Aaron Swartz's Memory Honored with Virtual Hackathon (aaronswartzday.org) 30
Saturday saw 2020's virtual observation of the annual Aaron Swartz Day and International Hackathon, which the EFF describes as "a day dedicated to celebrating the continuing legacy of activist, programmer, and entrepreneur Aaron Swartz."
Its official web site notes the wide-ranging event includes "projects and ideas that are still bearing fruit to this day, such as SecureDrop, Open Library, and the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project." The event even included a virtual session for the Atlas of Surveillance project which involved documenting instances of law enforcement using surveillance technologies like social media monitoring, automated license plate readers, and body-worn cameras. And EFF special advisor Cory Doctorow, director of strategy Danny O'Brien, and senior activist Elliot Harmon also spoke "about Aaron's legacy and how his work lives on today," according to the EFF's announcement: Aaron Swartz was a brilliant champion of digital rights, dedicated to ensuring the Internet remained a thriving ecosystem for open knowledge. EFF was proud to call him a close friend and collaborator. His life was cut short in 2013, after he was charged under the notoriously draconian Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for systematically downloading academic journal articles from the online database JSTOR.
Federal prosecutors stretch this law beyond its original purpose of stopping malicious computer break-ins, reserving the right to push for heavy penalties for any behavior they don't like that happens to involve a computer. This was the case for Aaron, who was charged with eleven counts under the CFAA. Facing decades in prison, Aaron died by suicide at the age of 26. He would have turned 34 this year, on November 8.
In addition to EFF projects, the hackathon will focus on projects including SecureDrop, Open Library, and the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project. The full lineup of speakers includes Aaron Swartz Day co-founder Lisa Rein, SecureDrop lead Mickael E., researcher Mia Celine, Lucy Parsons Lab founder Freddy Martinez, and Brewster Kahle — co-founder of Aaron Swartz Day and the Internet Archive.
All of the presentations are now online.
Its official web site notes the wide-ranging event includes "projects and ideas that are still bearing fruit to this day, such as SecureDrop, Open Library, and the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project." The event even included a virtual session for the Atlas of Surveillance project which involved documenting instances of law enforcement using surveillance technologies like social media monitoring, automated license plate readers, and body-worn cameras. And EFF special advisor Cory Doctorow, director of strategy Danny O'Brien, and senior activist Elliot Harmon also spoke "about Aaron's legacy and how his work lives on today," according to the EFF's announcement: Aaron Swartz was a brilliant champion of digital rights, dedicated to ensuring the Internet remained a thriving ecosystem for open knowledge. EFF was proud to call him a close friend and collaborator. His life was cut short in 2013, after he was charged under the notoriously draconian Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for systematically downloading academic journal articles from the online database JSTOR.
Federal prosecutors stretch this law beyond its original purpose of stopping malicious computer break-ins, reserving the right to push for heavy penalties for any behavior they don't like that happens to involve a computer. This was the case for Aaron, who was charged with eleven counts under the CFAA. Facing decades in prison, Aaron died by suicide at the age of 26. He would have turned 34 this year, on November 8.
In addition to EFF projects, the hackathon will focus on projects including SecureDrop, Open Library, and the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project. The full lineup of speakers includes Aaron Swartz Day co-founder Lisa Rein, SecureDrop lead Mickael E., researcher Mia Celine, Lucy Parsons Lab founder Freddy Martinez, and Brewster Kahle — co-founder of Aaron Swartz Day and the Internet Archive.
All of the presentations are now online.
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By taking a massive shit on his grave. He was a scumbag felon and the world is a better place now that he’s dead.
Because borrowing too many library books at once should totally be a capital offense. There's a cushy DEA job waiting for you.
https://despair.com/products/mistakes (Score:1, Interesting)
It could be that the purpose of Aaron Swartz's life was to serve as a warning to others: When people tell you to stop abusing their servers, stop illegally copying content, and stop sneaking your computer onto their network, maybe it's a good idea to stop before the people in charge of copyright law, interstate trade and interstate communications get involved.
Slashdot censorship in play (Score:3, Insightful)
All comments that are negative about Aaron's behavior are being censored here. Perhaps a comment about the censorship will be permitted?
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I'm only reading negative comments. Are you sure it's not the other way?
Ok (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll honor him by once again forgetting he existed.
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He did not "break the law". The sites he was downloading have free access at MIT. But MIT got upset because he wrote a script to download the sites to his system, leaving the laptop in a closet. At most it was trespassing, but the prosecutor saw a big chance to have a high-profile case so he was treated like a mass-murder.
So much for the "hacker" culture MIT pretends to embrace.
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leaving the laptop in a closet.
And why was the laptop in the closet? He didn't have permission to be in that closet in the first place and second, he knew he didn't have permission because he tried to hide the laptop under a box in that closet so someone else wouldn't see it. He then went back to the laptop and switched out hard drives.
In other words, he broke the law.
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This Aaron Swartz just inst the hero the EFF wants to make him out to be. He certainly broke at least various trespass laws and while we will never have the trial outcomes to say one way or the other officially almost certainly was guilty on at least some of the other counts.
Moreover he certainly broke the spirit of those shared access agreements. If they had wanted that information fully and freely public it would have been. Its not like lack of resources was preventing them sticking it all public http/f
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the road not taken (Score:1)
i tried to get a job at jstor back in the day, they were at the bleeding edge of digitizing human knowledge. i didnt get it.
wound up making $10/hour on a graveyard shift job for several years.
i used to think i had missed my big chance. but after reading about the details of this case, maybe i ended up with the better result.
no part of my job requires cooperating with federal prosecutors while reporting to a boss who was so unimaginative about how to solve someone mass downloading articles that their
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prison should be not be a punishment for non-violent offenders. period.
Pardon one offense, and you encourage the commission of many. - Publilius Syrus
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Bernie Maddox sends you his love.
GPS tracker, weekly meeting with a probation officer plus the inevitable publicity in the WSJ will take care of him.
Jeffrey Epstein
Not sure if what he was suspected of could be considered as non-violent.
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prison should be not be a punishment for non-violent offenders. period.
Suddenly you made Trump a very happy man.
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free-information advocate (Score:3, Interesting)
Aaron was first and foremost an advocate for free information. He would be rolling in his grave if he could see how his creations have been subverted by closed-minded fascists. Reddit even removed him as co-founder from their About page, just like Stalin once airbrushed Trotsky out of existence. Absolutely disgusting and disgraceful behaviour from a once decent website.
Sadly the number of people who care about free software and free information is diminishing rapidly. Either bullied to death as was the case with poor Aaron or simply deplatformed as is happening with other tech luminaries. Where is the future of free software, or any software for that matter, when all thats left are walled gardens and corporations?