Warez releases, Nintendo piracy, stolen phone cards. It all seems so small fry for the potential of a 40-year prison term and the effort of international arrests.
If the US goes to this much effort for this small fry, they ain't gonna stop harassing for Assange in any circumstance.
Whatever it is that determines what's "acceptable" and what's "pursue to the ends of the earth" in the US is a basket case.
There must be more at play than what the article says, must be.
I honestly think they only chase small fry, if given enough friction because one is rich, powerful or connected that they would walk away from it. Basically only going after low-hanging fruit.
It used to be IRC mainly. Efnet, later Linknet or similar. Often involved the group maintaining their own server linked to the network (preferably hosted by an admin of a big university). The server not only made sure that only encrypted connections were allowed (hi Blowfish), but also that clients authorized to use it automatically received a spoofed IP/hostname (something childish like @i.am.too.leet.for.paradox.org) to hide ones true location.
If the US goes to this much effort for this small fry, they ain't gonna stop harassing for Assange in any circumstance.
Whatever it is that determines what's "acceptable" and what's "pursue to the ends of the earth" in the US is a basket case.
There must be more at play than what the article says, must be.