Worldwide Aaron Swartz Day Memorial Hackathons This Weekend 76
New submitter sterlingcrispin writes: There are hackathons taking place all over the world in memory of Aaron Swartz this weekend, November 8th and 9th. The goal is to "bring together the varied communities that Aaron touched to figure out how the important problems of the world connect, and to share the load of working on those problems." If you are interested in open access, privacy, free speech, transparency, citizen activism, human rights, and information ethics please attend, promote this event, and contribute to its growth.
I'm organizing the Los Angeles meet up and would love to see you there! Here are the other cities hosting one.
I'm organizing the Los Angeles meet up and would love to see you there! Here are the other cities hosting one.
Ideally (Score:4, Insightful)
and the public outcry would break the decibel record set at a college football game.
Dream big, right?
Re: (Score:2)
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That would still be theft of service, its still theft even if you don't want to recognize it as such.
Re:Ideally (Score:5, Informative)
He stole documents that were supposed to be public domain that the government had put behind a paywall and made them public. He used MIT's license and free-to-the-public internet to do this.
He got caught because he put his downloader in one of their closets. None of this should have been technically illegal, and even MIT didn't want to prosecute, but the government decided they didn't like him.
Re: (Score:1)
So if I walk into your place of employment, install my equipment in their unlocked closet, try to hide the fact that my equipment is in their closet when I have no right to be there, and download all kinds of crap using their equipment, that's not illegal?
I tend to think your employer would say otherwise.
Better yet, I'll wait until you're at work, walk into your place and ins
Re: (Score:2)
There is nothing that Schwartz did which should be a criminal matter, let alone a felony.
Even JSTOR didn't want to pursue. All they cared about was that someone was DoSing their system. As soon as that stopped, that was the end of it as far as they were concerned.
Swartz was a co-author and editor of the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto [archive.org]. It's controversial, but there is quite a bit of evidence to suppo
Re: Ideally (Score:1)
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Including a felony conviction, so suicide by slow torture.
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Absolutely this. "Oh, boo hoo. I'm such an activist, but I can't take the heat when the feds do a little tough talk."
Mitnick, Manning, and Snowden piss on this crybaby from great height.
Those other individuals you mention are an anarchist and two people who published confidential information that they stole from their employer - and one of those individuals conveniently discovered "her" true nature after being sent to military prison. I don't know what great height your refer to.
Anyways as an AC your opinion as to who can take heat or not is beyond ludicrous. Why don't you go back to jerking off on 4chan animated gifs and pwning Facebook accounts of 14 years old girls.
Paid shills on slashdot: the obvious tells (Score:1)
Hates Manning, Assange, Snowden and Greenwald? Quadruple check.
An undying yet unspkoken loyalty to endless spying and the liars that enable it? You bet your ass.
You shills are so bad at this, it blows my mind. I hope for your employer's sake that you're an unpaid intern, else our tax money is going to waste twice over.
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If you really think that people who disagree with you are paid by a mysterious "employer", your life must be full of suspense and mystery. I envy you.
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Even telecoms employ pay trolls. http://www.vice.com/read/troll... [vice.com]
Oil companies? You bet. http://www.dailykos.com/story/... [dailykos.com]
So of course the government does as well--are you daft? In another message I'm arguing against a
Paranoid morons on slashdot: the obvious tells (Score:2)
You obviously have no experience working in the public sector. "The government" is not an organized entity with a secret agenda. It's a tapestry of independent organizations with conflicting interests managed by people with little or no incentive to implement the short term policy established by whoever is temporarily in charge as dictated by the random lobbies that got them elected.
The fact that you mention GCHQ leads me to believe that you are from the UK, because nobody outside that tiny island gives a s
Re: (Score:1)
In this case some agency is paying shills to post nonsense on the internet, and which agency--be it the FBI, the originators of COINTELPRO, or the CIA, or any other alphabet soup entity--isn't relevant to the fact of those trolls existing. Hence, "the government". If I said it was the NSA, you'd be busy telling me how incompetent the NSA is. Instead you've chosen to conveniently overlook the cooperation of the NSA and its pet, the GCHQ.
B
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In summary, you're bad at this, and should feel bad.
You should put this kind of summary at the beginning of your posts. Readers would immediately know that whatever comes next is garbage. As it stands, one has to read 2-3 sentences before giving up, that's not as efficient.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And that has exactly dick to do with Aarpm Swartz.
He didn't expose you to some massive cover up. He was a common criminal who couldn't handle the fact that he got caught. Any 'good' he did was by dumb luck and coincidental, not intentional.
He was not a hero. Stop pretending he was or bullshitting about what he did, you just cheapen the actions of those who have done heroic deeds.
Do you even know what he did and why he got in trouble? I don't think you do.
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to make a bunch of research data free
Does JSTOR also offer indexing services for these research papers? If so, that may be data that JSTOR creates and not necessarily free.
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He could have spent 6 months in jail in a low security prison.
He wasn't Robin Hood, just immature. Instead of spending 6 months in a low-security prison, he killed himself.
Fair or not fair, he didn't accept the consequences of his actions.
All-in-all, a pretty poor reason to commit suicide.
And this guy was fortunate enough to go to HARVARD. This guy got to live a dream and had wealthy parents.
Re:Ideally (Score:4, Insightful)
The accusation levied is that the prosecutors overdid the intimidation in their efforts to get to to accept a not-very-good plea bargain. It's a standard procedure: Inform someone that they could go to jail for decades, their life effectively owner, unemployable when they do get out, financially ruined, reputation in shreds. Throw in some scary talk about how dangerous prison is to leave them wondering how they'll survive in a place filled with violent criminals. If all goes to plan the subject will be so terrified they'll accept any plea offered. Prosecutor gets a good politically-advantageous outcome and the taxpayer is saved the cost of a drawn-out and expensive trial. There are downsides though - innocent people may be pressured into pleading guilty this way, and occasionally someone just can't take the pressure and has a breakdown, which is what happened here.
He put himself in the situation (Score:2)
If anything, the problem is hackers are usually caught up in a very juvenile culture where they decide right and wrong are decided by their social circle and social approval.
Self-pity in adults is the first sign of evil. And the opposite of being an adult. Adults make their own choices.
Self-pity is the concept that you don't create
Trolls blaming the victim for prosecutorial overre (Score:2)
But you shills are just here to trash his character, anyway.
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Someone (like his lawyer) should have explained this to him.
Generic smear #15377: "He's rich!" (Score:1)
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I dislike cowards. Especially suicide over trivial circumstances.
My heroes are ones that overcome adversity. Not ones that cry over themselves and then take their own lives, for no legitimate reason because they engaged in a legally frowned-on behavior one time too many.
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Your deception lies in the word "caught". Aaron wasn't caught, he was specifically targeted by the government. It wasn't MIT pursuing charges against him--it was the FBI.
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Your need to fabricate what I said is weak. If you have something worth saying that is both a valid point and stands on its own, you wouldn't need to fabricate a quote.
He got in trouble for his involvement with wikilea (Score:1)
Ob. spaceballs ref. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Freak.
Really? Is that the best you can do? Come on, tell us how you really feel.
Seriously, is it because of your upbringing, your religion, a fear of castration that you never got over, your politics, hidden worries about your own identity (that last is a frequent issue).
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Seriously, is it because of your upbringing, your religion, a fear of castration that you never got over, your politics, hidden worries about your own identity (that last is a frequent issue).
Pretty rich coming from a guy who pretends to be a girl on internet.
Suicide awareness (Score:1, Insightful)
INSERT SNIDE COMMENT HERE
He is not my hero. He shouldn't be yours either.
full surveillance for free (Score:2)
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This is not a horrible legacy. Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 was a horrible legacy.
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Suicide-murder would be a lot more impressive than murder-suicide.
Command Line (Score:2)
> yum update
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT with paragraphs (Score:3, Informative)
FACT: Downloading JSTOR articles was one minor footnote among the many amazing projects Aaron was working on at the time. From the fall of 2010 until his death in 2013, Aaronâ(TM)s projects included, but were not limited to: SecureDrop, the leak-protecting technology for journalists now implemented by outlets ranging from The New Yorker to Forbes to The Guardian; the SOPA/PIPA fight, The Flaming Sword of Justice (now The Good Fight), a podcast about activism which went on to reach the top of the iTunes
Re: (Score:2)
Only thing I got from this was that there is some girl called Aaronâ(TM) doing stuff.
Slashdot knows nothing (Score:2, Insightful)
So far, no-one on this thread is addressing these issues. For those who don't know, which is most of you, Aaron got Google Inc. involved in the "Stop SOPA" campaign. So don't bitch about the one thing he did wrong, we owe him.
Paid government trolls all over this thread (Score:1)
They don't even try to hide it. Giant paragraphs of garbage, shitposting, you name it. The fact of trolls indicates the truth: Aaron was ultimately victimized by his government, not MIT or JSTOR.