Thanks - yes I know who may is and I understand the libertarian head space - as a fucking American citizen of native American descent I often find it at best 'racist' - I disagree with The laziness it's thought patterns propagate ... More later on ur packed analysis
Sent from my iPhone On 07.01.2014, at 12:50, Adam Back <[email protected]> wrote: > Dont worry about James hyperbole, he's just channeling Tim May who was one > of the three or four list co-founders, wrote the cyphernomicon [1], and had > a habit of using that phrase 'needed killing' now and then, as I recall as > phrase to express his distaste for someone's actions. Its an expression, > not something literal... but James' black & white, non-PC, absolutist > personality precludes him saying that :) You just have to read it with a > USENET flame war mentality and parse for what he's actually saying. > > Apart from the refusal to bow to PC, James is actually a pretty smart guy > from what I recall. He implemented some simplifed UX, ECC crypto email > stuff called 'crypto kong' [2] way back in 1997. > > Cypherpunks write code & all that, gives James some brownie points. > > About Aaron's case and suicide, it seems to me that Aaron miscalculated, and > the hacking was pretty escalated, engaged in multiple escalating > counter-measures when it was obvious the sysadmins were on to him as an > intruder, he didnt back off but took it to the next level including physical > intrusion & hiding equipment. But MIT (and to a lesser extent JSTOR) let > him down badly as did some of his academic friends and its tragic that he > was a victim of some extremely over reaching imbalanced law the CFAA [3], > aggressively prosecuted by self-agrandizing politically motivated, and > almost legally immune deeply flawed US federal prosecution and plea bargain > system, which also saw Weev [4] put in jail over the most ridiculous and > egregious abuse of law (noticing a defect in AT&T web site and giving the > information to the media). Yes Weev enjoys trolling, but thats an art-form > and since when has unpopular speech been illegal, freedom of speech means > unpopular speech too. Aaron's earlier hacktivism was pretty spectacularly > successful in demonstrating the stupidity of charging for access to publicly > funded legal information, in a way that ultimatey they could find no legal > fault with, though the feds were not doubt pretty pissed that they couldnt > get him for anything. But even the legal dox hacktivism stunt was very high > risk, the US legal system is hard to rely on, even when you are doing legal > but politically unpopular to things to a subset of the higher echelons of > office holder. It seems to me that particularly in the US the > political/legal system tends to hold grudges and fail spectacularly at > balance and impartiality and legal independence from political influence. Its > better than Russia still, but its falling in world rankings of rule of > law and political indendence for sure. There are probably some independent > rankings on this aspect of the government/jurisdiction comparison. > > Adam > > [1] http://www.cypherpunks.to/faq/cyphernomicron/cyphernomicon.html > [2] http://echeque.com/Kong/ > [3] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act > [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev > > On Tue, Jan 07, 2014 at 02:15:07AM +0100, Cari Machet wrote: >> shut the fuck up >> >> who is arrogant (and simplistic)? u >> >> On 1/6/14, James A. Donald <[email protected]> wrote: >>> On 2014-01-07 03:18, John Young wrote: >>> > Swartz was ratted by a sysadmin, investigated by several sysadmins, >>> > some who formerly helped him and were pressured to betray him, >>> > indicted with the essential help of sysadmins. University and JSTOR >>> > administrators could not have discovered him , aided the >>> > investigation, cooperated with the prosecutor, without sysadmins. >>> > The cops and prosecutor could not have caught, investigated, coerced >>> > witnesses, indicted and killed Swarz without sysadmins. Some of >>> > those sysadmins are under lifetime vows of secrecy for cooperating >>> > against Swartz. >>> >>> They were not "ratting" on him >>> >>> A sysadmin tries to keep his systems working. Aaron Swartz was >>> disruptively trespassing on their systems - he was arrogantly and >>> obnoxiously aggressing against them. >>> >>> And that, in fact, was what he was charged with, not with releasing >>> JSTOR IP property, but with screwing up other people's computers. >>> >>> If he had been furtive about collecting the data, the way Snowden was, >>> there never would have been any problem. >>> >>> The problem was that Aaron Swartz was an arrogant asshole who thought >>> he was ruling class and above the law, and that those he aggressed >>> against were menials beneath the law - the Henry Louis Gates >>> phenomenon. >>> >>> One of the things our ruling class filters against is conspicuous and >>> obnoxious arrogance. They don't want us noticing them. Aaron Swartz >>> failed the conspicuous arrogance filter before being granted tenure, >>> so suddenly found himself no longer ruling class. >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> Cari Machet >> NYC 646-436-7795 >> [email protected] >> AIM carismachet >> Syria +963-099 277 3243 >> Amman +962 077 636 9407 >> Berlin +49 152 11779219 >> Twitter: @carimachet <https://twitter.com/carimachet> >> >> Ruh-roh, this is now necessary: This email is intended only for the >> addressee(s) and may contain confidential information. If you are not the >> intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use of this >> information, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this email without >> permission is strictly prohibited.
