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Further indications that Aaron Swartz didn't die completely in vain...

wegs 6y ago
Let's not get carried away here. MIT administrators still use Swartz as an example to threaten potential whistleblowers. Faced with that, people back down. For all the public repentance, this was intentional and malicious by at least parts of the Central Admin. MIT has good guys and bad guys. The good guys won here, rejecting Elsevier. The bad players on the Swartz front are still there, and still making decision similar to Swartz. People back down much more quickly with that example held up as what happens if you don't play ball.
- dbuder 6y ago
  Sounds like MIT needs a new statue right outside the main admin offices.
oldsklgdfth 6y ago
Came here to see that Aaron Swartz was mentioned, for people to remember and to learn about him and his incident. I don't see it as MIT "doing the right" thing, as much as virtue signaling. As an institution and bureaucracy it tries to self-preserve. Either by saying "he are against technology being used for piracy" or "we are for the open spread of information". Of course I am cynical, but I don't think MIT decided this out of the "goodness" of their heart.
ramraj07 6y ago
Just came across his name yesterday when I was looking for python markdown parsers! Thinking about what happened to him, I'm a bit ambivalent. He was a great dude, for sure, but what he did with downloading the entire JSTOR database sneakily does sound a bit out there. It's definitely a Robinhood move, but Robinhood also had an arrest warrant on him. Expecting no less of a retaliation would have been naive at best. Many other hackers have been arrested, spent jail time and have come out of it to still go on with their life. I suppose you have to know which side of the law (agreeable or not) when you go the hacker route. He unfortunately elected to end his life over this. That is a great, great loss, but I'm not convinced we should start judging things in the world because someone killed themselves over it.
- pas 6y ago
  The current copyright regime is too strict. As someone else pointed out JSTOR went open access without much ado. So basically the whole thing led to the death of some dude because he dared to show how much what he did did not really matter. It's not like universities just stopped paying for access because there's SciHub. And it's not like academics stopped paying journals for publishing because old stuff is open access.
- woofie11 6y ago
  There are two pieces here: How the legal system behaved, and how MIT behaved. What you're saying makes 100% sense for an aggressive prosecutor. On the other hand, MIT was behaving in a way which was pure evil. To go back to the Robinhood analogy, I would expect the Sheriff of Nottingham to go after Robinhood with perfect dedication -- that's his job. On the other hand, if Friar Tuck made it his life's work to go after Robinhood, that'd be a different story.
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    It's a shame that our expectations for prosecutors are so low. (to be clear, I share them. But, it's a shame)
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    > On the other hand, MIT was behaving in a way which was pure evil. And they then proceeded to whitewash it, adding insult to injury.
  - nawwal 6y ago
    I don't totally understand why there's so much hate on MIT for this, so consider this more of an inquiry rather than an outright defense of what happened and let me know if I'm missing something critical: Based on what I know, Aaron Swartz - someone with no affiliation to MIT - abused MIT's open campus/network policies and tried to download all of JSTOR by hiding a laptop in a closet. At best, this is at least something sketchy to do by someone with no connection to the university. MIT discovered this, turned the matters over to the police, Swartz got caught, and the (overzealous) prosecutors took it from there. MIT did not "make it [its] life's work to go after [Swartz]". You can certainly criticize it for not trying to help him, especially given MIT's hacker-friendly culture and the fact that his actions did not hurt anyone, but I think it's unfair to have expected MIT to make a stand against the prosecutor/criminal justice system and predicted Swartz's suicide, after he rejected the 6 month minimum-security prison deal and decided to go to trial instead. I'm all for open access, but Swartz's methods were at least a bit questionable and he should have expected some repercussions should he get caught (I'm sure he did, hence the hiding of the laptop). And in the end, blaming MIT for being neutral in a politically-charged case and for Swartz's death seems unfair, it is an academic and research institution after all, not a public defender.
sicco 6y ago
Obligatory "for those who haven't seen the documentary about Aaron's life": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ
- qchris 6y ago
  Thank you so much for posting this; I hadn't heard of this documentary before, and the name Aaron Swartz was just something that sounded vaguely familiar. Just watched it, and I'm shocked and saddened.

wegs 6y ago

Let's not get carried away here. MIT administrators still use Swartz as an example to threaten potential whistleblowers. Faced with that, people back down. For all the public repentance, this was intentional and malicious by at least parts of the Central Admin. MIT has good guys and bad guys. The good guys won here, rejecting Elsevier. The bad players on the Swartz front are still there, and still making decision similar to Swartz. People back down much more quickly with that example held up as what happens if you don't play ball.

dbuder 6y ago
Sounds like MIT needs a new statue right outside the main admin offices.

oldsklgdfth 6y ago

Came here to see that Aaron Swartz was mentioned, for people to remember and to learn about him and his incident. I don't see it as MIT "doing the right" thing, as much as virtue signaling. As an institution and bureaucracy it tries to self-preserve. Either by saying "he are against technology being used for piracy" or "we are for the open spread of information". Of course I am cynical, but I don't think MIT decided this out of the "goodness" of their heart.

ramraj07 6y ago

Just came across his name yesterday when I was looking for python markdown parsers! Thinking about what happened to him, I'm a bit ambivalent. He was a great dude, for sure, but what he did with downloading the entire JSTOR database sneakily does sound a bit out there. It's definitely a Robinhood move, but Robinhood also had an arrest warrant on him. Expecting no less of a retaliation would have been naive at best. Many other hackers have been arrested, spent jail time and have come out of it to still go on with their life. I suppose you have to know which side of the law (agreeable or not) when you go the hacker route. He unfortunately elected to end his life over this. That is a great, great loss, but I'm not convinced we should start judging things in the world because someone killed themselves over it.

pas 6y ago
The current copyright regime is too strict. As someone else pointed out JSTOR went open access without much ado. So basically the whole thing led to the death of some dude because he dared to show how much what he did did not really matter. It's not like universities just stopped paying for access because there's SciHub. And it's not like academics stopped paying journals for publishing because old stuff is open access.
woofie11 6y ago
There are two pieces here: How the legal system behaved, and how MIT behaved. What you're saying makes 100% sense for an aggressive prosecutor. On the other hand, MIT was behaving in a way which was pure evil. To go back to the Robinhood analogy, I would expect the Sheriff of Nottingham to go after Robinhood with perfect dedication -- that's his job. On the other hand, if Friar Tuck made it his life's work to go after Robinhood, that'd be a different story.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  It's a shame that our expectations for prosecutors are so low. (to be clear, I share them. But, it's a shame)
- jacquesm 6y ago
  > On the other hand, MIT was behaving in a way which was pure evil. And they then proceeded to whitewash it, adding insult to injury.
- nawwal 6y ago
  I don't totally understand why there's so much hate on MIT for this, so consider this more of an inquiry rather than an outright defense of what happened and let me know if I'm missing something critical: Based on what I know, Aaron Swartz - someone with no affiliation to MIT - abused MIT's open campus/network policies and tried to download all of JSTOR by hiding a laptop in a closet. At best, this is at least something sketchy to do by someone with no connection to the university. MIT discovered this, turned the matters over to the police, Swartz got caught, and the (overzealous) prosecutors took it from there. MIT did not "make it [its] life's work to go after [Swartz]". You can certainly criticize it for not trying to help him, especially given MIT's hacker-friendly culture and the fact that his actions did not hurt anyone, but I think it's unfair to have expected MIT to make a stand against the prosecutor/criminal justice system and predicted Swartz's suicide, after he rejected the 6 month minimum-security prison deal and decided to go to trial instead. I'm all for open access, but Swartz's methods were at least a bit questionable and he should have expected some repercussions should he get caught (I'm sure he did, hence the hiding of the laptop). And in the end, blaming MIT for being neutral in a politically-charged case and for Swartz's death seems unfair, it is an academic and research institution after all, not a public defender.

sicco 6y ago

Obligatory "for those who haven't seen the documentary about Aaron's life": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ

qchris 6y ago
Thank you so much for posting this; I hadn't heard of this documentary before, and the name Aaron Swartz was just something that sounded vaguely familiar. Just watched it, and I'm shocked and saddened.