Aaron Swartz Day Commemorated With International Hackathon

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland shares this announcement from the EFF's DeepLinks blog:

This weekend, EFF is celebrating the life and work of programmer, activist, and entrepreneur Aaron Swartz by participating in the 2022 Aaron Swartz Day and Hackathon. This year, the event will be held in person at the Internet Archive in San Francisco on Nov. 12 and Nov. 13. It will also be livestreamed; links to the livestream will be posted each morning.

Those interested in attending in-person or remotely can register for the event here.

Aaron Swartz was a digital rights champion who believed deeply in keeping the internet open. His life was cut short in 2013, after federal prosecutors charged him under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for systematically downloading academic journal articles from the online database JSTOR. Facing the prospect of a long and unjust sentence, Aaron died by suicide at the age of 26....

Those interested in working on projects in Aaron's honor can also contribute to the annual hackathon, which this year includes several projects: SecureDrop, Bad Apple, the Disability Technology Project (Sat. only), and EFF's own Atlas of Surveillance. In addition to the hackathon in San Francisco, there will also be concurrent hackathons in Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil. For more information on the hackathon and for a full list of speakers, check out the official page for the 2022 Aaron Swartz Day and Hackathon.
Speakers this year include Chelsea Manning and Cory Doctorow, as well as Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, EFF executive director Cindy Cohn, and Creative Commons co-founder Lisa Rein.

Re:

[n.sider]

Or Snowden.

Re:

[Nixoloco]

It's not mentioned *anywhere* in that article that it was the Obama Justice Dept. that threatened him with that grossly disproportional sentence.

... as if it would have happened any differently under a Trump, Biden, or some other administration's Department of "Justice."

They often throw everything at you* to try to force a plea.

* Some exclusions apply depending on levels of affluence

Re:

[russotto]

Sure, it's playing poker with an unlimited bankroll. Even if they've got nothing they can make it too expensive to call. And if they drive the defendant to suicide... well, that sort of deterrence works even better than felony convictions and jail sentences. All it requires is a prosecutor with no morals... but I repeat myself.

Re:

[_merlin]

Oh geez, a troll two levels deep - intentionally confusing Aaron Swartz with Aaron Carter, and then intentionally confusing Aaron Carter with Nick Carter. Well done.

Anyone notice a funny smell around the EFF?

[shanen]

But first, the usual question for such a context: "Why are you propagating the AC troll's BS Subject?" Though I admit that I sort of want to congratulate it on an especially cunning angle for the black hole spin on the story.

My primary reaction to the story is to wonder if the EFF is feeling some remorse for failing to help. The smell of death? But maybe it's the EFF's own? Is this a purely disinterested commemorative event? Or is there some personal history here? Maybe a timeline in which Swartz asked the

Re:

[blahplusplus]

>

My primary reaction to the story is to wonder if the EFF is feeling some remorse for failing to help. The smell of death? But maybe it's the EFF's own? Is this a purely disinterested commemorative event? Or is there some personal history here? Maybe a timeline in which Swartz asked the EFF to help out and got the same kind of black hole reaction I've received from the EFF a couple of times?

The EFF is a front for google and other mega corporations they corrupted the eff immediately. Remember google is now part of the anti-piracy coalition, they are no longer heroes, they've changed their tune to be pro copyright maximalists and eff is all about trusted computing, so you can't trust the EFF.

Trusted computing is about transfering ownership of our PC with secrete metadata and filesystems for new cpus that you can't access that Intel, AMD and the rest of the industry are developing to hand your c

Re:

[shanen]

Some of what you write sounds plausible, but your presentation makes it sound like you should be dismissed as some sort of conspiracy theorist. Basically sufficient to dissuade me from clicking or investing more time on it.

One part does conflict with my personal evidence. If the google is sincerely against piracy, then the YouTube support of mass piracy is a funny way to show it.

Re:

[blahplusplus]

Some of what you write sounds plausible, but your presentation makes it sound like you should be dismissed as some sort of conspiracy theorist. Basically sufficient to dissuade me from clicking or investing more time on it.

One part does conflict with my personal evidence. If the google is sincerely against piracy, then the YouTube support of mass piracy is a funny way to show it.

You have to understand the work Intel, AMD, google, and the game industry on DRM, encrypted computing and trusted computing. It sounds like you don't have any background in the computer industry, everyone who has a clue knows client-server software like steam, mmos, are the return of mainframe computing and the end of the PC.

From 2001:

https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com]

Another:

https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com]

FAQ (old but good enough)

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja1... [cam.ac.uk]

TIFCA (cloud computing == software as a se

Re:

[blahplusplus]

I'd recommend against referencing a silly tabloid like the The Register. I've seen them exaggerate and outright lie too many times to waste any more time reading it.

The register has always posted the truth regarding trusted computing, everyone knew in the late 90's and early 2000's when napster caused corporate execs heads to explode, you got to understand the entire corporate class wants to kill the PC. They see it as a threat to their business model.

Re:

[shanen]

NAK

Re:

[blahplusplus]

NAK

You want to translate that to english?

Public masturbation of 757119

[shanen]

Z^-1

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

It's not mentioned *anywhere* in that article that it was the Obama Justice Dept. that threatened him with that grossly disproportional sentence.

To be fair, that is standard behavior at the DOJ.

They file exaggerated charges and threaten the maximum sentence to intimidate defendants into accepting a plea bargain.

Even when defendants are innocent and have the evidence to prove it*, the process will bankrupt them.

About 90% of federal defendants accept plea bargains. 10% refuse, and then 80% of those have the charges dismissed because the DOJ doesn't have a case. Only 2% go to trial.

* No, there is no "presumption of innocence". That is not reality.

Re: Convieniently

[Anonymouse Cowtard]

I don't know where we'd be without you.

Re:

[maybe111]

Obama is a good speaker but that's about it... behind the curtain he is a monster

Re:

[Miles_O'Toole]

If you want to see one of those people who insist Obama is a socialist laugh, tell them his political agenda is actually to the right of Richard Nixon's. If you want to see them melt down into a whining mess of incompetent drivel, prove it to them (which isn't difficult).

Re:

[backslashdot]

How so?

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Obama is the same kind of scum that every president but Carter has been in living memory: a war criminal.

Notably, extrajudicial rendition, a fun word for murdering people without showing why you should murder people, went up steeply under Obama.

It's worth noting in the same breath though that again, Obama is just the same kind of piece of shit as those who came before and after him. Obama promised to run the most transparent administration in history, but it was actually the most opaque... at the time. Tru

You're feeding the troll

[shanen]

But it was a thoughtful and even interesting comment in spite of that. Not relevant to the actual story, but that was the troll's intention, and I'm sure it thanks you.

Re:

[quonset]

Obama is a good speaker but that's about it... behind the curtain he is a monster

Yes, a complete monster with his cheating on all three wives, including sleeping with a Playboy model while his third wife was pregnant, his multiple failed businesses, using illegal immigrants at his failing propertires, the stealing of boxes of classified government documents. And let's not get into him looking down at the pope [independent.co.uk].

Re:

[DrXym]

Which would have come down during the usual plea bargaining.

Re:

[mrex]

The government is threatening a billionaire protection-racket style because he bought a social media company and is refusing to censor political expression.

The EFF is silent on all this.