[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.

[anonymouz]

Yes, it would be for a jury to decide. But a jury (or a judge) is perfectly capable of distinguishing between someone signing up to two Gmail accounts and someone gaining unauthorized access to a network by circumventing countermeasures taken specifically to prevent him from accessing said network.

Application of law is not a an execution of a script applied by a stupid robot: It does allow for intent and the bigger picture to be factoring in.

There are many reason to claim that Aaron's actions were rather harmless, and that, taking all factors into account, they do not warrant significant punishment. But claiming that he did not do anything illegal at all requires some serious twisting of the facts.

[analog]

Unauthorised access to the network is not illegal, just as unauthorised access to a building is not illegal if you don't break any locks to get in.

http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartz...