The whole criminals getting job offers has never been true and will never be true. For many of such jobs you aren’t qualified if you have a criminal record, even small offenses disqualify you.
I hacked my highschool servers when I was young and shared the upcoming exams, so everyone could prepare for them. Someone told the authorities, all I got was some extra exercise. Sure it wasn’t MIT, but still 35 years is ridiculous, even a year of prison would have been ridiculous.
That may be so, but IIRC he was charged with breaking into MIT’s networking room and illegally tapping into their network to get the articles:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261840/Aaron-Swartz-MIT-surveillance-shot-ruined-tragic-Reddit-founders-life.html
Well that’s definitely burying the lede from the OP.
It wasn’t the sharing part they had a problem with, it was the B&E and hacking.
It’s not that clear cut and I would recommend listening to the Behind The Bastards episode about him:
Behind the Bastards: Part One: Christmas Hero Episode: Aaron Swartz
https://omny.fm/shows/behind-the-bastards/part-one-christmas-hero-episode-aaron-swartz
Most of these guys they just offer jobs to. This was needless. No wonder China is kicking our ass on the cyber front
The whole criminals getting job offers has never been true and will never be true. For many of such jobs you aren’t qualified if you have a criminal record, even small offenses disqualify you.
That’s still a hell of a sentence for a B&E
Mm. Breaking and entering to share publicly funded research is different than B&E with the threat of violence…
I hacked my highschool servers when I was young and shared the upcoming exams, so everyone could prepare for them. Someone told the authorities, all I got was some extra exercise. Sure it wasn’t MIT, but still 35 years is ridiculous, even a year of prison would have been ridiculous.