10 ms·

MIT President on Aaron Swartz

467 points by jefftchan 14y ago

ChristianMarks 14y ago
Contrast the MIT statement with the distancing of JSTOR: http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz They write, "The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset..." But in Lawrence Lessig's http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bull... he writes, "Early on, and to its great credit, JSTOR figured “appropriate” out: They declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its." According to Lessig, JSTOR was hardly "drawn into" their case against Swartz: they withdrew their own legal action against Swartz.
- Evbn 14y ago
  JSTOR was directly involved as the target of Aaron's actions. MIT was involved collaterally as the scene of the crime, and ceased to be involved after JSTOR and the Feds took over.
  - ChristianMarks 14y ago
    JSTOR was directly involved as the target of Aaron's actions. Yes, this is understood. They could have been drawn into the case to that extent only, without pressing any charges. MIT was involved collaterally as the scene of the crime, and ceased to be involved after JSTOR and the Feds took over. So JSTOR had a case to withdraw. Their involvement was not limited to being the target of Swartz's actions--they played an active role, only to withdraw later. But I could be mistaken and my reading of Lessig could be wrong. How did JSTOR take over? How did it come to pass that JSTOR dropped its case? What was its case? Could filing such a case count as "being drawn in" to a case?
    - btilly 14y ago
      Reading between the lines of what they said in their responses, both when the initial federal case was filed, and after the suicide, JSTOR settled out of court with Aaron, and part of that settlement is that he gave back or destroyed the copies that he made. With that done, JSTOR didn't care what happened next. And only the federal prosecutor cared.
jhprks 14y ago
All the organizations (MIT, JSTOR, etc.), specifically the people directly involved in bullying Aaron Swartz may have publicly announced their condolences, but to me they all sound like sugar coated empty jars. I can sense that when they all go home they'll be saying "Regardless of what happened, Aaron Swartz will always be remembered as a thief, a radical, and most of all a criminal". I bet those people are feeding large amounts of coal into their legal department to avoid being blamed for Aaron's death.
- Evbn 14y ago
  You are pretty comfortable slinging unfounded accusations into the inner workings of people you have never met.
ramigb 14y ago
What did he mean by "MIT Medical is available to provide expert counseling"? edit : and why is this on pastebin?
- mvarner 14y ago
  MIT Medical is available to provide members of the MIT community with psychological counseling. This is on pastebin because it is a copy of an email that was sent to everyone at MIT.
deleted 14y ago
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asswartz 14y ago
Sorry but as far as i can tell from reading about this guy his main area of expertise seemed to be throwing away the opportunities that kept chasing him and i find it hard to see why he's held up as such a hero/martyr. First, he didn't create the RSS single-handledly for us. He was part of a committee of about a dozen people that took over RSS from Netscape when they didn't support it anymore. Admittedly that's impressive for a 14 year old to be involved in but the media narrative seems to be "we owe RSS to this guy". Secondly in the Reddit case he wasn't actually a founder, although the articles insist he might as well have been one. Actually meaning another team was working on the Reddit project, and he was working on something different and they merged early on before Reddit was really popular. Which made him rich when the company was later sold. So we don't really owe Reddit to this guy either, which you might count in his favor, i guess.. Also he dropped out of high-school. Then he got accepted into university because he was so bright and dropped out again after one year because they weren't intellectual enough for him. Then he was made a Hardvard fellow until he hacked a computer network. Yeah. And now let's look at his latest stunt that landed him in legal trouble. From what i read about it, it went something like this. He used his laptop and the public Wifi + a spider to download academic documents in bulk in defiance of the ToS and brought the network to a halt. They detected him, banned his MAC address and didn't pursue it any further. He tried again after changing his MAC, and this time they cut him off for good. There was no question at this point that his access was unauthorized and he was well aware of it. So what does he do ? He sneaks into the building and connects his laptop physically to a network router, and then tries to retrieve it the next day dressed like some kind of Batman and he gets arrested. Anybody else who tried this kind of utterly incompetent intrusion thrice detected would've been prosecuted as a felon. It was only because this guy had academic and tech industry protectors who backed their precious manbaby that JSTOR and MIT were reluctant to pursue the issue themselves. Obviously i don't think he deserved 50 years for this but that's because i don't think any crime but murder deserves 50 years. But he certainly deserved more than a slap on the wrist even if your only concern is deterrence and rehabilitation.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  I really can't believe what I'm reading here. You are either clueless or downright mean and I can't decide which. Please stop.
danso 14y ago
I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it. That was a much more contrite and accountable message than I had expected. When he said "not attempt to summaraize...Now is a time for..." I expected the sentence to end with "now is the time to grieve and celebrate Aaron's life, not cast blame"... Certainly, the same message and promises won't be made by the government handlers.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ender7 14y ago
  MIT has a sad history with regards to suicide. As a result, the administration is usually much more sensitive and self-aware when it comes to suicide-related incidents.
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    You're not exaggerating: http://web.mit.edu/~sdavies/www/mit-suicides/ http://web.mit.edu/~sdavies/www/mit-suicides/ Not just the number of suicides, but also the contexts (Elizabeth Shin's story is particularly chilling - that one stuck with me because I used to live with her former roommate's brother).
    - jsight 14y ago
      It looks like that link is no longer available.
      - danielweber 14y ago
michaelfeathers 14y ago
Why pastebin?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- kamkazemoose 14y ago
  It was probably originally an e-mail sent to everyone at MIT based on the 'Dear MIT community'
  - sadfaceunread 14y ago
    Correct. /Received said email
- wilfra 14y ago
  For anonymity. The person who posted it is likely an MIT Student/Alumnus/Faculty who received the email and others might not like them sharing it.
  - adoyle 14y ago
    It went to the 'allmit' list (http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/allmit http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/allmit) which goes to "all current students (including incoming freshman and graduate students, special and cross-registered students) and all employees listed in the MIT directory or with SAP status=active" which is upwards of 22,000 people.
    - wilfra 14y ago
      Right and evidently whomever shared this did not want the other 21,999 people seeing that they had posted it to their blog. So they shared it anonymously.
  - kamkazemoose 14y ago
    Either that, or they don't have a blog. Pastebin is an easy way to share an e-mail or some other text if you don't have some other method of publication easily available.
kristenlee 14y ago
Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker News. The focus should be on figuring out a way to get mental health services to those who need it most. Not a witch hunt for every person who had something to do with Aaron's prosecution for crimes he knowingly committed.
- raganwald 14y ago
  You're asking readers to grant you an awful lot of your assumptions. For example: "committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness." Neither you nor I know that. Suicide is often precipitated by stressful incidents. Is the mental illness the direct cause? What if the stress is the direct cause and the mental illness simply prevents the depressed person from handling it, much as AIDS damaging the immune system so that the victim is killed by some other illness? AIDS is the indirect cause. The next thing that strikes my eye is "glorification of his suicide." Really? What have you read that suggests his suicide was glorious? I haven't read everything, but what I've seen glorifies his attempts to free information and laments his suicide and the years of his life that have been lost forever. I'll pick once last thing. "Witch hunt" is an inappropriate metaphor. Witch hunts are McCarthy-esque persecutions of people for something that isn't actually wrong or illegal. For being "un-mutual." The arguments I've seen are that people have been doing something very wrong. If you don't think it's wrong, that's your business. But you can hardly argue that this is a persecution of people for doing little more than being different. What crimes did Aaron commit? My understanding is that he was alleged to have committed crimes, but this has not been proven in court, so we don't know that he committed crimes, and if he did, we do not know that he did so knowingly. The innuendo carefully stage-managed by those who stand to gain from a conviction seems persuasive, but people have seemed guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt in the past and have in time been discovered to be innocent. And in this case, I am reminded of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who knowingly broke Canada's anti-abortion laws of the day but was declared innocent by juries, leading to changes in the laws. Who knows what might have happened? I don't know what might have happened. Do you?
rhizome 14y ago
"Whoopsy. Also: throwing Prof. Abelson under the bus."
- rdl 14y ago
  No -- Abelson is an uninvolved, very respected professor. It's normal to appoint someone like that to run an investigation. There is every reason to suspect it will be comprehensive, fair, and public.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    It's normal to appoint someone like that to run an investigation. This is a bit naive, no? Look at Eric Schneiderman. e.g. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/yes-really-truly-no-joke-that-schneiderman-mortgage-task-force-is-gonna-get-someone-soon.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/yes-really-truly-no-j...
    - rdl 14y ago
      MIT is a lot more similar to NASA than to the banking sector or the federal government.
      - rhizome 14y ago
        I'm speaking to the assumption that promoting an agreeable person will necessarily have a favorable outcome. There's a huge presumption that Abelson's role in this precludes unfairness.
        jacquesm 14y ago
        Please, let's give Abelson the time to do his work. If he botches it you can call him out fairly afterwards, and I'm pretty sure you won't be alone. To do this beforehand is not fair to the man.
        14y ago
jtchang 14y ago
Very well written. Reif understands that there is nothing to be gained by outright pointing fingers. He knows that MIT played some part and basically admits it. What he doesn't want to do is go into details until he readily understands what role MIT played.
- asdfologist 14y ago
  Well objectively MIT did play a role, but whether the role was ethically right or wrong is a separate question. So the letter by itself does not admit anything, and we'll have to wait for the results of the investigation.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    Threatening someone's life (30+ years in prison) for civilian expropriation of data is certainly a case of bad form, a tenet of ethics. We can argue MIT's significance in this mechanism, but that they aided a bad process is undeniable.
rdl 14y ago
This goes way beyond what I expected MIT would do. I guess MIT is more responsive to public opinion than any prosecutor's office or politician.
- objclxt 14y ago
  It is worth perhaps pointing out that suicide is, unfortunately, something that MIT and its' peers have to deal on a regular basis. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that MIT has appointed a faculty member to independently investigate whether their actions were appropriate.
- wilfra 14y ago
  Prosecutors and politicians would respond the same way if a group so critical to their existence became enraged at their actions (think reporters or donors). MIT wouldn't be MIT without their stature in the tech community - precisely the people (and perhaps the only people) who care passionately about this.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    No, the government would hire a non-independent investigator to write a whitewashed report.
    - wilfra 14y ago
      "the government" is something else entirely from one politician or prosecutor.
belorn 14y ago
The university does, what makes sense for a university to do. They do an analysis, and produce a report. What I hope happens afterward is that MIT take in the report and create meaningful changes. This however is not in the nature of universities and is where the challenge will be if MIT want to learn from this tragedy.
- Evbn 14y ago
  What is your basis for saying MIT never changes?
  - belorn 14y ago
    I never said MIT never changes, I said changes are not in the nature of universities, and I base it on a comment made by a professor in law history in Columbia law school. A university is an institution that tries to teach young people the wisdom of the old. It has always resisted quick changes. If one need an example, one can take a look on how long time it took to adapt electronic aids in classes outside computer science. An other fact is that universities has previously been a place unique with having access to high amount of books (information). This is no longer unique for universities, but many aspects of universities still work as if the main purpose of a university is easy access to a library.
pc 14y ago
While it's painful that this is happening now and not a year ago, I'm heartened that Hal is heading the internal investigation. I can't imagine anyone better. He was a major supporter of Star Simpson when most of the MIT administration hung her out to dry. He has as good a chance as anyone at understanding Aaron's goals in liberating JSTOR's archive: he's a founding director of the FSF, Creative Commons, and Public Knowledge. He led the creation of MIT's OpenCourseWare and the class Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier. He's also just a deeply good guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Knowledge http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/
- jmharvey 14y ago
  I worry that he may be too friendly a pick for the job. It's easy to imagine that if Prof. Abelson's investigation identifies wrongdoing, many will discount the findings because of his presumed sympathies.
- pygy_ 14y ago
  "If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders." -- Hal Abelson. ... coming from someone with a life long career as a teacher and thesis advisor.
  - deleted 14y ago
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losvedir 14y ago
I'm impressed with this response. Two quick notes: 1) President Reif is brand new in the role -- the majority of events would have happened under Susan Hockfield, the previous president. It makes sense that he would want a report of what happened previously since he wasn't here yet. 2) Professor Abelson is a very well respected member of the MIT community, and the fact that he is heading up the investigation leaves me comforted. He's helped me before in the past and is so incredibly smart and kind hearted I can't think of a better guy for the job.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  That's Abelson as in SICP, isn't it?
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    Yep.
- rdl 14y ago
  Reif was Provost before, though.
MichaelSalib 14y ago
Note that Hal Abelson, the professor being tasked with investigating, used to run a class called Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier. He's also the coauthor of SICP.
guan 14y ago
It’s up on the MIT website too: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/letter-on-death-of-aaron-swartz.html http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/letter-on-death-of-aaron-...
rikacomet 14y ago
Today, I have this feeling again, the same I had when I heard about Micheal Jackson's death. He too struggled in a way from false accusations caused by reasons we all know. What I did learn today, which I did not knew earlier, was how while living, a man may not achieve something, but in death WHY exactly he would achieve even more. I do not in any way, justify the loss of life here, but instead that after what has already happened, what will we do? His ideas can no longer be ignored by me, us & those who caused this, and they must take a present stance, & retrospect for the good, that, what exactly were the things that went wrong and still are in the wrong, similarly to what Mr. Reif said. I feel, that even though I didn't knew who Aaron Swartz was until yesterday, I will know him for the rest of my life. What I can say today is, that yes, I have heard you, and if I can, I will try to make others hear the same. (Rest in Peace) PS: 26 years, is too short of a life, you deserved much more than this. For the least, I will try on my part, to not let something similar to happen to even a enemy.
lucian303 14y ago
Too late MIT.
eriksank 14y ago
They pushed Aaron Swartz to suicide because they did not fear what would happen next. They are right. There is nothing to fear. Ultimately, respect will always remain based on the fear for reprisals. Where is the respect?
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dchichkov 14y ago
What I do not understand, is how a wireless connection to the public MIT network is so different from a wired one. It feels like MIT should change their policy and specifically state, that wired connections to their network are Ok.
pvelagal 14y ago
35 years in prison for getting access to articles in a library ? Human race is yet to evolve. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/farewell-aaron-swartz https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/farewell-aaron-swartz
LatvjuAvs 14y ago
Well done Aaron Swartz, now rinse and repeat, if necessary. Some deaths provide a lot of information to others. Lets not hang upon death as some sort of bad turn of event >:)

467 points by jefftchan 14y ago

Contrast the MIT statement with the distancing of JSTOR: http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz They write, "The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset..." But in Lawrence Lessig's http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bull... he writes, "Early on, and to its great credit, JSTOR figured “appropriate” out: They declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its." According to Lessig, JSTOR was hardly "drawn into" their case against Swartz: they withdrew their own legal action against Swartz.

Evbn 14y ago
JSTOR was directly involved as the target of Aaron's actions. MIT was involved collaterally as the scene of the crime, and ceased to be involved after JSTOR and the Feds took over.
- ChristianMarks 14y ago
  JSTOR was directly involved as the target of Aaron's actions. Yes, this is understood. They could have been drawn into the case to that extent only, without pressing any charges. MIT was involved collaterally as the scene of the crime, and ceased to be involved after JSTOR and the Feds took over. So JSTOR had a case to withdraw. Their involvement was not limited to being the target of Swartz's actions--they played an active role, only to withdraw later. But I could be mistaken and my reading of Lessig could be wrong. How did JSTOR take over? How did it come to pass that JSTOR dropped its case? What was its case? Could filing such a case count as "being drawn in" to a case?
  - btilly 14y ago
    Reading between the lines of what they said in their responses, both when the initial federal case was filed, and after the suicide, JSTOR settled out of court with Aaron, and part of that settlement is that he gave back or destroyed the copies that he made. With that done, JSTOR didn't care what happened next. And only the federal prosecutor cared.

jhprks 14y ago

All the organizations (MIT, JSTOR, etc.), specifically the people directly involved in bullying Aaron Swartz may have publicly announced their condolences, but to me they all sound like sugar coated empty jars. I can sense that when they all go home they'll be saying "Regardless of what happened, Aaron Swartz will always be remembered as a thief, a radical, and most of all a criminal". I bet those people are feeding large amounts of coal into their legal department to avoid being blamed for Aaron's death.

Evbn 14y ago
You are pretty comfortable slinging unfounded accusations into the inner workings of people you have never met.

ramigb 14y ago

What did he mean by "MIT Medical is available to provide expert counseling"? edit : and why is this on pastebin?

mvarner 14y ago
MIT Medical is available to provide members of the MIT community with psychological counseling. This is on pastebin because it is a copy of an email that was sent to everyone at MIT.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

asswartz 14y ago

Sorry but as far as i can tell from reading about this guy his main area of expertise seemed to be throwing away the opportunities that kept chasing him and i find it hard to see why he's held up as such a hero/martyr. First, he didn't create the RSS single-handledly for us. He was part of a committee of about a dozen people that took over RSS from Netscape when they didn't support it anymore. Admittedly that's impressive for a 14 year old to be involved in but the media narrative seems to be "we owe RSS to this guy". Secondly in the Reddit case he wasn't actually a founder, although the articles insist he might as well have been one. Actually meaning another team was working on the Reddit project, and he was working on something different and they merged early on before Reddit was really popular. Which made him rich when the company was later sold. So we don't really owe Reddit to this guy either, which you might count in his favor, i guess.. Also he dropped out of high-school. Then he got accepted into university because he was so bright and dropped out again after one year because they weren't intellectual enough for him. Then he was made a Hardvard fellow until he hacked a computer network. Yeah. And now let's look at his latest stunt that landed him in legal trouble. From what i read about it, it went something like this. He used his laptop and the public Wifi + a spider to download academic documents in bulk in defiance of the ToS and brought the network to a halt. They detected him, banned his MAC address and didn't pursue it any further. He tried again after changing his MAC, and this time they cut him off for good. There was no question at this point that his access was unauthorized and he was well aware of it. So what does he do ? He sneaks into the building and connects his laptop physically to a network router, and then tries to retrieve it the next day dressed like some kind of Batman and he gets arrested. Anybody else who tried this kind of utterly incompetent intrusion thrice detected would've been prosecuted as a felon. It was only because this guy had academic and tech industry protectors who backed their precious manbaby that JSTOR and MIT were reluctant to pursue the issue themselves. Obviously i don't think he deserved 50 years for this but that's because i don't think any crime but murder deserves 50 years. But he certainly deserved more than a slap on the wrist even if your only concern is deterrence and rehabilitation.

jacquesm 14y ago
I really can't believe what I'm reading here. You are either clueless or downright mean and I can't decide which. Please stop.

danso 14y ago

I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it. That was a much more contrite and accountable message than I had expected. When he said "not attempt to summaraize...Now is a time for..." I expected the sentence to end with "now is the time to grieve and celebrate Aaron's life, not cast blame"... Certainly, the same message and promises won't be made by the government handlers.

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ender7 14y ago
MIT has a sad history with regards to suicide. As a result, the administration is usually much more sensitive and self-aware when it comes to suicide-related incidents.
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  You're not exaggerating: http://web.mit.edu/~sdavies/www/mit-suicides/ http://web.mit.edu/~sdavies/www/mit-suicides/ Not just the number of suicides, but also the contexts (Elizabeth Shin's story is particularly chilling - that one stuck with me because I used to live with her former roommate's brother).
  - jsight 14y ago
    It looks like that link is no longer available.
    - danielweber 14y ago

michaelfeathers 14y ago

Why pastebin?

deleted 14y ago
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kamkazemoose 14y ago
It was probably originally an e-mail sent to everyone at MIT based on the 'Dear MIT community'
- sadfaceunread 14y ago
  Correct. /Received said email
wilfra 14y ago
For anonymity. The person who posted it is likely an MIT Student/Alumnus/Faculty who received the email and others might not like them sharing it.
- adoyle 14y ago
  It went to the 'allmit' list (http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/allmit http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/allmit) which goes to "all current students (including incoming freshman and graduate students, special and cross-registered students) and all employees listed in the MIT directory or with SAP status=active" which is upwards of 22,000 people.
  - wilfra 14y ago
    Right and evidently whomever shared this did not want the other 21,999 people seeing that they had posted it to their blog. So they shared it anonymously.
- kamkazemoose 14y ago
  Either that, or they don't have a blog. Pastebin is an easy way to share an e-mail or some other text if you don't have some other method of publication easily available.

kristenlee 14y ago

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker News. The focus should be on figuring out a way to get mental health services to those who need it most. Not a witch hunt for every person who had something to do with Aaron's prosecution for crimes he knowingly committed.

raganwald 14y ago
You're asking readers to grant you an awful lot of your assumptions. For example: "committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness." Neither you nor I know that. Suicide is often precipitated by stressful incidents. Is the mental illness the direct cause? What if the stress is the direct cause and the mental illness simply prevents the depressed person from handling it, much as AIDS damaging the immune system so that the victim is killed by some other illness? AIDS is the indirect cause. The next thing that strikes my eye is "glorification of his suicide." Really? What have you read that suggests his suicide was glorious? I haven't read everything, but what I've seen glorifies his attempts to free information and laments his suicide and the years of his life that have been lost forever. I'll pick once last thing. "Witch hunt" is an inappropriate metaphor. Witch hunts are McCarthy-esque persecutions of people for something that isn't actually wrong or illegal. For being "un-mutual." The arguments I've seen are that people have been doing something very wrong. If you don't think it's wrong, that's your business. But you can hardly argue that this is a persecution of people for doing little more than being different. What crimes did Aaron commit? My understanding is that he was alleged to have committed crimes, but this has not been proven in court, so we don't know that he committed crimes, and if he did, we do not know that he did so knowingly. The innuendo carefully stage-managed by those who stand to gain from a conviction seems persuasive, but people have seemed guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt in the past and have in time been discovered to be innocent. And in this case, I am reminded of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who knowingly broke Canada's anti-abortion laws of the day but was declared innocent by juries, leading to changes in the laws. Who knows what might have happened? I don't know what might have happened. Do you?

rhizome 14y ago

"Whoopsy. Also: throwing Prof. Abelson under the bus."

rdl 14y ago
No -- Abelson is an uninvolved, very respected professor. It's normal to appoint someone like that to run an investigation. There is every reason to suspect it will be comprehensive, fair, and public.
- rhizome 14y ago
  It's normal to appoint someone like that to run an investigation. This is a bit naive, no? Look at Eric Schneiderman. e.g. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/yes-really-truly-no-joke-that-schneiderman-mortgage-task-force-is-gonna-get-someone-soon.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/yes-really-truly-no-j...
  - rdl 14y ago
    MIT is a lot more similar to NASA than to the banking sector or the federal government.
    - rhizome 14y ago
      I'm speaking to the assumption that promoting an agreeable person will necessarily have a favorable outcome. There's a huge presumption that Abelson's role in this precludes unfairness.
      - jacquesm 14y ago
        Please, let's give Abelson the time to do his work. If he botches it you can call him out fairly afterwards, and I'm pretty sure you won't be alone. To do this beforehand is not fair to the man.
        14y ago

jtchang 14y ago

Very well written. Reif understands that there is nothing to be gained by outright pointing fingers. He knows that MIT played some part and basically admits it. What he doesn't want to do is go into details until he readily understands what role MIT played.

asdfologist 14y ago
Well objectively MIT did play a role, but whether the role was ethically right or wrong is a separate question. So the letter by itself does not admit anything, and we'll have to wait for the results of the investigation.
- rhizome 14y ago
  Threatening someone's life (30+ years in prison) for civilian expropriation of data is certainly a case of bad form, a tenet of ethics. We can argue MIT's significance in this mechanism, but that they aided a bad process is undeniable.

rdl 14y ago

This goes way beyond what I expected MIT would do. I guess MIT is more responsive to public opinion than any prosecutor's office or politician.

objclxt 14y ago
It is worth perhaps pointing out that suicide is, unfortunately, something that MIT and its' peers have to deal on a regular basis. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that MIT has appointed a faculty member to independently investigate whether their actions were appropriate.
wilfra 14y ago
Prosecutors and politicians would respond the same way if a group so critical to their existence became enraged at their actions (think reporters or donors). MIT wouldn't be MIT without their stature in the tech community - precisely the people (and perhaps the only people) who care passionately about this.
- Evbn 14y ago
  No, the government would hire a non-independent investigator to write a whitewashed report.
  - wilfra 14y ago
    "the government" is something else entirely from one politician or prosecutor.

belorn 14y ago

The university does, what makes sense for a university to do. They do an analysis, and produce a report. What I hope happens afterward is that MIT take in the report and create meaningful changes. This however is not in the nature of universities and is where the challenge will be if MIT want to learn from this tragedy.

Evbn 14y ago
What is your basis for saying MIT never changes?
- belorn 14y ago
  I never said MIT never changes, I said changes are not in the nature of universities, and I base it on a comment made by a professor in law history in Columbia law school. A university is an institution that tries to teach young people the wisdom of the old. It has always resisted quick changes. If one need an example, one can take a look on how long time it took to adapt electronic aids in classes outside computer science. An other fact is that universities has previously been a place unique with having access to high amount of books (information). This is no longer unique for universities, but many aspects of universities still work as if the main purpose of a university is easy access to a library.

pc 14y ago

While it's painful that this is happening now and not a year ago, I'm heartened that Hal is heading the internal investigation. I can't imagine anyone better. He was a major supporter of Star Simpson when most of the MIT administration hung her out to dry. He has as good a chance as anyone at understanding Aaron's goals in liberating JSTOR's archive: he's a founding director of the FSF, Creative Commons, and Public Knowledge. He led the creation of MIT's OpenCourseWare and the class Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier. He's also just a deeply good guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Knowledge http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/

jmharvey 14y ago
I worry that he may be too friendly a pick for the job. It's easy to imagine that if Prof. Abelson's investigation identifies wrongdoing, many will discount the findings because of his presumed sympathies.
pygy_ 14y ago
"If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders." -- Hal Abelson. ... coming from someone with a life long career as a teacher and thesis advisor.
- deleted 14y ago
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losvedir 14y ago

I'm impressed with this response. Two quick notes: 1) President Reif is brand new in the role -- the majority of events would have happened under Susan Hockfield, the previous president. It makes sense that he would want a report of what happened previously since he wasn't here yet. 2) Professor Abelson is a very well respected member of the MIT community, and the fact that he is heading up the investigation leaves me comforted. He's helped me before in the past and is so incredibly smart and kind hearted I can't think of a better guy for the job.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
That's Abelson as in SICP, isn't it?
- jacquesm 14y ago
  Yep.
rdl 14y ago
Reif was Provost before, though.

MichaelSalib 14y ago

Note that Hal Abelson, the professor being tasked with investigating, used to run a class called Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier. He's also the coauthor of SICP.

guan 14y ago

It’s up on the MIT website too: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/letter-on-death-of-aaron-swartz.html http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/letter-on-death-of-aaron-...

rikacomet 14y ago

Today, I have this feeling again, the same I had when I heard about Micheal Jackson's death. He too struggled in a way from false accusations caused by reasons we all know. What I did learn today, which I did not knew earlier, was how while living, a man may not achieve something, but in death WHY exactly he would achieve even more. I do not in any way, justify the loss of life here, but instead that after what has already happened, what will we do? His ideas can no longer be ignored by me, us & those who caused this, and they must take a present stance, & retrospect for the good, that, what exactly were the things that went wrong and still are in the wrong, similarly to what Mr. Reif said. I feel, that even though I didn't knew who Aaron Swartz was until yesterday, I will know him for the rest of my life. What I can say today is, that yes, I have heard you, and if I can, I will try to make others hear the same. (Rest in Peace) PS: 26 years, is too short of a life, you deserved much more than this. For the least, I will try on my part, to not let something similar to happen to even a enemy.

lucian303 14y ago

Too late MIT.

eriksank 14y ago

They pushed Aaron Swartz to suicide because they did not fear what would happen next. They are right. There is nothing to fear. Ultimately, respect will always remain based on the fear for reprisals. Where is the respect?

deleted 14y ago

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dchichkov 14y ago

What I do not understand, is how a wireless connection to the public MIT network is so different from a wired one. It feels like MIT should change their policy and specifically state, that wired connections to their network are Ok.

pvelagal 14y ago

35 years in prison for getting access to articles in a library ? Human race is yet to evolve. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/farewell-aaron-swartz https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/farewell-aaron-swartz

LatvjuAvs 14y ago

Well done Aaron Swartz, now rinse and repeat, if necessary. Some deaths provide a lot of information to others. Lets not hang upon death as some sort of bad turn of event >:)