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RIP Aaron Swartz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M85UvH0TRPc

Thanks so much for posting this link. In the documentary "Internet's Own Boy" about Aaron( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M85UvH0TRPc ) some one made a insightful comment about Aaron. The insight is this, there are people who are highly technically capable and then there are people who live by high morals and sacrifice themselves for a political cause, but the intersection of the two in a same person is very very rare. And that very true. The only other person who fits in this category is probably Richard Stallman.

⬐ arnaldorobot

I find your comment very insightful, and quite moving. I had my own problems with mental health and one of the reasons is hopelessness; we lost ourselves — not just as individuals, but as species. Your mention about this particular characteristic of humans is very much aligned with our current understanding of neuroscience, namely, neurodiversity and the human super power called neuroplasticity, although, like western psychology, our neuroscience derives primarily of the current social norms — this explains the confusion that our psychology has about different ways of being, and levels of consciousness. Hence, scientists are categorizing contemplative, introspective and highly technical individuals as someone with disabilities (social disabilities). Which is ridiculous. These highly introspective individuals, if they were born in India and trained using buddhist meditation techniques (making use of neuroplasticity), they'd be called the next reincarnation of The Buda, by simply being very keen to see and understand reality using logical reasoning.

So, concluding my train of thought, this insight about the intersection of technical beings with highly political, motivated by high morals... it is, indeed, very rare and fascinating.

⬐ unwantedchild

RMS does not do anything that interacts with politics and I don't think he's high morals, though I use Emacs.

⬐ bitcharmer

I highly recommend this documentary to anyone interested in the history of internet, the beginnings of reddit and most of all how a system can destroy someone who crosses the wrong people even if for altruistic reasons.

Gut wrenching to watch at times, but very important documentary.

⬐ satyanash

I saw a lot of people asking about Aaron Swartz in the other thread about Reddit's co-founders. Would highly recommend watching this documentary, if you haven't already.

⬐ JdeBP

This posting, for the curious:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24677419

⬐ lukeplato

Is it weird that this on the third page now? I just read it on the front page about an hour ago and it seemed to be getting a lot of votes

⬐ sigotirandolas

I noticed the same thing. I believe HN has some way to demote posts - not sure if it's based on reports, manual moderation, or something else - which often happens to politics / non-tech / controversial posts.

⬐ JdeBP

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24548010 .

⬐ fossuser

I remember seeing later that he posted here begging for help because the cost of the defense for a federal crime (even though he’d likely win) was 1.5M, and the first comment was someone being nasty to him.

I remember the emails from MIT that showed the IT department going after him, and then when caught MIT choosing to do nothing rather than help.

Even JSTOR backed down rather than move forward.

It still makes me angry and MIT’s reputation was seriously harmed in my eyes because of it.

Journals blocking access to publicly funded research by extorting desperate academics for prestige is what’s wrong. It’s a broken system due to bad incentives that’s worse for everyone except the journals that enrich themselves on the back of publicly funded research, by locking it away and charging enormous rent.

The punishment was disproportionate to a crime that, while possibly illegal, was on the morally right side of a broken incentive structure. He didn’t even get the chance to put the articles up, he downloaded them from a network he had rightful access to. His main crime was leaving a laptop running in an open closet, and downloading more than they wanted.

Luckily Sci-Hub continued his work.

The legal thing and the right thing are often not the same: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html

Maybe the worst part was after his suicide reading comments here about how you can only blame the person who committed suicide since no one else is responsible for the ultimate act.

If you choose not to see a causal link between the pressure of this prosecution and his death, I think that says more about your own motivated reasoning than it does about reality.

This was a failure of our community.

⬐ jacquesm

> This was a failure of our community.

Absolutely.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

⬐ 0_gravitas

Looking through, many of those people are still posting today- makes this site feel a little more grimy.

⬐ TooCreative

He was on Hacker News? What was his handle?

⬐ lukeplato

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw

⬐ TooCreative

Cool. But he seems to only have posted 13 times and none is "begging for help". Am I missing something?

⬐ fossuser

I misremembered, this was the post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

Somebody else had posted his request for help here, but the comments are as I remembered them (though the comment that was first at the time is now the second thread).

⬐ fossuser

Reply outside of the edit window since those comment threads are still moving around.

It was this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529609

Along with pretty much everything from tptacek.

⬐ GoodJokes

Your community has failed over and over and it is because you all are absolutely controlled by capital.

⬐ SpicyLemonZest

I absolutely have concerns with the operation of the federal justice system. As Leesig rightly pointed out, the role of a modern federal prosecutor is to terrify the accused and bully them into accepting a plea deal, and that behavior does not effectively serve the interests of justice.

But the radically anti-copyright position expressed here is much less common than you're assuming, and I just can't get on board with it. The solution to exploitative journals gatekeeping access is better journals, not stealing their articles.

⬐ realce

> The solution to exploitative journals gatekeeping access is better journals, not stealing their articles.

Self regulation doesn't produce resounding changes. Some systems have to be violently shaken in order to do that.

⬐ fossuser

I'm not really anti-copyright, though the timeline should be dramatically reduced back to something similar to its original 14 years with registration (maybe less).

The goal of copyright was to promote the progress of science and useful arts for the benefit of the public, giving limited time monopolies to creators is a means to that end. It was meant as an incentive to create, not some way to perpetually enrich creators (or corporations that buy the rights) forever at the expense of the public.

It's been distorted to basically give creators/companies rights forever automatically (and even retroactively) by continuing to extend it each time it comes up for expiration. It now serves to do the opposite of its intended goal by limiting the ability for people to create things because they could be violating copyright.

I think the issue here is not the existence of copyright itself, but how it's being applied to publicly funded research because of an existing incentive structure where universities and academics are locked in a battle for prestige that's doled out by these journals that then control access.

If the public is funding the research then the public should have access to the research.

⬐ SpicyLemonZest

I agree with everything you're saying here. Publicly funded research should have long since been mandated to provide open access.

⬐ wyck

The DOJ threw the book at him in part because he wrote a manifesto called "Guerilla Open Access". It wasn't deemed a one-off offense, but possibly part of a "plan". Still complete bullshit what they did.

You can read it here: http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamju...

⬐ Medicalidiot

Downloading science articles on an "open campus". Something that should be celebrated was instead castigated.

⬐ jokinglysardine

This could've all been avoided if the MIT IT staff hadn't been so lazy that they left port-security or 802.1x disabled on access layer chassis switches. Probably some of the reason Aaron got railroaded initially is the total incompetence of the IT staff here, a classic overreaction is always a sign of ass covering by people. Imagine if they had just physically secured their networking equipment.

⬐ dethos

Very good documentary. An unnecessary tragedy.

⬐ mellosouls

IMDB page

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3268458/

⬐ oli5679

http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamju...

Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have been lost.

That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It's outrageous and unacceptable.

"I agree," many say, "but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it's perfectly legal — there's nothing we can do to stop them." But there is something we can, something that's already being done: we can fight back.

Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.

Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.

But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It's called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral — it's a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.

Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who can make copies.

There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.

With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?

Aaron Swartz

July 2008, Eremo, Italy

⬐ NiceWayToDoIT

It is a great tragedy, sad... Sometimes I wonder what kind of amazing things would he achieved if he stayed a bit longer... :(

⬐ bergstromm466

Aaron was scapegoated and hounded by the US government.

⬐ FartyMcFarter

Land of the free amirite

⬐ rtx

That's why right to buy gun is right to be free.

⬐ trident1000

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but governments (all of which eventually become corrupt and oppressive) take their citizens more seriously when they are armed. And governments taking their citizens seriously typically results in more freedom. I know Ill get downvotes on this platform for this opinion but thats how I feel about it.

⬐ pvg

The world is full of unfortunate places where armed people are plentiful and effective government is scarce.

⬐ freshhawk

That's probably why they said "it's harder to oppress people with guns, so they do it less" and didn't add "and if it is hard to oppress people that makes you effective".

Basic "necessary but not sufficient" thing here.

The counter-example would be places where armed people are kept under the boot by those in power anyway, where the government is very effective at oppression.

edit: unless you are equating "able to do things that make citizens want to shoot you" with "effective"? I'm assuming you misunderstood, which is the charitable reading.

⬐ rtx

But less than places where people don't have guns and goverments are oppressive.

⬐ trident1000

Define "effective". Can a government do anything they want when they fear the people, no. Can they legislate in progressive ways that build an economy and keep people safe, absolutely.

⬐ pvg

I don't really have to define 'effective' because the thing I'm responding to is a bit of pat mythology to try to sort-of-explain something complicated and unclear like 'Why does the US Constitution have this weird 2nd amendment and what the hell does it mean?'. It's a shorthand, not a real thing, think of things like 'not a democracy, a republic', etc. There's obviously no simple direct connection, historically, statistically, whateverlly, between who has guns and how government works. People who get upset enough with their government to want to violently remove it with guns just get the guns or convince the people with the guns to join them, etc. Nobody sits around around pondering "boy, we'd start a movement of dissent but we won't because none of us are packin".

⬐ trident1000

How did that work out for the people of Hong Kong? The govt laughed at them with their signs and umbrellas. Now they can be shipped off for posting a tweet the CPP doesnt like.

On a grander scope, notice how Taiwan has not been invaded by China despite their decades of rhetoric. They're armed, the price is high and the move would be risky.

And no you dont just pray at the time you need a weapon and it pops up in your hands. That's not how things logistically work. Also a big part of it is an ongoing cognitive deterrence. That doesnt happen when people dont have them at the present time.

⬐ pvg

None of this really has anything to do with an individual right to bear arms. Notice how you had to shift to sovereign states being armed to try to make something out of this. The thing is just bumper-sticker 2A fandom expression. It's fine as that, but it it isn't a serious argument about anything and, outside of 2A fandom, nobody thinks it is, whatever their views on gun ownership rights are.

Just like we don't use 'I brake for whales' or this old chestnut:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/20/last-tree-cut/

As a basis for any real discussion of environmental policy.

⬐ inquirerofsorts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

A good overview of the first category for anyone interested.

⬐ trident1000

Looks about what I would have expected

⬐ dang

Please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. We've had to ask you this before.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

⬐ vonwoodson

Blaming the government again... It was JSTOR. When money trumps freedom, that’s where the problem lies. And ONLY the government protects freedom. Don’t believe me? Read any EULA.

⬐ bergstromm466

Yeah I agree. In the movie they say that JSTOR didn’t prosecute though, and that it was some government entity that wanted to make an example out of Aaron. Sorry I don’t remember which one - I’d have to scan the subtitle file. I wrote this because I’m quite against the current Intellectual Property system (the US one, and the US-inspired global one: TRIPS).

My comment was intended more as a critique of the fact that the IP monopoly-granting system is part of American state yet it undermines democracy. I see it as a violent, anti-human and oppressive configuration (despite many claiming it’s a free-market) [Kevin Carson and Guy Standing do a fantastic job of critiquing this fact].

It was a bit careless of me to say ‘government’ because it can undermines the great work many governments entities do do.

⬐ tzs

All JSTOR did was try repeatedly for several months to block massive downloads that were causing service disruptions. JSTOR never involved law enforcement in this, and even tried to contact the downloader to see about arranging less disruptive access. Instead, the downloader kept evading the blocks.

It wasn't until MIT discovered that the downloader had moved from using their public guest WiFi network to going into places closed to the public to surreptitiously install hardware directly on the MIT LAN to continue the downloading that MIT called law enforcement.

Here's the timeline from JSTOR's point of view [1]. What do you see in there that they should have done differently?

Keep in mind that JSTOR is essentially a library and a non-profit. They do not own the copyright on the journals they distribute. Wherever they can, they provide cheap or free public access to most of the library.

They have probably done more than any other organization to provide ways for the public to get free or cheap access to non-open access journals. Maybe someday most research will be published in open access journals and we won't need JSTOR, but until then they are among the good guys.

[1] https://docs.jstor.org/summary.html

⬐ blindm

> going into places closed to the public to surreptitiously install hardware directly on the MIT LAN

I think that's a line few hackers cross. I mean physically breaking and entering a server room to help with exfiltration all whilst being monitored by CCTV is pretty bold stuff.

⬐ Zigurd

It was a wiring closet. I've been in some of these, possibly the same one. While there is more valuable stuff than telephone punch-down blocks in them nowadays, it is nothing like breaking in to a server room.

⬐ jancsika

> We frequently support such research by providing access to datasets, free of cost, in a way that does not affect access for other users.

This is a bit misleading. They are talking about large datasets here. But in a later paragraph they describe their central fear-- that the downloader was trying to acquire the entire data set. And-- according to JSTOR-- while they feared the entire dataset was being downloaded, the access pattern had changed so that it was no longer interrupting regular JSTOR access at MIT. So disruption to service was clearly not the issue at that point.

It seems reasonable to conclude from this, and from their subsequent actions, that their definition for "large datasets" does not include "the entire dataset."

As the documentary points out, there was precedent for Swartz downloading entire datasets from other databases for legitimate research purposes prior to this event. Is there evidence that JSTOR allowed other researchers to run automated analyses on the entire dataset through their free service? If not, they should have stated explicitly somewhere in their statement that they believe it is not legitimate research to run analyses on their entire dataset.

⬐ pcdoodle

Thanks for posting this. Good timing.

⬐ pmb

And HN said "Yup, he basically deserved it." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2802917

⬐ hoomank3

Definitely a case of prosecutorial overreach. The poor kid felt so hopeless and overwhelmed that he took his own life. Very sad story.

Not commonly known. But Swartz invented JSON. Every time you use it, you can thank him.

⬐ cocoa19

Wikipedia says Douglas Crockford specified and popularized JSON.

⬐ branweb

yeah I've always heard it was Crockford. Do you have a substantiating source you'd mind sharing, op?

⬐ prophesi

Maybe they're thinking of RSS?

⬐ aikah

Swartz participated in the creation of RSS spec, not JSON AFAIK. He was also involved in the development of reddit.

⬐ leejoramo

Additionally John Gruber acknowledges Aaron’s significant contribution to the creation of Markdown.

https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

⬐ mynameishere

Federal prosecutors don't screw around. Just take the plea bargain.

Also, the authorities in general don't like to be scorned. If you get away with something once, keep your nose clean afterwards.

Just some practical lessons unrelated to the passion play.

⬐ falcor84

But if no one is unveiling to dissent then nothing will change. I don't know what I personally would do if faced by that horrible choice, but I admire the heroism of dissidents willing to stand their ground.

"Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law." Martin Luther King Jr.

⬐ realreality

But Aaron didn’t accept the penalty. He killed himself to avoid facing the consequences of his actions.

⬐ javert

That's a highly misleading way to phrase it.

I don't presume to know why he killed himself. But the circumstantial evidence suggests that he killed himself because he was being bullied and he wanted it to stop.

⬐ meekmind

I don't think he avoided any consequences, he escalated the consequences to the maximum degree he could. No, I'm not advocating suicide. If anyone out there thinks that suicide is a solution, it isn't. But, morally speaking, is there a huge difference between being imprisoned in a tiny concrete room for 20 years (esp. during the prime of your life) and being dead? No, probably not.

I'm not saying his decision to take his own life was right, only that I can empathize with the position he was in and how it would seem hopeless given his personality and the inherent lack of fairness in prosecutorial discretion and mandatory minimum sentences.

Aaron was a big-minded softie, who cared deeply about humanity, and was courageous enough to escalate beyond slacktivism to real action.

He underestimated how entrenched his opponents were and that they would bring the full force and intimidation of the state down on his head.

He knew what he was doing was right, but he didn't know what he was really up against. Like a lot of smart people, he wrongly assumed that other people were like him. He probably thought that they would see the reason of his position, and sense that he was really a good person, and treat him with fairness (like he would do) and not as an evil terrorist.

It still hurts me to think about Aaron, what Aaron represented, and what our system does to people like that.

⬐ boraoztunc

Even just repeating his name gives me goosebumps, makes me sad, angry, feeling all together. I don't know, the system I hate so much, because of the ones that've always betrayed people like Aaron.

Such great documentary if you haven't watched already and know about this amazing human being.

His website (http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/) is still online if you also want to read what he was thinking and making, before they cornered him, forced him, feared him, took his hope and killed him. I'm so sorry man, rest in peace.

Edit: I sometimes remember him with Tim Berners-Lee's poem:

Aaron is dead.

Wanderers in this crazy world, we have lost a mentor, a wise elder.

Hackers for right, we are one down, we have lost one of our own.

Nurtures, careers, listeners, feeders, parents all, we have lost a child.

Let us all weep.

⬐ conception

I recently discovered his website and his essays are fantastic-

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/savealife

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/handwritingwall

The last being very poignant for me.