I have 3 sudoku apps on my phone; I can tell you what you are missing: scratch marks. At higher difficulties, it is absolutely necessary to be able to note eliminations or possibilities within a square. Without that, the best you can hope for is casual sudoku player, but soduku is by nature not a game for casual players.
This is exactly true. Soduku players are attracted to words like "difficult," "hard," "impossible," or any other challenge.
The level-up format sends a very strong signal that there are tons of "easy" puzzles and like many of these level-up games, it is going to take a while to get to "hard," and that is a tough investment to make when you are 99% sure the payoff doesn't exist.
It is a nice-looking game, but I don't get the impression the creator is someone involved in the soduku world or understands the market too well.
Think of soduku like you'd think of crosswords. Crosswords have a very quick ramp-up. Those that do well early and like it will quickly move on to the hard stuff, only bothering to do Monday and Tuesday as a speed-trial if they bother at all. They use ink instead of pencil and they get very upset at poorly designed puzzles and bad clues. In other words, you are dealing with a highly finicky crowd.
It's an uninformed comment by some woman taking advantage of the case to burnish her own image.
However, if he plead guilty to a felony, he could have been sentenced to as many as 5 years, despite the government's agreement not to argue for me. Each additional conviction would increase the cap by 5 years, though the guidelines calculation would remain the same. No wonder he didn't want to plead to 13 felonies.
Technically, this is correct, since federal sentencing laws limit the judge's discretion to raise or lower prison sentences. They actually have a table indexed by "points" which the judge must use to determine the length of the sentence. Thus, in order for the prosecution to honor a plea for 6-7 months, it would necessarily have entailed that all of the (other) charges either be dropped or reduced to their misdemeanor equivalents. (Note that if you read her CV, she hasn't handled a case in the federal courts since the sentencing guidelines were issued.)
"Some woman"? Jennifer Granick was a friend of Aaron Swartz's, the Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and more or less the go-to lawyer for #hack for something like a decade. That in addition to the fact that she has actually defended computer crime cases against this exact US Attorney's office.
Seriously: find any DMS-100-hacking member of the Masters of Deception from back in the 1990s and ask them to name a lawyer. Jennifer Granick's is the only name you'll hear from more than one person. She represented Kevin Poulson, for fuck's sake.
It seems very unlikely to me that her analysis is less informed than yours. I think you've made a mistake in your analysis here.
Two weeks after the Secret Service raided his house in conjunction with the investigation led by Heymann into the theft of tens of thousands of credit card numbers, James was found dead.
Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial. They kill themselves after they have lost at trial. This other hacker (Jonathan James) didn't even wait until they pressed charges.
It's not a matter of the prosecutor being overzealous. It's a matter of hackers being far more susceptible to suicidal tendencies than others in the face of extreme social conflict.
Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial. They kill themselves after they have lost at trial.
Citation needed.
It makes perfect sense to me that a depressed person who has realized what trial is going to cost, and who does not believe that anyone is going to believe them, would commit suicide. An innocent person who BELIEVES that they WILL be believed probably reacts very differently. But there are a lot of people in this world who, while innocent, won't necessarily have that belief.
I would not be surprised if there was a high concentration of such among people who choose to use computers heavily.
> and who does not believe that anyone is going to believe them
I agree with you.
In "Goodbye to Shy", Leil Lowndes cites research that shows that even someone who is just shy will tend to interpret other peoples opinions of them and of interactions with them far more negatively than less shy people.
It takes very, very little to turn what would be an incredibly stressful situation to most people - innocent or not - and turn it into something substantially worse depending just on relatively benign personality traits.
Much less mental illnesses like depression that can be extremely severe.
More to the point, rprasad is making sweeping statements of fact, along the lines of, "Anyone who commits suicide before trial must be guilty." I'm making what are clearly statements of personal opinion, along the lines of, "Here is a scenario where I can imagine the stress of a legal case tipping a depressed person over the cliff into suicide."
Strong claims require strong evidence. I'm making far, far weaker claims. The burden of proof should squarely be on rprasad.
> Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial.
Yap. Because they will clearly receive a speedy and fair trial. Without bullying and predatory plea bargaining involved. In the end when they are sure to be acquitted, if the accuser is the government, they will get all court and lawyer costs paid, and then some extra for time, inconvenience and the pain involved.
This particular person was earlier caught hacking into computers at the DOD and NASA (as a minor). He was indicted around June or July and entered a plea in September for which he received six months of house arrest and probation until 18 (about a year). It's not a reasonable presumption that this was someone who was innocent who knew he was going to get railroaded "by the system." He was clearly someone who knew he had really fucked up this time and couldn't use his age as an excuse.
>"He was clearly someone who knew he had really fucked up this time and couldn't use his age as an excuse."
That's a bold statement - I don't know his full history or all the facts of his case, but what you're implying is that someone's past actions and convictions are all that's needed to asses their present guilt.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe he was innocent and maybe he knew everyone would think like you? It doesn't take much to realize that this way of thinking quickly leads to a conviction regardless of the facts.
At trial evidence of his past conviction would have been suppressed for precisely the reason you state. However, the rules of evidence for internet posting are not quite so strict.
I would agree that it is somewhat unlikely that he was innocent, but it is far from impossible that he actually was.
There are people who will try to root your computer, and who prefer to do their bad stuff from someone else's computer so that the heat won't come back to them. If you hang around with the wrong crowd and don't know what you're doing well enough, the odds of this happening go up. Suppose that this happened to him the first time around, and the forensics were done poorly, so he took the fall for someone else's crime. Then it starts happening again, and he knows he won't be believed because he wasn't before.
I would rate this scenario as unlikely, but not impossible. However plausible enough that I don't accept the clearly in, "He was clearly someone..."
Hackers routinely use the 'joe job' trick to implicate others for their crimes. If you're ever on the receiving end of such a scheme you might change your opinion on 'reasonable presumptions'.
I am not familiar that much with that specific case. I was referring more to the grandparent's general assertion that "innocent people don't kill themselves" and my point was that they only don't kill themselves if they are sure to face fair and unbiased judicial system.
> Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial.
You are completely wrong. All of them have the charges dropped, so they aren't ever convicted. And as we know it everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
You are. You're skipping the most important part of the criminal process: the trial.
* don't bet on a fair trial, even if you're completely innocent. *
Hyperbole, and dangerous exaggeration. The "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is a very high standard. I've won jury trials where the evidence all supported the prosecution's case (seriously, I had no evidence) but was not sufficient to reach this standard. Federal judges are even stricter at forcing federal prosecutors to satisfy this standard--they'll frequently dismiss the case without even letting the jury deliberate.
If you think jury trials are patently unfair, you need to actually go down to a courtroom and watch the jury trials. You'll learn a lot, and you'll discover that the justice system is not even remotely as lopsided as you think it is...once you get to the trial stage. (But yes, it's definitely lopsided in favor of the prosecution at every stage before trial.
But I didn't say "jury trials are patently unfair" or even that trials in general are impossible to win.
Aaron was weighing a guaranteed felony record and 6 months in prison against 0 (if acquitted on all 13 charges) to 50 years at some unknowable probability.
Clearly the prosecutor wanted him to think that invoking his right to a trial was a "bad bet".
Pursuant to constitutional law, you are required to start with the charges first, so the defendant knows what they are being accused of and can prepare a defense.
In some but not all jurisdictions, prosecutors may offer "plea bargains" that reduce the sentence, or reduce or drop some of the charges, in lieu of proceeding to trial. In some jurisdictions (i.e., large portions of Texas), there are no plea bargains; you always go to trial.
Maximum sentence is set by law, as a matter of constitutional rights. Thus, your solution would simply restrict plea bargains to not being any shorter than 1/2 of the maximum sentence (in Aaron's case, 16 years).
Making the counts non-severable is a legal and constitutional impossibility. Double jeopardy requires the prosecutor to charge you with all possible crimes arising from a single act (or intertwined set of acts) in the same criminal proceedings. Once those criminal proceedings have been adjudicated (i.e., a guilty plea, a conviction, a not-guilty verdict, or charges dismissed with prejudice), the prosecutor cannot ever charge you again for any other crimes arising from that act. Your solution would either require them to choose which charges to pursue and which charges to drop forever. That's fine in cases like Aaron's, but that's not something you want when you're dealing with a rapist or a murderer (i.e, cases far more common than Aaron's).
Finally, the last suggestion, is not simply politically unpalatable, it is economically impossible. Most criminals are actually guilty; making the prosecution pay for every defense would increase the costs of the criminal justice system 1000fold. A better solution: make the prosecution pay the defense costs where (a) a defendant that is found not guilty or actually innocent, (b) a hung jury trial, if the prosecution does not refile, or (c) the prosecution drops charges before trial. This would accomplish what you want in a realistic manner (and is actually already the law in some jurisdictions).
> your solution would simply restrict plea bargains to not being any shorter than 1/2 of the maximum sentence (in Aaron's case, 16 years)
No, I phrased it the way I did for a reason. A prosecutor who does not think that the crime is serious enough to warrant 16 years can still offer a lower plea bargain. In Aaron's case, they may have offered 1 year in jail, making it so that by asserting his right to trial, he would be doubling his sentence to 2 years in the worst case.
> Your solution would either require them to choose which charges to pursue and which charges to drop forever. That's fine in cases like Aaron's, but that's not something you want when you're dealing with a rapist or a murderer.
Of course I know about double jeopardy. They have to choose which charges to pursue and which to drop forever sometime. The problem as it stands is that charges are piled on in a shotgun approach, making it very hard for the defendant to concentrate on what they're actually fighting, and ballooning court costs. And shouldn't rapists and murders be getting charged with rape and murder, respectively? We certainly don't want punishment of rapists and murderers to rely on whether they also happened to be disturbing the peace at the time. And yeah, I'll give you that all-or-nothing is a bit harsh, which is why I said something else about being acquitted on the majority of counts would result in complete acquittal. Create a mechanism so that the prosecution wants to make pretty sure you're guilty of something before accusing you of it.
> Most criminals are actually guilty; making the prosecution pay for every defense would increase the costs of the criminal justice system 1000fold
So then in the name of economics, guilty criminals don't actually have a right to a trial? It would still be in an obviously-guilty defendants interest to take a half-sentence plea bargain and avoid trial. I do see it being more palatable if it only applies to non-guilty outcomes, but with the following caveats: limits increased to 2x what the prosecution spends, and the money is loaned out by the government as the case progresses and is then owed by the defendant in the event of a guilty verdict. Sorry, as you should know, justice costs money.
I don't think you've looked at what happens when rules like only 1/2 sentence plea bargains get implemented. Aaron definitely would have been looking at 17.5 or whatever as a plea. Look at the change to CA tax code. They didn't give refunds to the out of staters, they're going after in staters. When people demand arbitrary equality, the result is not turning the bad scenario into a good one. It's turning the good scenario into a bad one.
I see what you're saying, especially as a general ask-and-ye-shall-receive rule, but something determines what the statutory maximums are even if it takes a while for that feedback to occur (average sentences being too short due to prosecutor laziness, jail overcrowding, general outrage, etc). It would also have shattered the illusions of those who condemned Aaron's actions but thought he would end up with a slap on the wrist.
Getting rid of plea bargaining doesn't make the problem better; it makes it worse by removing any compromise between walking away and the maximum sentence.
From my own experience: in mental committment proceedings, there is no halfway point between letting the defendant stay free and committing them to a mental hospital. Consequently, the prosecutor's office simply never negotiates; they take every case to trial.
Here's the thing: Getting rid of pea bargaining will mean every case must go to court. Since the courts are unable to deal with that many cases the prosecutors will be MUCH more selective when deciding which cases to take on. Fewer people will get charged and fewer people will go to jail.
That's not necessarily better. The purpose of plea bargaining is to work the huge mass of petty criminals through the system. The legal presumption of innocence notwithstanding, these people all did the crime, and it's generally a legit crime. Getting rid of plea bargaining means that prosecutors will focus on the big fish, but also means that lower level crimes (shoplifting, pick pocketing, etc) essentially become unenforceable.
Yes, that's an issue, but allowing prosecutors to force any conviction that they want to by escalating charges is too far from just by any standard. It completely sidesteps fairness.
Beyond that, one could argue that the federal government should not be addressing petty crime at all.
You go to jail once you're charged, not when you are convicted. My hometown is currently running into budgetary problems and has scaled back the court system to funnel more funds to the jail housing everyone awaiting trial.
When a legislator say they will "look" at something, it means they don't intend to actually do anything about it but are simply attempting to pacify their constituents by promising something.
How many "constituents" of Issa's do you think actually care about Aaron Swartz? Do you think the San Diego/Orange County population have been running major protests for Swartz?
This petition is guranteed to fail. The domain of writing, passing, and modifying laws is the domain of Congress, not the President. You can pester the President all you want, but it is not within his Constitutional powers to do anything about the law. (Indeed, even announcing that the DOJ should not enforce the law is a potentially impeachable offense depending on the political environment.)
If you want the CFAA reformed, call, write, and/or meet with your Congressional Rep and Senator and tell them what you think of the law.
It's a useful vehicle for starting the process, bringing attention to the issue, clearly explaining what and why, providing a single point of action for people to focus on, and gauging support.
If all that goes well and the petition gets enough signatures and visibility, then that's a good point to segue off into the more difficult organizational problem of getting all those people to actually call their rep.
Additionally, the President has to sign such a law eventually anyway, so starting movements with a plea to the President has some benefit in that regard as well.
How is it that every single post you make has some inaccuracy?
Right now, Obama is considering executive orders to change gun laws. If he wanted to issue an executive order about the CFAA, or instruct DOJ not to enforce it, or push Congress to do something, he sure could move the needle.
The petition is all about bringing attention to the matter.
EDIT: See? Every comment you make is so clearly wrong (no one outside HN cares, federal prosecutors have no discretion, seeing Ortiz disciplined would be a "fantasy") that it is falsified in realtime.
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) took to the
online forum Aaron Swartz helped found on Tuesday night to
propose legislation honoring the late Internet activist.
"I'm Rep. Zoe Lofgren & I'm introducing 'Aaron's Law' to
change the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act," Lofgren wrote in
a Reddit post. Swartz, 26, committed suicide on Friday.
I love how this is being downvoted not by people who are upset at the inaccuracy of what you posted but rather out of either ignorance of how our country's government is designed to work, or those who are angry for some reason and take it out on your poor, little downvote arrow. What you've said is 100% true and starting/signing a petition such is this is the very epitome of slactivism. As @nhebb here said recently, " Slacktivism is like leveling up in a video game. It gives you the sense of accomplishment, even though you haven't done jack shit in real life."
