[tptacek]

The rule isn't about violence. It's about the fact that someone who commits a wrong can't rely on the victim's prior diminished circumstances to mitigate the impact of their own wrong.

The person who smacks the eggshell-skulled victim upside the head with a magazine couldn't imagine that doing so would have fractured their skull. People don't normally have skulls as thin as eggshells. "Tough shit", says the law. "If you don't want to expose yourself to the risk of fracturing someone's skull, don't hit people upside their heads with magazines."

By the same token, whatever frailties existed in Trib Corp's internal security, necessitating expensive post-breach cleanup, are justifiably imputed to Keys, not to Trib Corp.

[jessaustin]

Wow I wish that "rule" applied somehow to cyclists and pedestrians killed by motorists. That would be handy!

As described above, against a firm with a modicum of security procedure, this "attack" would have been a no-op. As in, all the same actions could have been taken, and they would have had no effect whatsoever. "Attacks" like this take place every day, and many even succeed, with no action from prosecutors whatsoever.

You and I have different conceptions of justice. It may well be that yours conforms more exactly to that enforced by the courts; we don't live in a perfect world.

[tptacek]

That rule very much does apply to cyclists killed by motorists! But remember, the rule is that you impute harm caused by a tort or a criminal offense. You have to start by establishing the driver was at fault.

[jessaustin]

It's a commonplace that motorists are very rarely charged in these situations, because they "didn't see the cyclist" and also "why was the victim riding a bicycle on the street?" I guess we've established that the eggshell rule is yet another legal instrument to increase the "discretion" of LEOs, prosecutors, and judges, as if they really needed more of that.

[tptacek]

That's a coherent argument, but then I feel like I get to point out that you're litigating the whole concept of the justice system, not Keys sentence in particular. Keys is both extremely lucky and extremely privileged compared to the average person serving a multi-year sentence.

[jessaustin]

I'm much more concerned with the obvious flaws of the system than I am with the "concept" of the system. I'm sure Keys would prefer not to trade sentences with e.g. the average drug "offender", but I doubt he'd consider himself "extremely lucky and extremely privileged". What could that even mean, for a person who shouldn't have been incarcerated a day, convicted, with evidence circumstantial at best, of an act that shouldn't even be a crime?

[tptacek]

Wait, you think that exfiltrating a password to a giant newspaper's CMS to a hacker group and exhorting them to "fuck shit up" shouldn't be a crime?