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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Online activist, programmer Swartz dies in N.Y.

    Online activist, programmer Swartz dies in N.Y.

    Verena Dobnik, Associated Press4:48p.m. EST January 12, 2013


    Internet activist Aaron Swartz poses for a photo in Miami Beach, Fla., on Jan. 30, 2009.(Photo: Michael Francis McElroy, The New York Times via AP)

    Story Highlights

    • Police say Swartz hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment
    • As a teenager, Swartz helped create RSS
    • In 2011, he was charged with stealing millions of scientific journals from an online archive


    NEW YORK (AP) — A co-founder of Reddit and activist who fought to make online content free to the public has been found dead, authorities confirmed Saturday, prompting an outpouring of grief from prominent voices on the intersection of free speech and the Web.

    Aaron Swartz, 26, hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment weeks before he was to go on trial on accusations that he stole millions of journal articles from an electronic archive in an attempt to make them freely available.

    He was pronounced dead Friday evening at home in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for New York's chief medical examiner.

    Swartz was a prodigy who as a young teenager helped create RSS, a family of Web feed formats used to gather updates from blogs, news headlines, audio and video for users. He later co-founded the social news website Reddit, which was later sold to Conde Nast, as well as the political action group Demand Progress, which campaigns against Internet censorship.

    In 2011, he was arrested in Boston and charged with stealing millions of articles from a computer archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Prosecutors said he broke into a computer wiring closet on campus and used his laptop for the downloads.

    Swartz pleaded not guilty to charges including wire fraud. His federal trial was to begin next month. If convicted, he faced decades in prison and a fortune in fines.
    Some legal experts considered the case unfounded, saying that MIT allows guests access to the articles and Swartz, a fellow at Harvard's Safra Center for Ethics, was a guest.

    According to a federal indictment, Swartz stole the documents from JSTOR, a subscription service used by MIT that offers digitized copies of articles from academic journals. Prosecutors said he intended to distribute the articles on file-sharing websites.

    He faced 13 felony charges, including breaching site terms and intending to share downloaded files through peer-to-peer networks, computer fraud, wire fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer, and criminal forfeiture.
    JSTOR did not press charges once it reclaimed the articles from Swartz.

    The prosecution "makes no sense," Demand Progress Executive Director David Segar said in a statement at the time. "It's like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library."

    Criticizing the government's actions in the pending prosecution, Harvard law professor and Safra Center faculty director Lawrence Lessig called himself a friend of Swartz's and wrote Saturday that "we need a better sense of justice. … The question this government needs to answer is why it was so necessary that Aaron Swartz be labeled a 'felon.'"

    Among Internet gurus, Swartz was considered a pioneer of efforts to make online information freely available.

    "Playing Mozart's Requiem in honor of a brave and brilliant man," tweeted Carl Malamud, an Internet public domain advocate who believes in free access to legally obtained files.

    Swartz aided Malamud's effort to post federal court documents for free online, rather than the few cents per page that the government charges through its electronic archive, PACER. In 2008, The New York Times reported, Swartz wrote a program to legally download the files using free access via public libraries. About 20 percent of all the court papers were made available until the government shut down the library access.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz-reddit-suicide/1828971/
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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    How soon can a blogger come up with a "News Article" that claims he was killed by:

    The Clintons, because he knew XXXX about them?

    Or

    Obama, because he discovered XXXX about him?
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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Online activist Aaron Swartz commits suicide, relative says

    CNN-6 hours ago
    Los Angeles (CNN) -- Aaron Swartz, an Internet savant who at a young age shaped the online era ... In some instances, he wrote about death.
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  4. #4
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnDoe2 View Post
    How soon can a blogger come up with a "News Article" that claims he was killed by:
    The Clintons, because he knew XXXX about them?
    Or
    Obama, because he discovered XXXX about him?
    Pretty fast and people will form their own opinions.

    Visionary internet activist Aaron Swartz found dead; was this brilliant internet revolutionary 'taken out?'
    January 13, 2013
    by Mike Adams,(NaturalNews) Adding to the list of mysterious deaths that have happened over the last few days, internet visionary and brilliant internet activist Aaron Swartz was found dead yesterday. Swartz, only 26 years old, was the co-founder of Reddit.com, the co-creator of RSS technology, and the key activist who achieved a stunning defeat of the freedom-crushing SOPA / PIPA bills in the U.S. Congress.

    Swartz was found dead yesterday, and the official story is that he committed suicide. But Swartz himself would have wanted us to question the official story and dig deeper.

    After all, his own website, Demand Progress, questions the "PROTECT-IP" act, the insanity of George Bush's Patriot Act, the censorship of free speech by Facebook, the financial scams of Goldman Sachs, the internet kill switch and much more.

    He even questioned the TSA's naked body scanners, just like I have here at Natural News.

    In fact, when I look at Aaron Swartz, I see him as the next generation of American activists who we all desperately need: energized, intelligent, freedom-loving critical thinkers who spread truth and beat back tyranny and oppression at every opportunity. It's quite clear that had Swartz not been assassinated (er, I mean "suicided"), he would have gone on to be a game changer for freedom in our world.

    Swartz was targeted by the system

    Click here to watch this important video in which Swartz describes the decentralization of information on a free internet. Swartz fully understood the power of setting information free, and this is exactly the opposite of what the corporate-government-industrial-complex wants, which is the monopolization and centralization of power.

    Click here to watch another important video in which Swartz describes how he and his friends defeated SOPA. In this video, he openly describes the government's proposed copyright legislation as a "tyranny."

    Like all truth-tellers, Swartz was branded an enemy by the system. For the act of downloading thousands of academic articles from MIT (yes, academic papers), he was hounded by the FBI, arrested and charged with crimes that could have earned him up to 50 years in prison.

    From the charges that were leveled against him for the relatively mild offense of downloading academic papers, it's very clear that somebody powerful was out to destroy him.

    Apparently they did just that.

    Who benefits from the death of Aaron Swartz?

    Who benefits? Hollywood and all its tyrannical copyright-pushing maniacs who want to criminalize anyone who downloads a movie off the internet.

    The MPAA, in other words. That's the Motion Picture Association of America. Former U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd is the key lobbyist representing the MPAA. He's now the chairperson and CEO of the MPAA, which has a long history of operating much like a mafia organization in its use of threats and mafia-style intimidation tactics.

    In fact, if the MPAA joined with the RIAA (recording industry association), it would create the MAFIAA, jokes one website. See also www.MafiaaFire.com

    Would this mafia pay good money to have Aaron Swartz killed? (Are you kidding me? Do I even have to answer this question?)

    Mysterious deaths of people who question government now becoming more frequent

    The official explanation is that Swartz "hanged himself" with a rope in his own apartment. I'm certain that sooner or later additional information will come out about how he also knocked out his own teeth and beat himself badly before hanging himself, because that's the way these "suicides" of activists usually turn out.

    Swartz's death is just one of many mysterious deaths that have recently taken place. Just a few days ago, a celebrated rifle manufacturer named John Noveske was killed in a mysterious car crash -- not long after posting details of all the school shooters who were taking psychiatric drugs.

    Another prominent internet technology pioneer committed "suicide" just over a year ago. Ilya Zhitomirskiy co-created Diaspora, the so-called 'Facebook-killer' technology that created a free, decentralized technology system that posed a severe threat to the data-mining monopoly of Facebook.

    It has also been reported and confirmed that radio host Alex Jones was stalked by gun-toting goons while in New York to appear on CNN. They tried to force him into some sort of altercation, but he escaped by hailing a cab and fleeing the area.

    The next day, CNN guests announced live on the air that Piers Morgan should shoot Alex Jones with an AR-15, and they even threatened Alex's children with a thinly-veiled comment about "I hope his children don't die."

    Furthermore, another person I know who is a powerful activist for truth and freedom was very nearly killed yesterday in what looks like a planned automobile accident. He doesn't yet wish to release his name or any further details, but from what he described to me, he was just "inches" away from being turned into roadkill.

    As these mysterious deaths start to add up, intelligent people are asking questions: Is this part of a deliberate assassination campaign to take out top activists who question the government?

    It's not an unreasonable question given our current political climate and the existence of Obama's secret kill list. Even Ron Paul has openly asked the question of who is on Obama's kill list.

    I am NOT suicidal, depressed or on any drugs or medications

    For the record, no one has attempted to kill me in at least the last 18 months. I am not aware of any threats against me, and I haven't noticed anyone following me or stalking me.

    But just for the record, in case something happens to me, I am NOT suicidal or depressed or unhappy with life. I'm thrilled to be alive, thrilled to keep moving humanity forward, and thrilled to be part of what can only be called a mass awakening of spiritual freedom in our world.

    I'm not taking any medications whatsoever (and haven't for decades), I do not drink alcohol, I do not use ANY recreational drugs whatsoever, I don't visit prostitutes and I'm not in any way a violent person. In fact, I can't even stand the thought of shooting animals (which is why I don't hunt). I actually avoid stepping on ants!

    I don't drive at fast speeds on the highway, I don't engage in dangerous hobbies like skydiving, and I'm actually very safety-minded about everything I do.

    While I take precautions to protect myself from bad people, I'm obviously not going to detail those on the internet. All I can say is that if someone comes to kill me, they'd better be ready to take some casualties in the process.

    I very much doubt people like Aaron Swartz knew much about self defense. He probably didn't even own a gun. But this is a lesson all activists need to take to heart right now: Get armed. Go get trained in basic self defense. Start moving through your environments (cities, streets, parking lots, apartment buildings, etc.) with more of a "tactical" mindset.

    Be aware of your surroundings. Stop using credit cards as they instantly reveal your physical location. Turn off your cell phones and remove their batteries whenever possible.

    If you don't learn to live a lot like a fugitive, you too might soon be "suicided" as part of what appears to be a national purge of the very best humanity has to offer.

    Learn more: Visionary internet activist Aaron Swartz found dead; was this brilliant internet revolutionary 'taken out?'
    Last edited by Newmexican; 01-13-2013 at 11:29 AM.

  5. #5
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Aaron Swartz, 1986-2013: a computer hacker who is now a political martyr

    15 hrs ago

    Virginia Heffernan is the national correspondent for Yahoo! News, covering culture and politics from a digital perspective. She wrote extensively on Internet culture during her eight years as a staff writer for The New York Times, and she has also worked at Harper’s, the New Yorker and Slate. Her new book, Magic and Loss: The Pleasures of the Internet, will be published in early 2013.

    By Virginia Heffernan

    "Aaron Swartz's death is a loss for all humanity," Jacob Applebaum, a distinguished hacker, said by email to me today.

    He was a "Web genius," wrote Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard Law School professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

    But just after Swartz died, on Friday, Lessig had wondered about another epithet used to describe him. “The question this government needs to answer is why it was so necessary that Swartz be labeled a 'felon.'"

    Aaron Swartz was a hacker-activist and a committed liberator of information. Facing federal charges, a possible sentence of 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine, for downloading subscription-only academic papers with the intent to distribute them, Swartz hanged himself in his apartment in Brooklyn on Friday. He was 26.

    Sample papers Swartz attempted to set free include "John Berryman: The Poetics of Martyrdom" and "Mapping the Niger, 1798-1832: Trust, Testimony and 'Ocular Demonstration' in the Late Enlightenment." On its own initiative, JSTOR, which hosts the academic papers and never pressed charges against Swartz, started offering limited free access to its archive just this week.

    "Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial," Susan Swartz, Swartz's mother, posted on a hacker section of the Ycombinator Web site today. "But we had no idea what he was going through was this painful."


    Aaron Swartz (image via The Atlantic Wire)

    If Swartz's death plunged his admirers and colleagues into deep mourning, it also activated their fury. Though his suicide had no doubt many causes, Swartz may have come as close as anyone in recent memory to dying for a political movement. Those over 40 will have to think back to counterculture martyrs of the early 60s to find a comparably galvanizing figure in the current circle of hacker-activisits. The prodigy developer, at 14, of RSS feeds, Swartz also agitated without cease—or compensation—for the free-culture movement.

    Two years ago, in January, 2011, Swartz was arrested for, essentially, setting information free—as an animal-rights activist might liberate a zoo. In 2008, he had thrown open PACER, a subscription-only trove of federal judicial documents. And then he had downloaded the 4.8 million articles from JSTOR. Of course, thanks to the magic of electronic reproduction, the articles still exist on the JSTOR site.

    Swartz was charged, then, with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and damaging a protected computer.

    "I don't fully understand the reasons that he took his own life," Applebaum, who worked with Swartz on security projects, told me. "If it has to do with the thought of nearly endless pain of prison for working toward an open culture, I empathize with the goals and certainly with the stress." (Applebaum was himself the subject of a federal investigation for his connection with Wikileaks.)

    "Such a jackboot on one's throat creates atomized people, which contributes to deep despair and depression."

    As Applebaum and Lessig eulogize their hero, it's time a wider audience appreciate his achievements. Applebaum cites especially Tor2Web, Swartz's security project, and his Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto. The Manifesto, which lays out Swartz's politics, should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the open-culture movement.

    http://news.yahoo.com/what-we-learned-from-aaron-swartz-s-suicide-004332081.html
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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Virginia Heffernan is the national correspondent for Yahoo! News, covering culture and politics from a digital perspective. She wrote extensively on Internet culture during her eight years as a staff writer for The New York Times, and she has also worked at Harper’s, the New Yorker and Slate. Her new book, Magic and Loss: The Pleasures of the Internet, will be published in early 2013.
    Interesting resume.

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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    While researching this hacker I stumbled across the strangest article:

    http://www.alipac.us/f19/inside-unde...rtment-270316/

    Note: Tor is a legitimate service used by individuals living under repressive governments worldwide to communicate outside the reach of intelligence services. Much of the content on Tor, however, is illegal under U.S. law.
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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Sunday, January 13, 2013

    Fighting Back Against the 'Intellectual Property' Racket




    Aaron Swartz protesting SOPA (Demand Progress)

    Tony Cartalucci, Contributor
    Activist Post

    In your standard dictatorship, activists are brought out back and shot.

    In the United States' crypto-dictatorship, activists are bullied by the state until they go bankrupt, are buried under a mountain of legal woes, are publicly discredited or humiliated, or as in the case of activist and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz, made to crack under the constant pressure, and commit suicide.

    While superficially the United States may seem more progressive, a dead activist bullied to death for his political views, is a dead activist - whether it was a bullet in the back of the head by SS officers, or a mountain of litigation dumped upon someone by the US Department of Justice.

    We are All Aaron Swartz.

    Swartz was an active opponent of the media industry's various assaults on Internet freedom and sharing, including the scandalous SOPA/PIPA and ACTA bills.

    Aaron was the director of Demand Progress, which pursued the following campaigns:
    The big business lobbyists who are behind the Internet Blacklist Bill are already making the sequel. The “Ten Strikes” bill would make it a felony to stream copyrighted content — like music in the background of a YouTube video, movies and TV shows — more than ten times.
    Click here to read the text of the bill and voice your opposition.

    2. Oppose Protect-IP


    We knew that members of Congress and their business allies were gearing up to pass a revised Internet Blacklist Bill — which more than 325,000 Demand Progress members helped block last winter — but we never expected it to be this atrocious. Last year’s bill has been renamed the “PROTECT IP” Act and it is far worse than its predecessor.

    The new PROTECT-IP Act retains the censorship components from COICA, but adds a new one: It bans people from having serious conversations about the blacklisted sites. Under the new bill, anyone “referring or linking” to a blacklisted site is prohibited from doing so and can be served with a blacklist order forcing them to stop.
    3. Bin Laden Is Dead. Will The Patriot Act Live On?

    The Patriot Act was enacted as a supposedly temporary measure in the wake of 9-11. With Bin Laden’s passing, the era of the Patriot Act, of spying on Americans who aren’t suspected of crimes, of heavy-handed abuse of our dearly held civil liberties, must come to an end.
    >
    We need to act now to make sure we win this fight. Tens of thousands of Demand Progress members have already urged Congress to fix the Patriot Act. Will you ask Congress and the President to return us to the legal norms that existed before 9-11 and start respecting our civil liberties?
    4. Tell Facebook: Stop Censoring Political Speech

    A range of Facebook users, from political dissidents to technology bloggers, are reporting the sudden blocking of their pages. Facebook provided no prior warning, nor was there a clear process established to restore access to the blocked pages.
    Will you fight back?
    5. Tell The DOJ: Investigate Goldman Sachs

    Investigators discovered that Goldman traders bragged about selling “shitty” deals to clients and the mega-bank bet against the same financial products it was selling to investors. And they’ve lied about it all the way to the bank.

    Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and small-time homeowners are in jail for mortgage fraud, but no CEOs have been prosecuted for their roles in the financial crisis. It’s time to change that.

    6. Tell Your Lawmakers: Shut Down The New Debtors’ Prisons

    Americans are in more debt than ever before, and the banks are going to new extremes to squeeze us for every last penny: If you can’t pay up, they’ll try to get you locked up.
    7. Could the Government Really Shut Down Facebook?

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are out of control. They’ve been seizing domain names without due process: they shut down 84,000 sites by accident last month, arrested a man for linking to other websites, and government officials think ICE and DHS are claiming powers that would even threaten sites like Facebook.
    8. Fight Internet ‘Kill Switch’

    Are our leaders better than Egypt’s? Across the globe, governments know that the Internet is increasingly the lifeblood of democracy — that’s why Egypt’s oppressive regime just shut down the Internet there.
    But even as American politicians condemn Egypt for doing so, they’re pushing legislation to give our government the power to do the exact same thing here at home! The so-called ‘Kill Switch’ would let the president turn off our Internet — without a court even having to approve the decision.
    Join over 40,000 in fighting it. Add your name!
    9. Let the PATRIOT Act Expire


    The most noxious parts of the USA PATRIOT Act are about to expire — but Congress wants to extend them again. These provisions let the government spy on people without naming them in a warrant, and secretly access your library and bank records under a gag order prohibiting anyone from letting you know.
    Join over 60,000 in opposing extension. Add your name!
    10. No Mandatory Internet IDs!

    Commerce Secretary Gary Locke just announced that he’s developing virtual ID cards for Internet users — and they could pose a severe threat to our privacy! The program’s called the “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” and the draft proposal indicates that we’d be forced to use the IDs for any online transactions with the government, and for online interactions with businesses that use them.
    Over 30,000 have told Gary Locke to back off.Add your name!
    11. Protect Whistleblowers at Big Banks

    Crimes committed by the big banks helped crash our economy — and WikiLeaks is saying that a whistle-blower has sent them enough evidence to take down Bank of America. So now the big banks are fighting back by trying to get the government to muzzle future whistle-blowers.
    Tell the SEC not to listen to them. Add your name!
    12. Don’t Let them Outlaw WikiLeaks!

    Politicians are leading the charge to outlaw WikiLeaks and undermine freedom of the press. First Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) successfully pressured Amazon.com to stop hosting the WikiLeaks website and now, as Julian Assange has been arrested in the UK, he’s introduced a new bill changing the law to make WikiLeaks illegal.
    More than 30,000 have signed our petition to stop him. Add your name!
    13. Stop the TSA’s Nude Scanners!

    Across the country, TSA is replacing airport metal detectors with scanners that take nude photos of you — violating your rights, zapping you with X-rays that could cause cancer, and slowing down the lines. And if you opt-out, they feel up your “sensitive regions.”
    Lawmakers in New Jersey and Idaho are trying to stop them. Let’s get a similar bill introduced in every state! Contact your lawmaker!
    14. Stop the Internet Blacklist!

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are out of control. They’ve been seizing domain names without due process: they shut down 84,000 sites by accident last month, arrested a man for linking to other websites, and government officials think ICE and DHS are claiming powers that would even threaten sites like Facebook.
    Over 300,000 signers! Add your name!
    PLUS: Download our new flyer for our Stop The Internet Blacklist

    campaign and start a grassroots movement in your area!
    Clearly, Demand Progress is not just another faux-NGO working in tandem with special interests under the guise of "human rights," "freedom," and "democracy" to peddle further exploitation and expansion of the powers that be - but rather identified these special interests by name, and exposed both their agenda and the means by which they attempt to achieve it. Swartz' death is a tragic one, and compounded by the dismissive, almost celebratory atmosphere across the corporate-media of the passing of a man they labeled a suspected criminal.

    Swartz was targeted b the US Department of Justice, MIT, and their corporate-financier sponsors because he was a prominent and particularly effective voice against real creeping oppression. He was a pragmatic, technical individual and proposed solutions that short-circuited the typical and ineffectual political infighting that drives most disingenuous or misguided causes.We all stand the potential of being targeted like Swartz if we allow these monopolies to continue dictating the destiny of human progress. We are all Aaron Swartz - and must realize his targeting and subsequent suicide is the manifestation of the real danger these insidious monopolies pose to us.

    Sharing is Not a Crime.

    Technologically empowered openness and generosity across the corporate-financier dominated Western World is no more a real offense than was being Jewish inside Nazi Germany. But like Nazi Germany, anything can be "outlawed" if it suits political and economic special interest. Are we truly "criminals" for not respecting laws born of special interests, detached from the will and best interests of the people? No, we most certainly aren't.

    Swartz allegedly downloaded scholarly files from an open and unsecured academic archive (and here).

    The original files are still very much intact and at the disposal of the organization that maintains the archives. Nothing was stolen, yet Swartz was accused of "theft," facing 30 years in prison and a 1 million dollar fine - this in a nation where rapists and murders can spend less time in prison, and elected representatives involved in willfully selling wars based on patently false pretenses walk free without even the faintest prospect of facing justice.

    Swartz' crusade against the corporate-financier interests attempting to monopolize and control communication and technology is surely why he was targeted by the federal government, academia, and their corporate-financier sponsors. It is no different than an activist being brought out back of a kangaroo court in a third-world dictatorship, and shot. The silence from so-called "human rights" advocates over the treatment, and now death of Aaron Swartz is deafening - exposing them yet again as another cog in the machine.

    It is time to fight back - and time to fight back without the help of these disingenuous NGOs and their purposefully futile tactics of solely protesting and petitioning. Pragmatic, technical solutions must also be explored and deployed at the grassroots to shatter these corporate-financier monopolies at the very source of their power - that is - our daily patronage and dependence on their goods and services.

    The Plan.

    An alternative to the networks, media, services, and even hardware must be devised and deployed across our local communities. Laws born of special interests and flying in the face of the people's best interests must be exposed, condemned, and entirely ignored. Taking away a human being's freedom because they copied and shared a file is unconscionable - as unconscionable as imprisoning a human being because of their political, religious, or racial background. We would ignore laws imposed upon our society singling out blacks or Jews, but not laws criminalizing sharing solely for the benefit of corporate special interests?

    In December 2012's "Decentralizing Telecom," a plan for establishing a second Internet, locally built and maintained, and connected with neighboring networks to run parallel to the existing Internet - but be free of large telecom monopolies - was proposed.

    Also published in December of 2012, was "Sharing is Not a Crime: A Battle Plan to Fight Back," which illustrated the importance of shifting entirely away from proprietary business models and instead, both using and producing open source hardware, software, news, and entertainment.

    Establishing local, and eventually national and even international parallel networks is possible, but will take time. Turning toward open source software can begin today, with a visit to OSalt.com and exploring alternatives that are already being used by millions today.

    A bridge between where we are now and a truly free Internet made by the people, for the people, and entirely maintained in a decentralized, local manner, is what are called "Pirate Boxes." David Darts, an artist, designer, and coder, describes a Pirate Box as:

    PirateBox
    is a self-contained mobile communication and file sharing device. Simply turn it on to transform any space into a free and open communications and file sharing network.
    Share (and chat!) Freely Inspired by pirate radio and the free culture movements, PirateBox utilizes Free, Libre and Open Source software (FLOSS) to create mobile wireless communications and file sharing networks where users can anonymously chat and share images, video, audio, documents, and other digital content.
    Private and Secure PirateBox is designed to be private and secure. No logins are required and no user data is logged. Users remain completely anonymous – the system is purposely not connected to the Internet in order to subvert tracking and preserve user privacy.
    Easy to Use Using the PirateBox is easy. Simply turn it on and transform any space into a free communication and file sharing network. Users within range of the device can join the PirateBox open wireless network from any wifi-enabled device and begin chatting and sharing files immediately.
    Under David's FAQ's regarding Pirate Boxes, a particularly useful question is answered:

    Can I make my own PirateBox?
    ]
    Absolutely! The PirateBox is registered under the GNU GPLv3. You can run it on an existing device or can be built as a stand-alone device for as little as US$35. For detailed instructions, visit the PirateBox DIY page.

    For the media-industry to stop the spread of local hardware solutions like Pirate Boxes, they would have to literally be in every single community, inside every single person's house, to prevent people from taking legally purchased or freely available media, and sharing it - akin to publishers policing the entire population to prevent readers from lending their friends and family their copy of a particular book.

    The basic principles and experience one gets from building and using a Pirate Box can allow them to tackle larger mesh networks and eventually, decentralize telecom.

    By encouraging local meetings where PirateBoxes are used, the foundation for new local organizations and institutions can be laid.

    New Paradigms Require New Institutions - Join or Start a Hackerspace

    Not everyone possesses the knowledge and skills necessary to create local networks or develop alternatives to the goods and services we currently depend on corporate-financier monopolies for. Even those that do, cannot, by themselves, effectively research, develop, and deploy such alternatives. By pooling our resources together in common spaces called "hackerspaces," we can. Hackerspaces are not just for technically talented individuals, but a place where anyone with the inclination to learn can come and participate.

    Hackerspaces can be organized under a wide range of templates - including clubs where dues are paid, spaces that earn income through providing courses or services to the community, and many others. It will be in hackerspaces, and local institutions like them, that a truly people-driven paradigm shift takes place - one of pragmatism and progress, not endlessly broken political promises from elected officials.

    People can visit Hackerspaces.org to see the closest organization near them where they can join in. Conversely, for those who either don't have a hackerspace nearby to join, or simply want to start their own, see, "How to Start a Hackerspace," for more information on where to begin.

    Finally...

    Aaron Swartz' passing becomes even more tragic if we do not recognize what he spent his life fighting for, and realize that no matter where we think we stand on the issue of Internet freedom, the interests driving the debate from Wall Street and Washington, do not have any of our best interests in mind.

    We are all Aaron Swartz - to reclaim the battle cry abused so flagrantly by the West's faux-democratic "awakening" in the Arab World and beyond. And we must all become active opponents of this agenda to usurp our ability to determine our own destiny. Aaron Swartz was an exceptional proponent of Internet freedom and openness - but by all of us joining the ranks of this cause, we exponentially complicate the system's ability to target and destroy any one of us. If your cause is just, and your means constructive and pragmatic, there isn't just "safety" in numbers, there is invincibility.

    Activist Post: Fighting Back Against the 'Intellectual Property' Racket



  10. #10
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    I'm sorry for his family and their grief, and there is certainly an argument about broadening access to this material beyond universities & academics. However, stealing is stealing. Hackers are fundamentally arrogant people who think they are beyond and above the law because what they're doing is "right". The ones that get arrested and dragged into the daylight would seem to be emotionally stunted boys in men's bodies - socially awkward, emotionally immature, and adolescent in their attitudes. Instead of stealing this material, it's a pity Aaron Swartz didn't apply his brains to addressing the issue of access of academic journals that allows the publishers & contributors to be paid for their efforts, whilst keeping prices within the range of a normal subscription.
    - emmi14 , London, 14/1/2013 00:15


    Surveillance shot that ruined tragic Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz's life: Moment he was caught breaking into MIT archive in sting that left him facing 30 years in jail


    • Internet activist Swartz, 26, committed suicide on Friday at his Brooklyn, New York, home
    • Video released that shows him retrieving computer hardware on which he was allegedly stealing millions of sensitive archived journals
    • Hacking charges were related to his 2011 arrest for allegedly downloading more than four million academic journals with intent to distribute them free of charge through file-sharing sites
    • Family said the attorney's office pursed an 'exceptionally harsh array of charges' for an alleged crime that had no victims


    By Snejana Farberov, Helen Pow and James Nye
    PUBLISHED:15:58 EST, 13 January 2013| UPDATED:16:17 EST, 13 January 2013

    Just moments after hidden camera's captured Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz breaking into Massachusetts Institute of Technology's computer network he was arrested as he desperately tried to flee chasing campus police.

    Tackled and handcuffed, the gifted computer programmer was charged with wire fraud, computer fraud and unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer as he tried to steal millions of scholarly papers from the JSTOR archive.

    Facing up to 30-years in prison for the attempted January 2011 heist, it is thought that the stress and strain of the looming federal criminal case contributed to the depression which is being blamed for 26-year-old Swartz taking his own life on Friday in his Brooklyn, New York apartment.

    Scroll down to watch video and full statement from family


    Aaron Swartz covers his face with his bicycle helmet as he enters a small electrical closet at the MIT to retrieve his computer hardware

    Despite the footage catching Swartz red-handed, his legal team still were holding out hope for a crucial hearing which they hoped could still halt proceedings of 13-felony counts against the prominent internet activist.

    Lawyers for Swartz were seeking to suppress any material that had to do with his attempted theft of millions of papers from the JSTOR archive, which he planned to make available to the public for free.
    The incriminating cameras were laid down after investigators at MIT began to suspect that someone was illegally downloading material from the JSTOR archive - which they in turn traced to a basement wiring closet where they found a laptop and external hard drive hooked up directly to a network.

    The laptop and the hard drive were hidden from view by a cardboard box.

    Setting up the cameras to lie in wait for whoever was to return to pick up the hardware, the investigators led by Secret Service Agent Michael placed them in a closet.

    The surveillance images show Swartz entering the closet three days in a room and on January 6th 2011 an observing campus police officer saw Swartz attempt to leave MIT property with the laptop and hard drive.

    Aaron Swartz was caught soon afterwards this video was recorded on January 6th 2011 with a laptop and a hard drive that contained secured and lucrative academic journals that had been hacked

    Using his white bicylce helmet as a mask, Swartz attempts to cover his face from the camera's as he tries to retrieve the computer equipment that he left their weeks before.

    According to the July 19th indictment Swartz’s laptop had been using MIT’s network to rapidly download articles from JSTOR. JSTOR is an archive of academic journals to which many universities, including MIT, pay large amounts of money for access.

    The indictment describes these events as the final phase of Swartz’s three-month JSTOR downloading operation, bringing his total count of acquired JSTOR articles to 4.8 million. MIT valued that information at $50,000, according to the Cambridge Police incident report.

    Swartz’s intention, the indictment claimed, was to upload all of the documents to a peer-to-peer file-sharing site, where anyone could access them for free.

    Aaron Swartz in his booking photograph taken by the MIT Campus Police on January 6th 2011

    Aaron Swartz was found hanging from his belt near his bedroom window, sources in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York said. The death was pronounced as a suicide by the city's medical examiner

    The indictment states that it started on Sept. 24, 2010 — three months before his arrest.
    It was 2:11 p.m. on January 6th when Swartz was ID'd on a bicycle on Massachusetts Avenue by an MIT police officer, according to his own report.

    That report states that when he encountered Captain Albert Pierce of the MIT Police Department, Swartz jumped off his bike and ran down Lee Street.
    He made it approximately 400 feet before being handcuffed and charged with breaking and entering.

    Before his suicide Swartz faced up to 35-years in prison and was out on $100,000 bail.

    And yesterday the family of Reddit founder Aaron Swartz who committed suicide on Friday have blamed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and federal prosecutors for his death.

    Swartz was facing criminal hacking charges, which carried a potential sentence of more than 30 years when he hanged himself at his New York City apartment.

    In a statement, his loved ones claimed the attorney's office pursed an 'exceptionally harsh array of charges' for a supposed crime that had no victims, and MIT refused to stand up for Swartz or it's own 'cherished principles'.

    'Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy,' the family, and the 26-year-old's partner Taren Stinebricker-Kaufmann, wrote.




    Intimidated: The family of Aaron Swartz, left, and his partner Taren Stinebricker-Kaufmann, right, blame MIT and federal prosecutors for his death


    'It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death.'
    Swartz's friend Larry Lessig, a Harvard University professor and internet law expert, similarly blamed the federal prosecutor, who he called a 'bully,' on his blog and said that Swartz had been 'driven to the edge' by the government's aggressive and disproportionate handling of the case.
    'Our government continued to push as if it had caught the 9/11 terrorists red-handed,' Lessig wrote.

    In the statement, Swartz' loved ones described him as 'extraordinary and irreplaceable.'
    They said his 'insatiable curiosity, creativity, and brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable' made the world and their lives 'far brighter.'

    The online activist and co-founder of the popular social media site Reddit took is life just weeks before going on trial for the federal hacking charges.

    Tragic end: Aaron Swartz, a programmer and Internet activist who co-founded a company that would eventually grow into Reddit, committed suicide Friday in New York City




    Troubled soul: Swartz had been vocal about his years-long struggle with depression, extensively writing about it and discussing it in public forums


    The news of Swartz's untimely death was confirmed to MIT's The Tech by both his uncle and his lawyer on Saturday morning.

    Swartz's uncle, Michael Wolf, told the New York Timesthat the programmer's body was discovered by his girlfriend inside his home in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn at around 9.30am.

    Police told the New York Daily News that the 26-year-old ended his life by hanging himself from a belt in his seventh-floor unit on Sullivan Place. He left no suicide note.

    Swartz was a gifted programmer who helped develop the RSS at age 14. He then went on to start a company that would eventually merge with Reddit, as well as Demand Progress, a political action group that campaigns against internet censorship.
    He was arrested in 2011 for allegedly downloading more than four million academic journals with intent to distribute them free of charge through file-sharing sites. He faced up to 35 years in prison if convicted.

    In the past, Swartz hinted at a battle with depression, according to Gawker.

    Scene: Police said Swartz ended his life by hanging himself off of a belt inside his seventh-floor apartment at 301 Sullivan Place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn

    In a 2007 speech, the internet advocate described himself as being 'miserable' after moving to San Francisco when his company was
    purchased by the publishing giant Conde Nast. 'I couldn't stand
    San Francisco. I couldn't stand office life,' he said at the time. 'I took a long Christmas vacation. I got sick. I thought of suicide. I ran from the police. And when I got back on Monday morning, I was asked to resign.'
    In a blog post from later that year, Swartz went into further detail regarding his bout with depression.

    'Your face falls. Perhaps you cry. You feel worthless. You wonder whether it's worth going on,' he wrote. 'Everything you think about seems bleak - the things you've done, the things you hope to do, the people around you.
    'You want to lie in bed and keep the lights off. Depressed mood is like that, only it doesn't come for any reason and it doesn't go for any either. Go outside and get some fresh air or cuddle with a loved one and you don't feel any better, only more upset at being unable to feel the joy that everyone else seems to feel. Everything gets colored by the sadness.'

    Big business: Reddit was later sold to the publishing giant Conde Nast, but in 2011 it became operationally independent again

    In September 2012, Swartz was charged with 13 counts of felony hacking stemming from his July 2011 arrest and subsequent indictment by the Department of Justice for allegedly swiping MIT papers from the JSTOR online journal archive.

    Two years earlier, Swartz allegedly connected a laptop to MIT's systems through a basement network wiring cupboard.
    He registered as a guest under the fictitious name, Gary Host - a hacking in-joke in which the first initial and last name spell 'ghost.'
    He then used a software program to 'rapidly download an extraordinary volume of articles from JSTOR,' according to the indictment.
    In the following months, MIT and JSTOR tried to block the recurring and massive downloads, on occasion denying all MIT users access to JSTOR.

    But Swartz allegedly got around it, in part, by disguising the computer source of the demands for data.

    In November and December, Swartz is said to have made 2 million downloads from JSTOR, 100 times the number made during the same period by all legitimate JSTOR users at MIT.


    Whiz kid: At age 14, Swartz, right, co-authored an early version of RSS and later he started Infogami, a company that would eventually merge with Reddit



    It is alleged that on Jan. 6, Swartz went to the wiring closet to remove the laptop, attempting to shield his identity by holding a bike helmet in front of his face and seeing his way through its ventilation holes.
    He fled when MIT police tried to question him that day, it is claimed.
    The 26-year-old Internet wunderkind pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, but spent the next several months struggling to come up with the money to cover legal fees and continue his fight against the Justice Department, the site ZDnetreported.

    Ironically, Swartz's suicide came just two days after JSTOR announced that ii will be releasing more than 4.5 million articles to the public.

    'Our goal is for everyone around the world to be able to use the content we have put online and are preserving,' JSTOR Managing Director Laura Brown said in a statement.

    On Saturday, Swartz's mother has posted a statement on the site YCombinator:
    'Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful.

    Legal troubles: In 2011, the Reddit co-founder was arrested and charged with hacking into MIT's JSTOR online journal archive and stealing more than four million academic papers

    'Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable.

    Swartz's friend Cory Doctorow, of Boing Boing, published a touching tribute in his honor early a tribute early Saturday morning after learning of his death.
    'I'm so sorry for Aaron, and sorry about Aaron. My sincere condolences to his parents, whom I never met, but who loved their brilliant, magnificently weird son and made sure he always had chaperonage when he went abroad on his adventures,' he wrote in part.
    'We have all lost someone today who had more work to do, and who made the world a better place when he did it.'
    In his piece, Doctorow speculated that it is possible that what drove his friend to suicide is the prospect of incarceration, and all that comes with it.

    'Imprisonment is one of my most visceral terrors, and it's at least credible that fear of losing his liberty, of being subjected to violence (and perhaps sexual violence) in prison, was what drove Aaron to take this step,' he wrote.

    'AARON'S DEATH IS NOT JUST A PERSONAL TRAGEDY': FAMILY CLAIM 'EXTRAORDINARY' WEB PIONEER WAS BULLIED BY AUTHORITIES

    Our beloved brother, son, friend, and partner Aaron Swartz hanged himself on Friday in his Brooklyn apartment. We are in shock, and have not yet come to terms with his passing.
    Aaron's insatiable curiosity, creativity, and brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable - these gifts made the world, and our lives, far brighter. We're grateful for our time with him, to those who loved him and stood with him, and to all of those who continue his work for a better world.
    Aaron's commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life. He was instrumental to the defeat of an Internet censorship bill; he fought for a more democratic, open, and accountable political system; and he helped to create, build, and preserve a dizzying range of scholarly projects that extended the scope and accessibility of human knowledge. He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place. His deeply humane writing touched minds and hearts across generations and continents. He earned the friendship of thousands and the respect and support of millions more.
    Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney's office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community's most cherished principles.
    Today, we grieve for the extraordinary and irreplaceable man that we have lost.


    WATCH VIDEO HERE:

    Comments

    The comments below have not been moderated.

    I'm sorry for his family and their grief, and there is certainly an argument about broadening access to this material beyond universities & academics. However, stealing is stealing. Hackers are fundamentally arrogant people who think they are beyond and above the law because what they're doing is "right". The ones that get arrested and dragged into the daylight would seem to be emotionally stunted boys in men's bodies - socially awkward, emotionally immature, and adolescent in their attitudes. Instead of stealing this material, it's a pity Aaron Swartz didn't apply his brains to addressing the issue of access of academic journals that allows the publishers & contributors to be paid for their efforts, whilst keeping prices within the range of a normal subscription.
    - emmi14 , London, 14/1/2013 00:15

    Surveillance shot that ruined tragic Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz's life: Moment he was caught breaking into MIT archive in sting that left him facing 30 years in jail | Mail Online
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
    Last edited by JohnDoe2; 01-14-2013 at 02:51 PM.
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