[danso]

I think Wikileaks would see its work as altruistic. I would say that they do not see their work as "benign" (nor should they, necessarily).

But the problem with anonymity is that you never know what the leakers' motives are...and that is a tradeoff Wikileaks has to make. In Aaron's case, though, I don't think he ever obfuscated his motives (even as he tried to do the downloading in secret) in his actions.

[rdtsc]

> you never know what the leakers' motives

you don't know anybody's motives, you know only what you are told the motives are (which might not be true), or you see their actions (and you interpret it they way you want to interpret it)

[mc32]

I think he meant that not knowing the leaker's identity meant one can't construct/examine what someone's motives might be. He didn't say anything about (believing) a leaker's claims.

[danso]

So...given:

a) A known person who has stated what he believes in and why he does things b) An organization of unknown individuals, who has stated what it believes, acting on behalf of another unknown individual(s)

You're saying we're in the same epistemological black hole when it comes to evaluating the intentions and consequences-suffered by a) and b)? If so, then OK, that's a philosophical debate that would be really fascinating to discuss on some other day, but pretty much underscores why we won't agree on much in this thread.

[anonymouz]

I don't think any charges have ever been brought against Wikileaks. What they are doing seems 100% benign to me. The individual whistle-blowers that send information to them may get in trouble with the law, but Wikileaks itself only curates and distributes the information given to them.

On the other hand it is pretty clear that Aaron Schwarz did break the law, only the severity of the crimes is in dispute.

[analog]

He broke a website's TOS, it's not at all clear that he broke the law imo.

[anonymouz]

Don't get hung up on the JSTOR ToS. I think the more serious charges are the ones related to him obtaining access to MIT's network despite the fact that it was clear to him that he was not welcome, and circumventing measures that prevented him from connecting in the process.

Not exactly a capital offense, but an offense nonetheless.

[analog]

"despite the fact that it was clear to him that he was not welcome"

Well this is the bit that's unclear, MIT has an open network. Is changing your MAC address to stay on illegal? Another TOS violation in my opinion, either that or we're all guilty of federal offences.

[anonymouz]

Please, this has been rehashed hundreds of times here already: Just because they decide to be nice and have their network open by default to anyone does not mean they can't revoke someones authorization and kick him out if he does not behave well on their network.

Changing a MAC address by itself is not illegal. Doing so in order to gain access to a network which he is no longer authorized to access is. He was in an arms race, circumventing ever stronger countermeasures against him. He went much further than changing his MAC address, and he was obviously aware of the fact that he was no longer welcome.

[analog]

Changing a MAC address by itself is not illegal. Doing so in order to gain access to a network which he is no longer authorized to access is.

Sorry, but I disagree strongly with this. I don't believe it is illegal, and I certainly don't believe it should be. This would make criminals of anyone who used a throwaway email to access a web service a second time.

Whether or not it is illegal would ultimately be for a jury to decide.

[noibl]

So... you are implying a contrast or not?

[danso]

Huh?

Instead of asking me as if my speculation meant anything, why don't you ask the many publicly available confidantes of Aaron about why they haven't yet tied Aaron's JSTOR cause to Wikileaks?

[noibl]

Wait a minute. Your claim is this: 'Aaron really doesn't need the association with Wikileaks'. In support, you offer only 'especially as his supporters attempt to portray his work as benign and altruistic'. I'm trying to understand how this supports the claim. It would seem it could only do so if Swartz's actions were somehow in contrast to Wikileaks in the context of those terms.

Yet you refuse to say whether you think Wikileaks' work is either benign or altruistic. Your opinion of how Wikileaks would characterise itself is of no benefit in understanding the basis of your claim.

And now, instead of answering a straightforward binary question about a claim you did make, you want me to go and ask a whole bunch of other people about claims they didn't make?

I understand less and less.

[danso]

sigh

I'm not clear on what you're not clear on, but I'll be a good sport and take the bait.

I assert that the altruism of Aaron Swartz stands in contrast with that of Wikileaks because the latter, being an anonymous organization that filters anonymously-submitted information, cannot be automatically assumed to have an altruistic motive regarding the information that it disseminates. Not because they're evil. But because we just can't know.

Contrast this with Aaron and the many public statements he's made about freeing information and how it would help the world and what he gains (or rather, doesn't gain) from it. You don't have to agree that this makes him altruistic, you just have to see that there's a difference between a guy whose altruistic claims we can concretely evaluate and an organization that we just have to trust.

Here's a good example: Whatever happened to all that supposed dirt on Bank of America that Wikileaks had? Not only do we not know the source (it could be someone working for Chase Bank who used to be at BoA and has an interest in destroying his former employer), but it suddenly got wiped out by a disgruntled Wikileaks officer?..but that's something we have to take on faith, that it was a careless, irreversible act and not something done out of some other ulterior motive. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/22/us-bankofamerica-w...

As for being benign...Well, let's tally up the score. Wikileaks' most famous alleged collaborator is in a military prison and likely faces a terrible fate for the information he disseminated. The information that Aaron disseminated, meanwhile, was not as critical...to the point that JSTOR decided not to pursue charges. Aaron's problem was that the prosecutor wouldn't let go of the actual act of hacking, which is the primary cause of outrage.

So that's the issue here. Aaron and Wikileaks may have been friends and like-minded. But they had necessarily different paths.

[noibl]

Thanks.

> being an anonymous organization

It isn't. It has a very public and (quite deliberately) accountable director who has made several detailed statements about the purpose and goals of the organisation. Several of its staff are also well known but that's not the important point. Also, the statements themselves have a distinctly altruistic character and they stand, like a declaration from any group of people, independently from the personalities involved.

> but that's something we have to take on faith

As one would with an individual. What ulterior motive? I'm willing to accept that the organisation's actions have at times been questionable in terms of effect. But to say that its aims are not altruistic is a different kind of claim altogether.

> As for being benign ... Wikileaks' most famous alleged collaborator is in a military prison

I see; you're working with a definition of 'benign' as 'harmless' rather than 'doing good' or 'doing more good than harm'. So the test is whether anyone was harmed as an outcome of the work done. If you can't see the harm in Swartz's case I don't know what to say, especially when you mention Manning as a victim of leaking.

If we go by the second definition, 'doing more good than harm', which I think most would accept as being more reasonable, then I think the US government's statements about the harmlessness of Manning's leak[1] coupled with outcomes such as the Arab Spring shows (and this is a fairly low bar) that there is no stark contrast to be drawn.

> But they had necessarily different paths.

Whether Swartz was involved in Wikileaks work isn't really in question here. The question is whether there's a moral distinction between the different entities' goals and actions ('altruistic' and 'benign' being unavoidably value-laden terms).

I find it impossible to agree with you about that but I appreciate you taking the time to make the case.

[1] http://www.theweek.co.uk/us/wikileaks/43110/white-house-said...

[danso]

Yes, I am using "benign" in the sense of it being harmless. Bt that's just my opinion. When I listened to the memorial, Aaron's friends said he wanted to change the world, but that his actions on JSTOR were essentially harmless, especially since the entity who is most liable for maintaining rights to the archive declined to press charges.

So my perception here is that the emotional weight of Aaron's case is based on how the prosecutors played hardball for what amounted to a petty crime. This is why I'm having a hard time understanding Wikileaks' motive here: do they not think the "official" story is compelling enough? It seems that claiming that Aaron had an unspecified relationship with Wikileaks only muddies up the water...people seem plenty pissed that he got the book thrown at him for "hacking", and the spotlight on the DoJ does not seem to be lessening.