He was being charged under the CFAA, a hacking criminal statute that prohibits unauthorized access to computer systems. It was controversially being stretched to cover Aaron’s conduct that violated TOS by an ambitious prosecutor.
If you want to read about how we got into this fucked up situation I’d recommend The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling (a notorious cyberpunk sf writer among other things) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/101
He was being charged under the CFAA, a hacking criminal statute that prohibits unauthorized access to computer systems. It was controversially being stretched to cover Aaron’s conduct that violated TOS by an ambitious prosecutor.
Are TOS violations felonies now?
Yes, technically any TOS violation is one ambitious prosecutor away from a felony, thanks to the CFAA.
If you want to read about how we got into this fucked up situation I’d recommend The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling (a notorious cyberpunk sf writer among other things) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/101