"The power of the government is aimed right for us...."

Here is an article about "Weev", an infamous hacker who is serving 33-41 months in prison for hacking AT&T's website:

"The Internet’s best terrible person.” A “disappointment.” “Reviled/Beloved.” Those are just a few of the things people have called convicted AT&T/iPad “hacker” Andrew Auernheimer — a.k.a. “Weev” — currently sitting in federal prison serving a 41-month sentence.

Whether you love him or hate him, whether you disagree with him or disagree with AT&T, even if you’re indifferent — you should hope Weev wins his appeal filed last night before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

The future of the Internet may well depend on it.

For more:

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/07/dont-hate-the-crime-hate-the-person-how-weevs-appeal-affects-all-of-us/

In the iPad experience alone, I support Weev. It's a shame that he was such a loose cannon... bragging about hacking and trolling.

It seems unfair that the government was allowed to use his past actions against him during the trial, while the Trayvon Martin defense team cannot use Trayvon's pictures of him with a gun and texts bragging about how he is a fighter.

If the Weev ruling is widely interpreted, search engines like Google will be shut down.  I happen to know that not all their data is registered with them.  Simply registering a domain name with Network Solutions will cause Google's bot to visit the domain and search for content.  There is no permission given.

In the past, you had to go to a search engine and submit your site to them... in order to be included in their database. That implied consent to distribute unsecured content on your website.

It sounds to me like his general personality was put on trial rather than what he actually did. AT&T didn't even bother to submit documentation of the supposed harm that was done.

I can't help but think of Aaron Schwartz, too.

Interesting post about Google, Eric. I remember the days when you had to submit a website to Google in order for it to be included in their database. And yes, those Google bots are now everywhere.

It will be interesting to see how Weez's appeal turns out.

I was hoping Teo would appreciate the title of this thread.  

Melissa (PB) wrote:

I was hoping Teo would appreciate the title of this thread.   

Maybe they quit calling him a Nazi on PDF and he went back over there.

I don't see where he has been here in the last 24 hours.

Yeah you got me interested....I still lurk in the shadows...love you guys. The power of the government is so terrified of being found out for being the crooks they are that nothing they do to us will surprise me.