At 06:34 AM 1/3/2014, James A. Donald wrote:
If someone was to hide a laptop in one of my cupboards, to steal such large amounts of information from my home network as to disrupt its functioning, I would take a sledgehammer to his laptop, and when he showed up to collect his laptop, a sledgehammer to him.
What I'm hearing from you is, the original malfeasance of putting publicly-funded research data the taxpaying public has already bought and paid for behind a paywall and extorting the taxpaying public for access to that data does not warrant extraordinary measures to liberate that data in the manner it should have been liberated in the first place. That there were unintended consequences of the exact method used to liberate that data is secondary, perhaps it is even inconsequential to the real central principle here.
Swartz committed a crime against people more powerful than he was, incorrectly thinking he was more powerful than they.
I seem to recall some quote about trees, blood, liberty... and patriots. Do you know it? --ue