Aaron Swartz Day Commemorated With 'Those Carrying on the Work' (aaronswartzday.org) 42
Friday "would have been his 38th birthday," writes the EFF, remembering Aaron Swartz as "a digital rights champion who believed deeply in keeping the internet open..." And they add that today the official web site for Aaron Swartz Day honored his memory with a special podcast "featuring those carrying on the work around issues close to his heart," including an appearance by Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive.
The first speaker is Ryan Shapiro, FOIA expert and co-founder of the national security transparency non-profit Property of the People. The Aaron Swartz Day site calls him "the researcher who discovered why the FBI had such an interest in Aaron in the years right before the JSTOR fiasco." (That web page calls it an "Al Qaeda phishing expedition that left Aaron with an 'International Terrorism Investigation' code in his FBI database file forever," as reported by Gizmodo.)
Other speakers on the podcast include:
The first speaker is Ryan Shapiro, FOIA expert and co-founder of the national security transparency non-profit Property of the People. The Aaron Swartz Day site calls him "the researcher who discovered why the FBI had such an interest in Aaron in the years right before the JSTOR fiasco." (That web page calls it an "Al Qaeda phishing expedition that left Aaron with an 'International Terrorism Investigation' code in his FBI database file forever," as reported by Gizmodo.)
Other speakers on the podcast include:
- Nathan Dyer of SecureDrop, Newsroom Support Engineer for the Freedom of the Press Foundation with an update on SecureDrop
- Tracey Jaquith, Founding Coder and TV Architect at the Internet Archive, discussing "Microservices, Monoliths, and Operational Security — The Internet Archive in 2024."
- Tracy Rosenberg, co-founder of the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project and Oakland Privacy, with "an update on the latest crop of surveillance battles."
- Ryan Sternlicht, VR developer, educator, researcher, advisor, and maker, on "The Next Layer of Reality: Social Identity and the New Creator Economy."
- Grant Smith Ellis, Chairperson of the Board, MassCann and Legal Intern at the Parabola Center, on "Jury Trials in the Age of Social Media."
- Michael "Mek" Karpeles, Open Library, Internet Archive, on "When it Rains at the Archive, Build an Ark — Book bans, Lawsuits, & Breaches."
The site also seeks to showcase SecureDrop and Open Library, projects started by Aaron before his death, as well as new projects "directly inspired by Aaron and his work."
RIP (Score:1)
Mental health (Score:3)
If you put mental health in your sight instead of thinking he was ok, maybe you'd actually do things that are worth while.
Instead, you do this.
He killed himseof because of people like you.
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Guarantee this dude you're insulting has contributed more to the world in his short time on this Earth than you will with your long unfortunate time here.
Additionally, I can tell you've never been to jail or prison by your choice of words, which makes you doubly ignorant.
Looking at your comment history and name, you don't even look like a real slashdot user, you look and act like some political spam bot.
Go back to Reddit or 4chan
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Maybe we should not ask even more people to leave. This place is empty.
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He killed himself because he was a coward unwilling or unable to face a few months in prison for his multiple committed felonies.
His 'crime': checking out too many library booka at one time.
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Ezra did nothing for mental health except glorify pointless suicide as somehow being helpful to anyone at all, which it was not. If anything, his abuse of JSTOR cut off access to mental health resources for students, researchers, and medical staff at MIT who used JSTOR.
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He tried to commit suicide before he was ever arrested.
Re: what work being "carried on"? (Score:2)
I have a hard time accepting the idea that the vast majority of university research is funded by the government, whether directly through grants or indirectly through tuition subsidies, and somehow that research is not publicly available.
Swartz may have broken a law, but ethically he was in the right. Artificial barriers to knowledge are not okay. They harm society and make democracy untenable because the knowledge people need to make informed votes is locked away. Climate research is behind a paywall while
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Have you done any scientific research whatsoever? Have you published anything at all? JSTOR is not an artificial barrier, they are a non-profit that makes the entire body of research literature available to schools and researchers for a _very_ modest fee, organized, searchable, and downloadable for local use. It's about $200/year for an individual, and $500/TB for public libraries. It has other very generous terms for other types of libraries, and that's about enough to keep the servers alive and the editor
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Ah yes, a non-profit keeping millions of OTHER PEOPLES' WORK locked behind a paywall. What saints! How could this gentle non-profit ever take issue with someone getting in the way of their profits?
You talk like you're their sales rep.
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Because a paper just summarizes the state of a research project, nothing is being stolen. The research itself goes on, and that paper was published because the author wants to make the research public.
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Re: what work being "carried on"? (Score:2)
What are you talking about? It looks like he got one four days ago. It's pretty close to the top even. Besides, I'm sure I've slaughtered more sacred cows on slashdot than he has, including this one. You guys have no idea how martyrdom works. Basically it turns any ordinary asshole, including one who has done some pretty bad shit in his life and basically nothing good at all, into a hero. See George Floyd.
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It'd be especially nice to sort by average rating, that way I don't have to read things posted by people who can barely read themselves
Martyr? Criminal? It's complicated... (Score:3, Insightful)
While there’s no doubt that Aaron Swartz made valuable contributions to the internet as we know it—his involvement with Creative Commons, Reddit, and RSS clearly show his impact—there’s a disconnect between his ideals and some of his choices. Yes, Swartz fought for open access to information, but he ultimately became a criminal, sidestepping ethical boundaries and legal restrictions in the process.
Downloading millions of documents from JSTOR by manipulating MIT's network access was not a minor infraction; it was a deliberate breach that risked repercussions for MIT’s access to JSTOR. In fact, JSTOR temporarily suspended MIT's access to its database to prevent further unauthorized activity. This action was taken to protect the integrity of JSTOR's services and to ensure fair access for all users. While JSTOR did not impose long-term penalties on MIT, the incident led to increased security measures and more stringent access policies at JSTOR -- the exact opposite of Swartz's stated goals. Swartz’s actions jeopardized access for the community he aimed to support, showing a willingness to act unilaterally and disregard both institutional rules and, arguably, all individuals who rely on JSTOR, and not just the students and faculty at MIT.
This “liberation” of data might seem noble on the surface, but it's also fundamentally flawed in execution. Swartz didn’t just oppose a paywall; he decided to take matters into his own hands, which could be seen as an act of arrogance rather than activism. Other activists have effectively fought for open access within legal bounds, helping change the very policies he broke. If we’re to take seriously his intentions for a better, more open world, it’s worth asking why he chose criminality over lawful advocacy.
There’s another difficult aspect here: Swartz’s suicide is often portrayed as a reaction to harsh prosecution, yet activists who truly believe in their cause—even in the face of injustice—usually fight back or seek change, not exit in despair. That he ultimately took his own life is tragic but complicates the narrative of a determined visionary. Real change-makers are often those who see even in prosecution an opportunity for reform. We’re left to wonder if his motives were perhaps more complicated or conflicted than simply “fighting for open access.”
Swartz was undeniably talented and played a significant role in internet history. But before elevating him to martyrdom, we should critically assess the message his actions send, especially given that there are constructive ways to push for change within society’s legal frameworks.
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ensure fair access for all users
What exactly do you think Swartz was trying to do?
"Carrrying on the work" (Score:2, Informative)
The work of stealing from reference libraries to equip your own unfunded unstable, entirely non-existent library? Aaron wasn't a "liberator", he was a thief who couldn't even be bothered to engage in the "tragedy of the commons" with his own Harvard library permissions. He bothered to sneak into an MIT wiring closet and overwhelm JSTOR servers with his theft from there, getting MIT staff and students cut off from that vital research and scientific resource. Aaron earned jail time, since this was far from th
Nothing new at all (Score:2)
The misplaced FBI interest in possible military espionage was revealed to the public during the time between Aaron's arrest and his suicide. There was no published hint that Aaron was trying to do anything other than mirroring all of JSTOR for his personally created "free library", the not physically existing, unfunded, unsustainable, and copyright violation project he sought to create. Even if the site had existed for even a day, the flood of copyright notices to any legitimate ISP and the vulnerability of
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Anna's Archive and sci-hub are shadow libraries, acting as middle-men to illegally copied Torrent sites. The large value of JSTOR is not merely copies of the material, but the indix to _find_ and reference material.
Both Anna's Archive and sci-hub are basically botnet services which infect their foolishly optimistic users hosts with spam and abuse tools. Both of them also have their Torrents heavily poisoned with fake listings. They are dangerous to all their users due to the lack of validation and security
Re: Nothing new at all (Score:2)
Even if the site had existed for even a day, the flood of copyright notices to any legitimate ISP and the vulnerability of such services to court ordered shutdown would have closed it with a day of active service, at most.
As the users of any video torrent services can confirm :-/
FBI File (Score:2)
an 'International Terrorism Investigation' code in his FBI database file
From what I've seen, the FBI throws these around far more than is justified. On the other hand, Those risking such a mark in the face of advice against such behavior seem not to care. In fact, getting on to a DoJ 'watch list' seems to be a badge of honor in some circles.
I could tell you more. But then I'd have to kill you.