construct or otherwise emplace anything on your sidewalk, so to that extent, it belongs to you. They can't dig a hole in it either. But mainly sidewalk law says that if it is your sidewalk, you are on the hook if anything hazardous about it damages anyone else.
Destruction of data or equipment or alteration or forgery of records of contracts (voluntary commercial transactions) ought to be crimes, but not much else. There's no privacy on a sidewalk and they are there for public use.
Most of the stuff government concerns itself with as to computers is crazy stuff, of clearly interest to some people who think that because they have found it useful to them to buy and open computers for essentially public use, they get to say on what terms the use occurs. They don't. Scrap all these laws, abolish intellectual property and proprietary information, and start over.
" Computers are like sidewalks. No one can construct or otherwise emplace anything on your sidewalk, so to that extent, it belongs to you. They can't dig a hole in it either. But mainly sidewalk law says that if it is your sidewalk, you are on the hook if anything hazardous about it damages anyone else."
Hence the mad law that says you are responsible for clearing up the snow on the pavement ("sidewalk") outside your house.
In the UK, all those responsibilities fall on the local councils
Land where (business) ethics means nothing and where greed rules but were individuals gets severely punished if they "lie" on a fucking useless ad-ridden playtoy-website!
...and still so many people want to go there or so many people look up to it... it's unbelievable.
Yeah look what happened to those day traders who did what the banks did/do better than them they got it all reverted and them jailed I think.
Another thing is that libor thing Barclays came clean about it got 200 million fine and their CEO left but our government owned RBS didn't come clean nothing happened and then the taxpayer lost 400 million basically that says to CEO's don't come clean about it you will keep your job and the fine will still be pretty small (So it won't even probably affect your bonus.)
Be interesting to see what happens (In my lifetime) when China becomes the main world superpower.
All forms of government boil down to corporatism, feudalism, and thuggery; it is evil slavery which must be dissolved and never reintroduced!
There is no compassion in government; because all governments are parasites which can only steal to 'help' others.
Anarchy is just the lack of government; there can still be law, order and negotiation via a viable market mechanisms like the Irish used to have, before they were eventually conquered.
Ooh, look quickly, kiddies, it's an Anarchist! This is a golden opportunity to study a rare form of delusion not seen in large numbers since the days of the Spanish Civil War. As a rule of thumb, they generally insist all other systems of government are bound to fail, but can never actually come up with a coherent option to replace them beyond "they have, I don't, must smash". It's a bit like Communism except without the "high ideals" and the desire to impose rigid order, and with even more violence and with an even worse track record of success. The lack of success is largely due to the fact that the one constant in Anarchist circles is that they can never agree on anything even amongst themselves. The best option when confronted with one of these social inadequates is to point to their dinky A badges and remind them that loser starts with an L, not an A.
The essential problem with Anarchism is that other, predatory, "isms" are already established and they can wield all of the power that they have taken from the people to hammer down such threats.
It is the same problem faced by Communism. Indeed, prior to the experiment of the USSR it was assumed that Communism could not work unless it was an internationally dominant system. A political system based on accrual of power and putting that in the hands of a few representatives of vested interests ensures that such systems have a "competitive advantage" over Communism, Anarchism, or any similar people-based system. The USSR (and the PRC) "adapted" to that problem by becoming the same type of power-based system, albeit with different economic approaches. Dictatorships of one sort or another (with or without lawyers to quibble over laws -- laws that can be changed at the stroke of a pen should they prove to yield an unsatisfactory outcome for the powerful) are always going to have efficiency advantages, especially when it comes to application of coercion or violence.
So you can go ahead and laugh at Anarchism, but keep in mind that you are the modern equivalent of those medieval peasants who would enthusiastically support their social betters and God-appointed masters. Humanity will either progress to more democratic and, frankly, more sane social systems or slide back into a renewed dark ages. You are simply a vacuous cheer-leader for the later, even if you don't comprehend that.
(BTW, I am an Anarcho-communist in terms of what socio-economic model I consider best. Yeah, I know -- go have a lie down and try to let your brain un-lock from the incomprehensibility of such a rejection of arbitrary power over "lesser" people...)
"The essential problem with Anarchism is that other, predatory, "isms" are already established and they can wield all of the power that they have taken from the people to hammer down such threats....." Aw, did all the other kids in the sandpit pick on you? It seems that through history plenty of other political ideologies have risen and some flourished despite the establishment of the day. Your pathetic excuse for the lack of popular support for anarchy beyond the naive and vandal-prone doesn't hold water.
".....but keep in mind that you are the modern equivalent of those medieval peasants who would enthusiastically support their social betters and God-appointed masters....." And there's the standard line used by so many wannabe dictators - the peasants are too stupid to know what's good for them so we will make all the decisions for them. And if they disagree they must be "re-educated".... Seeing as this "peasant" quite enjoys his right to vote I'm quite happy to tell you to go shove your failed and condescending ideology where the sun don't shine, thanks.
".....Humanity will either progress to more democratic....." Anarchy and democracy are incompatible - democracy gives all people the right to an equal vote, whereas anarchy says it all has to be torn apart and a solution forced on all. I used to think Anarchists were all just Communists in disguise, then I realised they were actually just more stupid.
".....I am an Anarcho-communist in terms of what socio-economic model I consider best....." And there's the other comic trait of Anarchists - this silly attempt to bolt on bits of other ideologies to patch over the holes in their beliefs. You get Anarcho-Communists, Anarcho-Syndicatalists (unions on steroids only without the workers getting a choice), Anarcho-Feminists (yes, they blame it all on men), and Anarcho-Animalists (militant veggie nutters like ALF). Even attempts by Anarchists to attach themselves to so-called "peace" movements - Anarcho-Pacifists - turned out to just be stooges for the Soviet Communists, their criticism of things military being strictly limited to criticisms of NATO. In short, most of them just pick a trendy cause, stick "Anarcho-" in front, and then use it as an excuse to go paint graffiti on a bank. In your case, Anarcho-Communism, it is even funnier that you dribble on about democracy but want to tear down The System and replace it with the one with the least choice and the record for massive repression of the very people they claimed they were liberating! Please do supply one example of a successfully functioning Communist state (big hint - China is not, it has all the repressions of Communism but with massive capitalist economic tendencies). History, such as the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War and even the Cuban Revolution, shows that the Communists saw Anarchists as just dupes to be used and then repressed.
There has been a rise in self-deluded people claiming to be "Anarchists" which correlates with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the decline of Communism in Russia. That's basically the trendy socialists looking for a new political label now that Comminism has been exposed for a failure, but they still bleat the same old politics of envy. And now you're determined to screw up the Internet just because you insist The Man has intentions on controlling it, without realising it is your actions that drew their attention and give the authorities all the excuses they need to impose stronger controls on the Net in the first place. Your failure is self-perpetuating.
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"without realising it is your actions that drew their attention and give the authorities all the excuses they need to impose stronger controls on the Net in the first place"
Controls that you applaud even though you here suggest that the rationale for them is an excuse? Odd. But as this is just more of the same 'don't make me hurt you' abuser logic you defend in the rest of the thread ..perhaps not so odd after all
"....Controls that you applaud even though you here suggest that the rationale for them is an excuse? Odd....." Not really. It's a bit like a nice quiet neighbourhood, where all the neighbours are well behaved and so there is little need for visible policing. The suggestion of putting up surveillance cams in such areas, or having patrolcars out all hours would be treated with surprise and would be considered unneccessary, and any politician suggesting it would garner little support. But if some scum moves into the area, and they and their mates start dealing drugs and breaking into cars and homes, mugging the peaceful folk or using scams to steal their money, and suddenly the good neighbours start clamouring for more police and all the surveilance they can get! And suddenly those same politicians that would have been unwanted before are riding high. That's exactly what has happened to the Internet, and it is why ordinary people will support more and more draconian laws.
".....But as this is just more of the same 'don't make me hurt you' abuser logic you defend in the rest of the thread ..perhaps not so odd after all" Well, it's more like don't make me expose you to ridicule by pointing out the illogicality, melodrama and ranting in your posts.
"That's exactly what has happened to the Internet, and it is why ordinary people will support more and more draconian laws."
Yep. I understood your point when you outlined it earlier with one sentence. The problem is you support it despite your theory modelling it as disengenuous
".... The problem is you support it despite your theory modelling it as disengenuous". There are plenty of historic precedents for the inevitable increase in sentences for persistent crimes. Sentences are set, the politicians look to see if they are working as a deterrent, and if the rate of the crime in question does not decline they will seek to increase the deterrence value by increasing the sentence. There is little else the politicians can resort to and will eventually and inevitably lead to licensed, monitored and strictly controlled access to the Internet in general. The Anonyputzs and other hacktivists are happily digging their own graves and are simply too stupid to realise it, and it is amusing to see them now whining about "draconian measures" and "persecution".
I have a German petrolhead friend who gets all misty-eyed about the good old days when he could blast down any autobahn in Germany without worrying about posted speed limits. He grumbles about speeding fines and blames the idiots that drove irresponsibly for leading to the inevitable limits set on many autobahns. But he supports the Autobahnpolizei when they pull over some nutter being stupidly dangerous on the roads, and he supports the idea of driving bans for those that persistently speed. When the courts reach the stage that hacktivists and computer crims are banned for life from using computers, subject to a return to jail for any infractions, then the Anons will find they get little sympathy from the common man even if computing represents their only income.
"As the Attorney General Eric Holder admitted in recent Congressional hearings, no one is actually going to get sent away for the long prison terms proposed. Instead, these types of laws are designed to give prosecutors a strong negotiation position with which to threaten suspects and avoid all the expense and hassle of actually holding trials."
this sounds very much like Stalin's "Give me a man, I will find an article". What other proof is needed that lawmakers are driving USA to become a Stalinist state?
Anonymous, because sadly I plan to travel to this country. Hope I will be able to return!
"....What other proof is needed that lawmakers are driving USA to become a Stalinist state?....." I really think you should do yourself a favour and go and do some reading into some of the horrors perpetuated in Stalin's USSR before you post any more melodramatic shrieking. Seriously, you're only making yourself look ill-informed.
I lived in a Stalinist country for some 30 years, and I've been in communistic prison twice. I do understand how this works, much better than you do.
Here is history lesson for you, free (since I already paid for it):
The state wants to have a catch on everyone. It does it by developing laws which are occasionally, or perhaps often, ignored, by large portion of population. There is a scale that some laws are easier to comply to, thus making it more difficult to apply this particular catch to arbitrary person, but the penalties are also more severe (think gulag, or indefinite stay in a "closed institution", or having ones children taken away). People generally do ignore these laws, or expect benign punishment if they happen to break them occasionally. Mostly, they are right, since many laws are not enforced (some are even designed as such). However, in the "right" circumstances, the force of law can be felt with full impact, or it is threatened so. This can used to compel certain people to do actions they would not have otherwise wanted to do (say, disclose names of "cooperators"). In this article, the intent is clearly on the side of the state apparatchik (called "senator" in this particular location on Earth). Thus, without doubt, this is Stalinist method at work.
Now read this and pray tell me, are we there yet? Obviously, it is not only US legislators, but also UK ones, which are perpetuating this state of affairs. The difference is of course, whether people have a say in making the laws of the country or not. This is however not as straight cut, as you might like to believe - for example, find an alternative to two main parties in the US, or find a party in the UK which would stand up to green agenda.
One more thing, in case you still do not get the difference: the Stalinist regime is not about how many people are persecuted, or how. If you are lucky, like I was, you will eventually get over it and carry on with your live.
The Stalinist regime is a system which allows those in power to persecute those who are not, in a clear disconnect of proportions between the crime and the punishment. This basically means that you can be severely punished for small things, or perhaps even imagined ones, at almost any time. It's about making you live in fear.
The trouble with increasing the penalties and punishments for "hackers" under the CFAA is not unlike the banking crisis. We send out the wrong message and encourage the wrong behavior, we are saying it is okay for companies like AT&T to be lazy with security and that the mere act of accessing a public system is now a crime. Just as we're saying it is okay for bank CEOs to mess up, they'll get a nice bailout and carry on.
The emphasis should be on punishing companies and businesses that are lazy and outright sloppy with system security; in 2013 websites should not be vulnerable to simple SQL injection attacks and passwords shouldn't be stored in weak hashes (much less in outright plain text).
"....The emphasis should be on punishing companies and businesses that are lazy and outright sloppy with system security...." Punish the victims for having crimes commited against them? So I suppose you blame car owners for not having good enough car alarms when their cars get nicked and propose they should be sent to jail instead of the car thieves? Whilst there should be laws on data retention and protection ( and there already are), it is ALWAYS the criminal that should be punished, and the skiddies and wannabe hackers are just that, criminals.
"So I suppose you blame car owners for not having good enough car alarms when their cars get nicked and propose they should be sent to jail instead of the car thieves?"
No, I would blame the car manufacturers for selling a defective security product and not the real victims, the customers who lost their cars.
"....No, I would blame the car manufacturers for selling a defective security product...." If you had half a clue you would know the two most common forms of car theft are now breaking into the owner's home to steal the car's keys - no failing on the car maker's part, just an easier method of stealing the car - and carjacking. Once again, stop making excuses for the criminals.
"So who are the happiest people in the world, as measured by Legatum? Norway takes the crown. Norway ranked 1st overall on the 2012 Legatum Institute Prosperity Index. It also ranked 1st in Social Capital and 2nd in Economy....The United States is a nation in decline. Last year the land of the free and the home of the brave came in 10th place in the annual rankings of World’s Happiest Countries. This year the U.S.A. has slipped to12th. "http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/01/09/the-worlds-happiest-and-saddest-countries-2/
And this.
"The proposed revisions to the 1986 CFAA would have enabled Department of Justice prosecutors to add another 60 years prison time to the possible sentence Swartz could have faced, bumping up the penalty for some crimes from five years to 20. Other offenses have also seen their potential punishment rates get a boost."
Finally.
"OSLO — Convicted of killing 77 people in a horrific bombing and shooting attack in July last year, the Norwegian extremist Anders Behring Breivik was sentenced on Friday to 21 years in prison — fewer than four months per victim — ending a case that thoroughly tested this gentle country’s collective commitment to values like tolerance, nonviolence and merciful justice."
"Mr. Breivik.... will live in a prison outside Oslo in a three-cell suite of rooms equipped with exercise equipment, a television and a laptop, albeit one without Internet access."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/world/europe/anders-behring-breivik-murder-trial.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Local Dupe, if you bothered to look, you might realise the Norweigean economy is flush with oil money, hence the happiness. Try to make some extrapolation between that and their prison population and sentencing is just whimsical. And as for adding to the time Swarz would have served, the advice is don't do the crime if you can't do the time, and Swarz proved he couldn't even wait to find out the lesser time, so grumbling about possible added years is pretty pointless.
The correct answer, Matt, is "Rosamund Pike equals Happiness."
That Jaguar F-TYPE V8 S (495 hp 5.0 liter V8 0-60 in 4.2 sec) you have your eye on is just going to break your heart. Maybe your sternum, too.
Your 2006 VW Beetle is still sporty. Have it repainted if you want to get more attention.
"The correct answer, Matt, is "Rosamund Pike equals Happiness."....." Hmmm, I'm willing to put that hypothesis to the test. :D
"......That Jaguar F-TYPE V8 S....." Sorry, that otherwise very handsome tourer has an auto box, and I'm too much of a purist to touch it with a bargepole. Besides, I've got to the age where I want to do my long-distance touring in comfort, hence the SUV, and keep the sportscar for the fun down country roads or on track days.
".....Your 2006 VW Beetle is still sporty....." WTF? No model of the Beetle has ever been sporty! Maybe in California they consider it sporty but then they have many a strange idea out there.
Hmm. A 1960 Austin Healy Mark I w/removable hard top and two tone paint (red on top and black on the bottom?). Raise the bonnet and there's an immaculate perception. Not a speck of dust or spot of oil. You could eat off the cylinder head although Matt would probably frown on that. Everything of Matt's is just as perfect as his comments. He doesn't enjoy failing everybody. It's his bounden duty.
One day Matt is going to fail the whole wide world. But if you're nice to him, he might get you a good seat. :-)
"......A 1960 Austin Healy Mark I....". No thanks. An out-dated chassis at its time of release. The version with the 3-litre engine was a brute, a "real man's car", but you spent most of your time trying to stop it diving into the nearest ditch.
".....Not a speck of dust or spot of oil....." That's because the BMC engine had dribbled all the oil onto your drive overnight!
"....Everything of Matt's is just as perfect as his comments...." Everything of Matt's is not as perfect as Matt's comments, but thanks for the vote of approval for the comments. Oh, were you trying to be sarcastic? Hmmm, another area you need to work on. However, I would suggest you focus on your history and technology before brushing up on sarcasm as the massive gaps in the former are really more pressing problems.
".....One day Matt is going to fail the whole wide world....." Now what have I told you about that Napoleon complex of yours? Not everyone thinks they have the right to rule the World like you do.
"....powder blue Triumph Spitfire....." SCHWING! Whilst your guessing games are mildly amusing, I have to point out they are just more of your usual diversions. I find it very hard to believe a reflexive hater of The Man like yourself hasn't got something to bleat about Congress's plans to smack skiddies harder, or is it just that you're still waiting for your herder to tell you what to think?
How unkind of you, Matt, to say I am a hater of The Man.. If The Man is reading this, He knows I am a lover of The Man and provide Him with all the succor I can.
"Congress's plans to smack skiddies harder" is just an indication of the desperate straits the government finds itself in. If Congress enacts these stringent penalties, we will have new tech versions of the Sedition and Espionage Acts, both of which became laws when war threatened us. Now war threatens us again, with economic skirmishes and war games going in all quarters of the globe. And don't forget North Korea's nuclear gambit. While our Matt thinks: "Let Congress pass these harsh measures and let the courts sentence some 20 year old to 50 years in prison and then I can be off in my Spitfire. Off to Highlands for a fortmonth or three.
"Now what have I told you about that Napoleon complex of yours? Not everyone thinks they have the right to rule the World like you do."
I don't want to be Napoleon any more. I wanna be the Prince of Verona. You know, "Two households ALIKE in dignity" That would be your household and Julian's. And I'm the Prince.
And as far as ruling the World is concerned:
Posts by Matt Bryant 5630 posts • joined Monday 21st May 2007 21:39 GMT
It looks like you're doing a pretty thorough job.
"..... If Congress enacts these stringent penalties, we will have new tech versions of the Sedition and Espionage Acts....." <Yawn> Melodrama, hyperbole, but still no sense at all. I know the Anonyputzs all like to think they're a combination of Rat from The Core and Batman, that they are somehow "great players in The Game", but the truth is they are minor annoyances and petty criminals, nothing more.
Matt, you yawn at your own peril. You ought to stop.
And with respect, I'll stick with The Alien and Sedition Act, "passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War." and The Espionage Act "passed in June 1917, which provided penalties of 20 years imprisonment and fines up to $10,000 for those convicted of interfering with military recruitment.Congress responded to a growing fear that public criticism of the war effort would make it difficult to conscript the needed manpower for American participation."
Can you think of any undeclared wars today, Matt? Currency, Trade, Oil, Adopted Children? Is all hunky dory in the international relations portfolio of Matt's world?
"20 years imprisonment and fines up to $10,000." 20 years in the slammer was a lot more effective deterrent back in 1917 when the life expectancy of your average trouble maker was probably on the wrong side of 50.? And $10,000 then is close to a million dollars today.
The declared and undeclared wars then and now are different (and there were no computers back then), but the raison d'etre of all these laws remains the same. Fear.
"....,but the raison d'etre of all these laws remains the same. Fear." Well, duh! Of course the idea of a sentence is to install fear in those criminals too stupid to otherwise be deterred. If there was nothing to fear from punishment then there would be no deterrent value. That covers everything from speeding fines through to murder, including e-crimes committed by dumb skiddies and career e-crims. Your problem is you cannot see beyond the (minority) politics you associate with the actions of your skiddy buddies to realise those actions are still illegal and will be punished.
"the idea of a sentence is to install fear in those criminals too stupid to otherwise be deterred."
I hoped you'd see, boychick, that I was I was referring to the fear of governments, their legislators, administrators and military. No such luck. From your perch high above the sixth cataract of denial, you saw what you wanted to see, and then read me Dr Johnson's definition of deterrent.
Does public punishment count as a deterrent? Were Hiroshima and Nagasaki deterrents to continuing the war another week? Or were they punishment? Is public punishment also a deterrent? Did Lidice tell potential assassins "Uh Oh. Better not"?
Did you think you were the Gustav Gun of The Register, pal? No, you're just a spitball and a straw. http://www.worldsbiggests.com/2010/02/gustav-gun-largest-gun-ever-built.html
".... I was referring to the fear of governments, their legislators, administrators and military....." These are civil offences and civil punishments.
"....Were Hiroshima and Nagasaki deterrents to continuing the war another week?...." Besides the idiocy of comparing the civil offence of defacing or DDoSing a website to the wartime dropping of the atomic bombs, the bombs did force the Japanese to abandon their determination to resist further, so your point is also wrong as well as stupid.
"....Did you think you were the Gustav Gun of The Register, pal?...." Nope. Guns don't tend to point out the blinkered silliness of people like you.
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"If Congress enacts these stringent penalties, we will have new tech versions of the Sedition and Espionage Acts, both of which became laws when war threatened us. Now war threatens us again,"
So, did I know that "These are civil offences and civil punishments" or not?
Or maybe you were referring to Hiroshima and Lidice?
I'll google the Israeli bulldozing of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories owned by families with a member who has been determined a terrorist by the IDF to see if these are civil offences and punishments? Or military?
No one cares anyway. The Great Powers and their regional dupes, like Israel and North Korea, do whatever their overlords permit them to do, And they do it with impunity.
Fortunately, only you, me, and your recent friend Igor are reading this thread. And as for you winning the argument -- in a pigs eye!
Hackers are threats. Governments are afraid of threats. So they pass Draconian laws with unusually harsh penalties to discourage them. THE MORE AFRAID THEY ARE, THE BROADER THE LAWS AND THE HARSHER THE PUNISHMENT. D'OH.
What part of this is too complicated for your baby brain to understand?
".....threat....." Threat!??! ROFLMAO! Please do explain what threat the Anonyputzs are to anyone other then themselves? What they have actually done other than mindless and minor Internet vandalism? What massive "threat" did Aaron Swartz provide other than the a bit of petty copyright theft? Sorry to burst that big bubble of grandiose self-absorption, but you guys are not Internet James Bonds or real-life Lisbeth Salanders, you're just skiddies wasting bandwidth.
"What they have actually done other than mindless and minor Internet vandalism."
"What massive "threat" did Aaron Swartz provide other than the a bit of petty copyright theft?"
Then why were they treated with such unsparing behavior and threatened with such outrageous sentences by the prosecutors?
It seems to me that no one knows how deep the hacker's colonoscope eventually will go. And the government isn't bent over waiting to find out.
".....Then why were they treated with such unsparing behavior and threatened with such outrageous sentences by the prosecutors?....." Who says they are outrageous? You see it's actually just like dealing with kiddies - the first time they do something stupid you might send them to their room for the afternoon, they do it again then you up the punishment in the hope they get the message, so you ground them for a week. The problem is you and your skiddie chums are really thick and the message didn't get through with community sentences and harsh words, and the e-crims are using your skiddie activities as cover, so the grown ups are having to use stronger sentences and it seems (from the volume of the whining) that you and your Anonyputz buddies are finally starting to get the message.
Watch Matt Bryant whizz far, far away from where he was in less than 10 hours.
MB 4/10/13 13:10 GMT: "Please do explain what threat the Anonyputzs are to anyone other then themselves? What they have actually done other than mindless and minor Internet vandalism?"
MB 4/10/13 22:40 GMT: (Matt is asked: "Then why were they treated with such unsparing behavior and threatened with such outrageous sentences by the prosecutors?.....") Matt replies "Who says they are outrageous?"
Only the civilized world, Matt. (We know you consider them a scurvy lot.)
Maybe it's well that you're whizzing away. "Tomorrow to fresh galaxy clusters and pastures new." I'll bet you can meet some new sheeple to twitter. To tweet? To bleat?
".....Only the civilized world......" LOL, more denial! As shown in the thread about the attempt to vote Manning a Nobel Peace Prize, the Anonyputz and associated numpties are not "the civilized World", they're not even half of one percent of the "civilized" World, they're just a tiny minority of shrieking, whining, wannabe, socialist and skiddies.
But I don't see what you're whining so hard about - even when the sentences were lower, all it took was the chance of going to jail for "dedicated Internet warriors" like Sabu to start crying and grass up all his buddies. Seems it's quite common when the skiddies get a taste of the steel bracelets for them to ditch their "ideals" and save themselves a little jail shower action (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/07/hacker_snitches/).
You are old enough, so you say, to have grown children. Some even apples who have fallen far from your tree. Hackers and cyber trespassers.
Are you going to now, like Saturn, devour them?
Or, if they are caught, will you attempt to find them mercy, when you will not countenance any mercy for the sons of other fathers?
Think on it, Sir. Are you prepared to see your own son rowed out to a hulk, soon to be towed to the Bermuda Triangle? His mother overcome with grief?
Heartlessness is its own punishment.
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