<story><title>The Craigslist Lawsuit</title><url>https://3taps.com/the-craigslist-lawsuit.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>&amp;gt; As the EFF argues in the linked brief, there shouldn&amp;#x27;t be any &amp;quot;civil cause of action related to unauthorized access&amp;quot; when the data in question is made publicly available on the internet.&lt;p&gt;Why?&lt;p&gt;The principle underlying the Craiglist lawsuit is centuries old. Craigslist is like a shop open to shoppers. The shopkeeper makes the premises open to the public, but the scope of that access is limited by the shopkeeper&amp;#x27;s purpose in granting that access. If a member of the public accesses the property for improper purpose, a civil action for trespass arises.&lt;p&gt;The fact that the premises is an Internet website changes nothing.</text></item><item><author>gojomo</author><text>As the EFF argues in the linked brief, there shouldn&amp;#x27;t be &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; &amp;quot;civil cause of action related to unauthorized access&amp;quot; when the data in question is made publicly available on the internet.&lt;p&gt;Craigslist was abusing the CFAA with an expansive interpretation – treating unapproved &lt;i&gt;use&lt;/i&gt; as if it were the same thing as &lt;i&gt;unauthorized access&lt;/i&gt; – similar to that of overzealous federal prosecutors. Craigslist&amp;#x27;s argument, if embraced by the courts, would make other cases imposing penalties on the reuse of otherwise-public data easier.&lt;p&gt;The reference is fair to make these points to a mass audience, although a bit macabre.</text></item><item><author>tptacek</author><text>&lt;i&gt;the same statute that led to the demise of Aaron Swartz&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;For fuck&amp;#x27;s sake.&lt;p&gt;CFAA criminal sentencing guidelines may very well have contributed to Swartz&amp;#x27;s suicide. They incentivized prosecutors to create complex, showy indictments cross-linking multiple felony charges (because exploiting unauthorized access in furtherance of other felonies is an accelerator in the CFAA). CFAA may be broken in several ways.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;But CFAA is also the sole federal statute governing unauthorized access&lt;/i&gt;. In civil litigation, CFAA is the only statute that provides a civil cause of action relating to unauthorized access to computers of any sort.&lt;p&gt;People like to write about civil CFAA as if it was some sort of nuclear option. But civil and criminal cases are worlds apart. If you&amp;#x27;re going to sue someone for misusing your computer systems, or even just violating your terms of use, CFAA is merely the statute that enables that. That has nothing whatsoever to do with overzealous prosecution.&lt;p&gt;Invoking Aaron Swartz in an argument over who&amp;#x27;s allowed to show apartment ads where is manipulative and grotesque.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nitrogen</author><text>&lt;i&gt;The fact that the premises is an Internet website changes nothing.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It absolutely should.  There is no &lt;i&gt;accurate&lt;/i&gt; physical analogy for an HTTP server that responds with &amp;quot;200 OK&amp;quot; and valid data for a given set of &amp;quot;GET &lt;i&gt;whatever&lt;/i&gt; HTTP&amp;#x2F;1.1&amp;quot; requests.  Rather than contort existing trespass law to match the Internet, we have to derive meaningful boundaries for the Internet from ethical first principles if we want the conclusions to be remotely sane.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Craigslist Lawsuit</title><url>https://3taps.com/the-craigslist-lawsuit.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>&amp;gt; As the EFF argues in the linked brief, there shouldn&amp;#x27;t be any &amp;quot;civil cause of action related to unauthorized access&amp;quot; when the data in question is made publicly available on the internet.&lt;p&gt;Why?&lt;p&gt;The principle underlying the Craiglist lawsuit is centuries old. Craigslist is like a shop open to shoppers. The shopkeeper makes the premises open to the public, but the scope of that access is limited by the shopkeeper&amp;#x27;s purpose in granting that access. If a member of the public accesses the property for improper purpose, a civil action for trespass arises.&lt;p&gt;The fact that the premises is an Internet website changes nothing.</text></item><item><author>gojomo</author><text>As the EFF argues in the linked brief, there shouldn&amp;#x27;t be &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; &amp;quot;civil cause of action related to unauthorized access&amp;quot; when the data in question is made publicly available on the internet.&lt;p&gt;Craigslist was abusing the CFAA with an expansive interpretation – treating unapproved &lt;i&gt;use&lt;/i&gt; as if it were the same thing as &lt;i&gt;unauthorized access&lt;/i&gt; – similar to that of overzealous federal prosecutors. Craigslist&amp;#x27;s argument, if embraced by the courts, would make other cases imposing penalties on the reuse of otherwise-public data easier.&lt;p&gt;The reference is fair to make these points to a mass audience, although a bit macabre.</text></item><item><author>tptacek</author><text>&lt;i&gt;the same statute that led to the demise of Aaron Swartz&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;For fuck&amp;#x27;s sake.&lt;p&gt;CFAA criminal sentencing guidelines may very well have contributed to Swartz&amp;#x27;s suicide. They incentivized prosecutors to create complex, showy indictments cross-linking multiple felony charges (because exploiting unauthorized access in furtherance of other felonies is an accelerator in the CFAA). CFAA may be broken in several ways.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;But CFAA is also the sole federal statute governing unauthorized access&lt;/i&gt;. In civil litigation, CFAA is the only statute that provides a civil cause of action relating to unauthorized access to computers of any sort.&lt;p&gt;People like to write about civil CFAA as if it was some sort of nuclear option. But civil and criminal cases are worlds apart. If you&amp;#x27;re going to sue someone for misusing your computer systems, or even just violating your terms of use, CFAA is merely the statute that enables that. That has nothing whatsoever to do with overzealous prosecution.&lt;p&gt;Invoking Aaron Swartz in an argument over who&amp;#x27;s allowed to show apartment ads where is manipulative and grotesque.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gojomo</author><text>You can read the brief for their full argument:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;3taps.com&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;pics&amp;#x2F;430_Amicus%20Brief.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;3taps.com&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;pics&amp;#x2F;430_Amicus%20Brief.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their analysis may allow for something like what you propose – a purely &lt;i&gt;contractual&lt;/i&gt; cause-of-action for damages. But the EFF et al are objecting to criminal liability based on CFAA&amp;#x2F;CPC §502 (computer fraud statutes).&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t believe your shopkeeper analogy quite applies, though. Let&amp;#x27;s say the shopkeeper opens their shop, but puts a sign over the door to the effect &amp;quot;by entering, you promise to keep my prices secret&amp;quot;. If someone enters, leaves, then later spills the pricing beans, it&amp;#x27;s not clear to me that traditional, non-computer law would allow the shopkeeper to retroactively characterize the visit as &amp;#x27;trespass&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a major problem the EFF brief identifies with the Craigslist interpretation: it lets vague or arbitrary private conditions be creatively recast as criminal violations with more significant penalties. As a matter of fair law and the public&amp;#x27;s interest in clarity and the free-flow of true information, they argue that such application of the CFAA (and its California equivalent CPC §502) to be dangerously incorrect.</text></comment>