I was wondering the same thing, and I don't think it would. I am not a lawyer, and I guess we can't know why the jury voted guilty, but I think the arguments were that weev didn't have authorization. They argued that there was several "gates" weev had to go through to access AT&T's data.
1) User agent. He changed the user agent to that of an iPad.
2) The ID themselves. He only had to increment them to get to a new one, but they argued these were like a password.
3) Going to a URL that wasn't linked from somewhere. I'm not kidding.
So I think in weev's case, they argued he never had authorization at all.
Whereas, in Van Buren's case, "The parties agree that Van Buren “access[ed] a computer with authorization”. So the problem was whether or not he exceeded authorization, not if he had it in the first place.
1) User agent. He changed the user agent to that of an iPad.
2) The ID themselves. He only had to increment them to get to a new one, but they argued these were like a password.
3) Going to a URL that wasn't linked from somewhere. I'm not kidding.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130929/15371724695/dojs-...
So I think in weev's case, they argued he never had authorization at all.
Whereas, in Van Buren's case, "The parties agree that Van Buren “access[ed] a computer with authorization”. So the problem was whether or not he exceeded authorization, not if he had it in the first place.