Savant-genius in our time works on/with and drives a large amount of the early “Web 2.0” era that champions decentralization, openness, and freedom of information
This ethos is carried throughout his work in tech, leading him to mass copy databases that are paywalled or closed access to students, that he had permission to use, and dump the info online for free
JSTOR and MIT get salty about this, set up a sting at the school servers where he’s doing said mass copying
Prosecutor wayyyy overcharges Aaron and seeks to neuter him from using tech, Aaron gets scared and (due in part to a longstanding mental & physical illness) commits suicide
There’s more info and context, but that the broad strokes. Fuck MIT for pushing his prosecution, JSTOR was fine once he stopped uploading their database
And the people pushing for that punishment were the ones that caused it, pushing someone into committing suicide is as good murder
his blood is on their hands
I am unfamiliar with this historical event, care to explain?
Tl; Dr:
There’s more info and context, but that the broad strokes. Fuck MIT for pushing his prosecution, JSTOR was fine once he stopped uploading their database
There is actually speculation that he never intended to dump the files online for free. He was working on information research at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
Damn this is fucked up
Aaron Swartz Didn’t Kill Himself
I mean, I think we know he probably did, unfortunately.
He believed he was facing a lifetime in prison.
And the people pushing for that punishment were the ones that caused it, pushing someone into committing suicide is as good murder
his blood is on their hands
Sounds like something the D E E P S T A T E would say.
Who is this Deeps Tate guy you’re talking about? I thought there were only two dipshits.
Deep State is older brother to Firefly actress Jewel Staite, and belligerent younger brother Islamic State.
Talk about a diamond in the rough. Jewel is a treasure!
that’s very fucked up
i’d say to him to install a small computer or something (raspi?), leave it there and leak the pdfs slowly - would take weeks, maybe months
Unless you misplaced a decimal point somewhere and we’re pretty sure they’re gonna notice 80,000 PDFs copied! D:
He was arrested for bulk downloading PDFs?
he was arrested to make an example.
In the same way that whistleblowing or “leaking” evidence of a crime is punished far more severely than any crime. It’s basically a death sentence.