• ysjet@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    2 hours ago

    Theoretically, yes. Realistically, judges historically believe anything prosecutors tell them about hacking and circumvention.

    There’s been people thrown in jail for the rest of their life for the crime of clicking a public URL that the company didn’t intend to be public.

      • ysjet@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        28 minutes ago

        Looks like I mixed up two different cases- the cause of one, and the duration of another.

        weev (who apparently is a giant asshole) was the one who got sent to jail for accessing a completely public URL AT&T wished he didn’t in 2010. The EFF took up his case. His sentence was later vacated by another court because so many civil rights lawyers kept joining his team pro-bono so the court tossed it out on a blatant technicality to get the issue to go away, so he only served ~2y.

        As for the CFAA being used to slap people with life sentences, there’s too many examples to know which one I was mixing it up with. Aaron Swartz is the classic example.