Aaron Swartz
Internet activist Aaron Swartz killed himself yesterday in New York. He was 26.
Aaron had long suffered from depression and other medical issues, but at the time of his death he was facing a more tangible challenge as well — a thirteen count federal felony indictment arising from a 2011 incident in which he snuck into MIT and downloaded a huge number of academic journal articles from the website JSTOR.
JSTOR declined to press charges, as did MIT, but the government went after him anyway, and went after him very very hard. He pled not guilty last December. The charges were moving forward.
I don’t want to talk too much about that, though. You can read more about it elsewhere, and if you’ve got your
Aaron had long suffered from depression and other medical issues, but at the time of his death he was facing a more tangible challenge as well — a thirteen count federal felony indictment arising from a 2011 incident in which he snuck into MIT and downloaded a huge number of academic journal articles from the website JSTOR.
JSTOR declined to press charges, as did MIT, but the government went after him anyway, and went after him very very hard. He pled not guilty last December. The charges were moving forward.
I don’t want to talk too much about that, though. You can read more about it elsewhere, and if you’ve got your
