<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>AnthonyMouse</author><text>&amp;#62;In the law as it exists, doing something &quot;anonymously&quot; for the purpose of committing a crime is itself a crime. It&apos;s not the act of changing the MAC address that is illegal by itself.&lt;p&gt;What, then, was the underlying crime, if not this unauthorized access nonsense where access was allegedly unauthorized only because he was supposedly hiding his identity? Keep in mind that it wasn&apos;t copyright infringement (which normally isn&apos;t criminal anyway), because it wasn&apos;t JSTOR pressing charges, it was MIT.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62;Your point, I think, is that that &quot;extra&quot; crime is a silly law. Which I think many of us agree with. But it&apos;s still the law, and it&apos;s not unreasonable for a prosecutor to enforce it.&lt;p&gt;But there are two issues here: There is what prosecutors did, and what the law allowed them to do. Even if you don&apos;t have a problem with the prosecutors, we can still have a problem with the law and work to have it changed.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62;In fact, they have a duty to do so.&lt;p&gt;No they don&apos;t. They have prosecutorial discretion. If the application of the law in a particular case is ridiculous, they have no legal or professional obligation to press those charges.</text><parent_chain><item><author>ajross</author><text>I think you&apos;re completely and absolutely talking past the argument.&lt;p&gt;In the law as it exists, doing something &quot;anonymously&quot; for the purpose of committing a crime is itself a crime.  It&apos;s &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; the act of changing the MAC address that is illegal by itself.  That was the point.&lt;p&gt;Your point, I think, is that that &quot;extra&quot; crime is a silly law.  Which I think many of us agree with.  But it&apos;s still the law, and it&apos;s not unreasonable for a prosecutor to enforce it.  In fact, they have a duty to do so.&lt;p&gt;Turning around and claiming that &quot;the gubmint wants to lock up MAC randomizers!&quot;, however, is just dumb.  That&apos;s not what the law in this case says at all.</text></item><item><author>clicks</author><text>You have completely and absolutely missed the point.&lt;p&gt;Changing MAC addresses (upon every restart) is something I do too. It is an extremely easy thing to do. That such an obvious thing will effortlessly add to a list of charges, amplifying the prosecutor&apos;s case for no good reason, is what the issue is.&lt;p&gt;The most frustrating thing about your comment is your condescending attitude. It&apos;s exactly this kind of behavior that is sliding us down a path of draconian laws that will in the end harm us all. Please think before going off like this.</text></item><item><author>watty</author><text>Context is important in law.  It&apos;s not illegal to change your mac address or wear a ski mask.  It can be illegal to do both of these things while committing other crimes.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m really sick of these sensational posts/comments showing up on HN.  I know, I&apos;m not supposed to complain about quality of posts or comments but the past week has really changed my view on the current state of HN.  Witch hunts, sensational stories, jumping to conclusions, hating the law/government, etc.  Let&apos;s go back to technical news.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for</title><url>http://erratasec.blogspot.com/2013/01/i-conceal-my-identity-same-way-aaron.html</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>jlgreco</author><text>Had Aaron not been changing his MAC address, and not used a fake email, would his curl script have been illegal?&lt;p&gt;If changing your MAC is not itself an issue, how do we determine what (normally legal) things you cannot do after (legally) changing your MAC?</text><parent_chain><item><author>ajross</author><text>I think you&apos;re completely and absolutely talking past the argument.&lt;p&gt;In the law as it exists, doing something &quot;anonymously&quot; for the purpose of committing a crime is itself a crime.  It&apos;s &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; the act of changing the MAC address that is illegal by itself.  That was the point.&lt;p&gt;Your point, I think, is that that &quot;extra&quot; crime is a silly law.  Which I think many of us agree with.  But it&apos;s still the law, and it&apos;s not unreasonable for a prosecutor to enforce it.  In fact, they have a duty to do so.&lt;p&gt;Turning around and claiming that &quot;the gubmint wants to lock up MAC randomizers!&quot;, however, is just dumb.  That&apos;s not what the law in this case says at all.</text></item><item><author>clicks</author><text>You have completely and absolutely missed the point.&lt;p&gt;Changing MAC addresses (upon every restart) is something I do too. It is an extremely easy thing to do. That such an obvious thing will effortlessly add to a list of charges, amplifying the prosecutor&apos;s case for no good reason, is what the issue is.&lt;p&gt;The most frustrating thing about your comment is your condescending attitude. It&apos;s exactly this kind of behavior that is sliding us down a path of draconian laws that will in the end harm us all. Please think before going off like this.</text></item><item><author>watty</author><text>Context is important in law.  It&apos;s not illegal to change your mac address or wear a ski mask.  It can be illegal to do both of these things while committing other crimes.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m really sick of these sensational posts/comments showing up on HN.  I know, I&apos;m not supposed to complain about quality of posts or comments but the past week has really changed my view on the current state of HN.  Witch hunts, sensational stories, jumping to conclusions, hating the law/government, etc.  Let&apos;s go back to technical news.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for</title><url>http://erratasec.blogspot.com/2013/01/i-conceal-my-identity-same-way-aaron.html</url></story>