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https://rt.com/news/aaron-swartz-suicide-reddit-858/

 :'(

After reading this last a few minutes ago, I wondered if this guy was on SSRI meds or something.  There ought to be better ways to get people that bottle up their emotions to seek help.

A swallow your pride pill so to speak.

I mean, how troubled was the guy that his only way out was a premature death, he should have been rich,m reddit.com sold for a lot of money if I remember correctly.

He was looking at 35 years in a federal prison. SSRIs aren't going to make anyone believe that's something to look forward to.

What exactly was he looking at 35 years in prison for? Wasn't what he did legal?

For this.  Trial was due to start next month.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/reddit-co-founder-charged-with-data-theft/

Aaron Swartz memorial JSTOR torrent going up in 3,2,1...

>In 2009 Mr. Swartz downloaded 19 million pages of federal court documents from a government database system, acting on the belief that they should be made available free.

Oh wow, I remember this now. What a dumbass.

You don't enter a server room where you know damn well you're not supposed to be in because "everything should be free,man ".


Yes, of course, if it where government documents. But not when it's privately funded research. Sometime it IS in the public's best interest to not know.


That's why not every country has the same technological advances.

Even to the point where Irrigation techniques themselves are industry/government secrets.

There are some very poignant posts from people who knew Aaron Swartz on MetaFilter.

http://www.metafilter.com/123777/Open-access-open-internet-closed-book

I believe the charges would be dropped, there was something else going on with Swartz.

His struggle with depression was well documented - he blogged about it.

I'm curious why you believe that the charges would have been dropped so close to trial, though.

There was a recent decision by 9th circle, that breaking ToS or "Acceptable Use" isn't criminal. Same page mentions:


Also the website in question didn't want to press charges.

edit: I "never" was depressed. Its quiet said that very talented people take their own lives. I think I am hardwired not to be depressed, just figure out a way not to be depressed. Hitting gym, biking 100 miles a day help a lot to stay focused.

JSTOR themselves declined to pursue charges against Swartz, and urged the FBI not to prosecute.  The FBI took an extremely vindictive approach to the case and wanted to destroy Swartz utterly, whether or not there was a victim harmed.

In fact, just three days ago, JSTOR did almost exactly what Swartz had wanted in the first place, and made vast amounts of its journal articles available for free to the public.

The Register & Read Program (http://about.jstor.org/rr) is their rollout of this idea.  It's not exactly what Swartz wanted, but it's certainly a good move and will make many more people aware of a lot of information that is out there. 

Especially in light of this, it was absolutely insane for the FBI to go after this so aggressively while real crimes go unpunished.  Yes, Swartz shouldn't have done this, and it broke the law.  But it was not 35 years in prison shit.  That was insane.  In light of the fact the "victim" basically asked them to drop it, it was overkill prosecution.  Whoever spent years and maybe millions of tax dollars prosecuting this bullshit should be out of a job.

Among Swartz's other accomplishments (including co-authoring RSS when he was 14) is RECAP (https://www.recapthelaw.org/), a program for people with access to the PACER archive of federal court documents, which if you have it installed, automatically uploads anything you download to the public archive, to make it freely available.

Symptoms of a sick, degenerate and out of control bureaucratic government.

I recall back when a family member of mine had to appeal to a state supreme court over someone copying business information off a hard drive with the intent to profit of of the information. It wasn't even considered a crime back then.

I think Schwartz did the right thing in getting the files, but should only have secured them and not released them. Too many corporations and government agencies are shredding and erasing any documents that may be embarrassing. I would like to see these files stored in encrypted and decentralized storage with multi-signature and time-locked keys by anyone with access to them with suspicions about their chain of custody. Even better, would be to have all government documents signed publicly, stored encrypted and decentralized with custody balanced by separation of powers as intended by the US Constitution. No more of these secret email accounts and files.

edit: As the story unfolds, it seems that Schwartz did nothing illegal. This is a tragedy caused by bureaucratic opportunists profiting from abuse of power.

The sad thing is I've seen articles where murderers and rapists get threatened with less jail time than that.

That might have had something to do with his unfortunate decision, do you think?

that's how he got caught
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261840/Surveillance-shot-ruined-tragic-Reddit-founder-Aaron-Swartzs-life-Moment-caught-breaking-MIT-archive-sting-left-facing-30-years-jail.html

seriously dude, when i steal stuff i prefer ski mask to goofy helmet

Amazingly enough, this might actually be true.

So what was he actually stealing ( in detail ). I read it was " sensitive journals " What the fk does that mean . Was it " national security" where thousands set to die if released? Wt fuck was the punishment so harsh? Wt fuck did he do?

Some journals that were published by a government website, that just made these journals available online to public. JSTOR (the gov website) told the investigators to drop charges.. but they didn't.

Ok so is this like stealing books out of a library.?

Wait wait so they wanted to send him to jail over stealing " Journals" that were publicly available. And perhaps million in fines.  MF lobal ceo  John Corzine went in to segregated accounts and stole 1.4 billion.

He can walk.
He paid Not hi ng .
N o  th iNgg.

No its like taking out 10000 books per week out of the library using different names etc when the limit is supposed to be say 10 per week per person.

Its hardly the crime of the century.

These are the same journals that the "victim" of the "crime" later agreed with the "thief" that they should be more publicly available.  Good move on their part.  JSTOR now has a program where you can access these same journals for free (http://about.jstor.org/rr). 

Just so you can understand exactly how stupid this prosecution was, and why the "victim" did not want the "perpetrator" prosecuted.  Swartz went about this the wrong way, obviously, but he wasn't malicious and there was nothing worthy of the name "crime" here, much less something to hound a guy to death over.

I'm actually glad that some people are calling for the prosecutor's head in this case, that overzealous woman was doing it to make a name for herself, why else pursue this kid as if he was some incarnation of the devil, as some have already pointed out, many times, and quite often, murderers and rapists would get a lot less jail time.

Hell, a murderer after being releasedfrom jail, can get a federal fafsa support to pay for college, but a poor kid who ended up in jail for being caught with a little weed? Shit outta luck, should've abused alcohol instead, hell, if you go to jail for drug use/abuse you can't get a bank loan to buy  ahouse or rent an apartment, meanwhile a murderer could.

It's a sick sad world we live in.

There's never any consequences for an overzealous prosecutor. They're above the law, so also in this case, that's why they wreck people's life for a hobby, live in nice houses, have hefty paychecks, and have no material concerns in their lifes whatsoever. Sell your soul to the devil, and create a better society!!!

We lost a truly bright and progressive young man Friday.  :'(

At 14 he co-authored the RSS protocol, then later on developed web.py, worked on Creative Commons, Demand Progress, and Reddit.

The charges brought against him were no doubt excessive.

http://f.cl.ly/items/163m1w0d3V0x0k3c2J2A/299630_555534184459352_956523167_n.jpg

That's like saying the surface of the sun is "a little hot."

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

She'll probably get a promotion. That petitions site is masturbatory material for the tyrannical government. "We're doing a 'bad job' or 'the wrong thing'? Fuck yeah we are, fuck you sheep!" /fapfapfap

US Atty. Carmen Ortiz:  Another race and gender-based affirmative action baby, promptly promoted to her level of incompetence on the basis of having a vagina and a Spanish last name.

Besides the opportunity taken from the people who deserved the spot she wasted at GWU's law school and a cushy job with the gov't, her idiocy has now taken a life.

The same could have been said if Aaron had been convicted and sentenced with the full 50 years.

Not sure how old she is, but it seems like that a problem with many older (45+) politicians and officials is that they do not understand technology and the internet. She apparently said this:

"Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars."

I wonder if she really said this, if she did, then she's not very well educated in regards to the internet and technology.

If you steal someones stash of 10K USD in their house, that's theft, and the owner of those bills just lost a lot of money. If someone stores files on a computer network, and gives public access to these files, and someone downloads them, the provider still has the files, and the files are now copied. So copying is not the same as theft. If someone steals your car, your flat-screen TV or your laptop, that's theft, if someone copies a music album, a book or some other digital stuff, that's copying and not theft. It may qualify as illegall acess of sorts, for instance breaking into a company network to get files you're not supposed to access.

I also see that her spokeswoman stated:

Ortiz's office declined to comment for this story. "We want to respect the privacy of the family and do not feel it is appropriate to comment on the case at this time," said Ortiz spokeswoman Christina Sterling.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-carmen-ortiz_n_2472146.html

So what they're basically saying: Ortiz is a coward, she needs to hide behind 'spokespersons'. Why can't she speak for herself, like every normal person does ? Esp. in such an important case as this. I would not consider not speaking about this case to be respectful, I actually interpret it as outright contempt. The only thing she should really do was to resign from her position and say that she's eternally sorry for what she's done.

What the spokesperson really is saying is that they're under a lot of heat right now, and they just want time to do it's thing so that it all will cool off.

[/quote]

ortiz, me cago en tu madre si eres de pr y mil y una putas veces mas aunque no lo seas

Unfortunately this technology illiteracy is present in officials such as Congressman Lamar S. Smith (sponsor of SOPA) and many others. If only we could have educated and knowledgable representatives working for us, rather than these naive, ignorant slimeballs runnings things in DC.

Well Mr Coinman, the more seclustered a government administration is, the more out of touch it will be with the realities of modern times.

Especially when each and every congressperson is worth minimum hundreds of thousands of dollars.

These people should not have wages.

good luck ortiz is mexican   off-limits in other words....

ordinarily maybe, but not this time. she is barely able to breathe with all the shit surrounding her right now

I wish Ortiz was Mexican, so she'd be their problem instead of infecting our country.  But she is 100% our citizen, and absolutely emblematic of Obama's Brave New America.

OTOH, I don't think Anon will forget...or forgive.   ;)

Mit.edu was pwnd yesterday!

Correct , she is a mexican who lives in the U.S  which means you can't do anything or your are  racists prick ...sort of like how Obama got elected nobody could do any vetting w/o being called racist ..

now we'll reap what we sow....

He didn't steal he wanted to share. JSTOR is a government site and is owned by us - americans. In any case these documents are free to get from that website.

Petition to remove her -> http://wh.gov/E3v1, about 2K more signatures needed for the WH to respond.

Seeing the results of government oppression always makes me really sad. I hadn't even heard of Aaron Swartz before this, but this incident bothers me more than similar ones (which are far too common) because I probably would've also been tempted to publicly release the PACER and JSTOR stuff if I had access. And it's such a shame to lose such an intelligent person.

I hope he died mostly because of his mental illness and not because he saw no other way out of his situation. That'd make it a little less sad in my mind.

Ironically, Swartz was a statist. He wanted to increase the power of government even as he was fighting against government corruption/oppression. I guess it would make some sense to propose eliminating government corruption and then increasing government power, but like most statists he didn't notice this problem. (Not that this flaw made him a bad person overall. He probably had a very positive net impact on the world.)

Her being from massachusetts, I think she's puerto rican. Semantics but, myself being puerto rica, I hate other pr's with a passion.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

Incredible... the power of internet. Now already 25331 signatures. This means that the White House has to answer this issue.

I hope they answer it better than the TSA issue which was a total disgrace.

Some interesting info here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5048699

Anonymous Wt F do they do. " We are angry we are ANGry i tell you." So fkng WHAT!! They hack leave a few gore pictures and go back to masturbating to their child porn, and wanking off over their third reich pictures.  Fucking joke they fail at everything worse then the US government. To look up to these fucking filth as some kind of saviour or some sort of "protectors" of society is a joke.
A joke. we all better start taking some things in our own hands rather then to hope or expect these people will do anything effective about it.
Let alone be thanked  " Hhrrr r err "  

+1 to this

The PACER stuff is public court records.  It's been released, entirely legally.  Here's the archive. (http://archive.recapthelaw.org/)

The government charges $0.08 a page for public access to these documents, but if you have access to PACER and the RECAP extension installed (https://www.recapthelaw.org/), it automatically uploads anything you download from PACER to the permanent archive, so that it can from then on be downloaded for free.

The government does not like this, needless to say, but there is nothing illegal about it.  The most they did is put a warning on PACER sites claiming that the plugin represents a security threat.  This may be the case if what you are downloading would somehow give something away (i.e. that you or someone with RECAP is researching something), but it's easy enough to turn off the extension when appropriate.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they went after him so hard on something that was a minor illegality to retaliate for things he had done that were entirely legal.

Seems like the white house has raised the limit to 100K signers. Don't know if it applies to this petition.

Linus Torvalds, I love you! It's so refreshing to see people speak their mind like this. No bullshit. Just told plainly like it is.

His words: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LinusTorvalds/posts/ggzfzKyrcRQ (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LinusTorvalds/posts/ggzfzKyrcRQ)


http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/01/17/us-attorney-statement-on-the-prosecution-of-aaron-swartz/ (http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/01/17/us-attorney-statement-on-the-prosecution-of-aaron-swartz/)


Yes, please play the 'family' card. Personally I see it the same way as I see crocodile tears. Please could politicians please leave the personal bullshit out of their speeches. They know they're in the spotlight, and there's a reason why Obama and other politicians try to paint them selves as perfect men with picture perfect families. People are stupid, many fall for stuff like this. Look, she's only a human too. Bah..


No shit...



Swartz was innocent, and here's the evidence:
http://io9.com/5975592/aaron-swartz-died-innocent-++-here-is-the-evidence



I suggest the career should end right here. They have provably shown bad judgement. There's no point in making an example out of a defenseless young man who has comitted no crimes.



No shit...


Six months in a low security setting ? What have you been smoking ?

http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR.html




See above.


You don't.

Linus is a fucking hero. You Carmen Ortiz is a liar.

Let's not forget the misguided practice of using her gender as a replacement for actual qualifications also played an equal role in inflicting her idiocy upon the world in general, and Aaron Swartz in particular.

Notice she never had a real job in the private sector, where merit is ruthlessly assessed in every court decision.

Instead Ms. Ortiz could only fake success, using the unlimited power of the US police state to bankrupt, bully, and otherwise coerce her victims until victorious.

I wonder if Aaron still had funds sitting at Mt Gox.

I have to ask, why did Swartz want to release the articles when they're all free? I've had access to JSTOR since high school... and I still do if I could remember my login information. Plus, it's not like the articles are anything controversial or secretive.

Holly shit