Gallery: The Most Controversial Hacking Cases of the Past Decade

  • Image may contain Human Person Face Aaron Swartz and Finger
    Sage Ross | CC BY-SA 2.0
    01

    Aaron-Swartz-at-Boston-Wikipedia-Meetup,-2009-08-18-toned43

    Internet activist Aaron Swartz’s CFAA prosecution is one of the leading reasons critics want to reform the law. Swartz was indicted after allegedly downloading academic papers on JSTOR that were freely available to any MIT campus visitor. JSTOR didn’t pursue a complaint, but the Justice Department prosecuted anyway.
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    Julio Cortez/AP
    02

    Andrew Auernheimer

    Andrew Auernheimer (aka “weev”), a self-professed internet troll, was hardly a sympathetic figure when the government brought hacking charges against him and friend Daniel Spitler in 2011. The two discovered a hole in AT&T’s website that allowed them to obtain the email addresses of AT&T iPad users. The government insisted that accessing unprotected emails that AT&T didn’t want anyone to access was criminal hacking.
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    Max Whittaker/Getty Images
    03

    Former Wire Service Social Media Editor Appears In Court Over Charges He Conspired With Hackers

    Journalist Matthew Keys shared the login credentials for an ex-employer's server with an Anonymous-affiliated hacker, who used them to superficially alter an LA Times news story. His prosecutors calculated victim losses by including activity that caused no damage to computers—such as allegedly sending emails to former colleagues. Keys was convicted on all charges and is awaiting sentencing.
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    Courtesy Fidel Salinas
    04

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    Fidel Salinas, a 28-year-old with ties to Anonymous, faced what may be the most schizophrenic hacking prosecution of all time: In 2012, he was charged with 44 felony counts of computer fraud and abuse, each one carrying a potential 10-year prison sentence. By the end of 2014, his mountain of charges had been reduced to a single misdemeanor. —Andy Greenberg
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    Nick Ut/AP
    05

    Internet Suicide

    In 2008, prosecutors charged a middle-aged Missouri mother named Lori Drew with hacking under the CFAA not for breaching a computer, but for violating MySpace’s terms of service. The judge ultimately vacated the conviction, on grounds that the government’s interpretation of the CFAA was constitutionally vague and “would convert a multitude of otherwise innocent Internet users into misdemeanant criminals.”
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    David Nosal
    06

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    David Nosal was convicted in 2013 after he convinced ex-colleagues to access a company database and give him trade secrets. His case took two side trips to appeals court. The first time, judges ruled that someone didn’t have to actually hack something to be charged as a hacker under the CFAA. The second time the judges ruled employees could not be prosecuted under the CFAA for simply violating their employer’s computer use policy.
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    Louis Lanzano/AP
    07

    Programmer Trade Secrets

    Sergei Aleynikov was a programmer for Goldman Sachs who helped develop its high-speed trading software. Shortly before leaving his job, he downloaded code he’d written for the company. So prosecutors charged Aleynikov with unauthorized access under the CFAA, with theft of trade secrets under the Economic Espionage Act, and for the interstate transport of stolen property.