8 ms·

The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz [video]

271 points by nullc 12y ago

nullc 12y ago
This is the full 120 minute long documentary. It's a heavy watch, but interesting to both audiences familiar with the background and ones who are not. In addition to the normal pay per view streaming on vimeo (https://vimeo.com/ondemand/internetsownboy/94238859 https://vimeo.com/ondemand/internetsownboy/94238859), this film was also offered at an increased price under CC-By-NC-SA. I purchased a freely licensed copy and have placed it on archive.org allowing anyone to learn from it, share it with others, or build new works out of it without risk of prosecution and without going through US-only paywall. The official site for the film is at http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy and the there is a Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy:_The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy:_The_S...
- scrollaway 12y ago
  Thank you.
- rdhyee 12y ago
  Thanks for posting the video on archive.org. Ever since I read http://boingboing.net/2014/06/19/aaron-swartz-documentary-the.html http://boingboing.net/2014/06/19/aaron-swartz-documentary-th..., I've been looking for a place to download the CC-licensed video. If I want to send money to the producers of the video, how should I do so? Buy a copy of the video from vimeo?
  - thinkcomp 12y ago
    Yes, buying from Vimeo is probably the best way to support Brian and his colleagues. (I am technically one of the "executive producers" but I don't make any money from it.)
    - emm 12y ago
      I bought the video to support your team. Unfortunately it was geoblocked first and only available in SD. Please change that.
    - muloka 12y ago
      I live in a region where its geoblocked from purchasing this film. Would love to support this film/work.
- jcr 12y ago
  Thank You nullc. It's really tough to contribute something useful to the discussion about and around Aaron Schwartz. The best I can offer is a paper that I found a few hours ago. I haven't read it yet, but it was just released a few days ago. From what I can tell from the description quoted below by one of the authors, it may be good related research worth reading. WEIS 2014: Experimental Measurement of Attitudes Regarding Cybercrime http://weis2014.econinfosec.org/papers/GravesAcquistiAnderson-WEIS2014.pdf http://weis2014.econinfosec.org/papers/GravesAcquistiAnderso... > "Online activists appear to be treated much more harshly by prosecutors than equivalent street protesters; meanwhile online fraudsters are often treated more leniently than the traditional variety. Over two thousand mTurkers participated in six different between-subjects experiments to assess the seriousness or cybercrimes by type of data (directory vs medical info), scope 10 to 1,000,000 records) motivation (student, activist, profiteer) financial consequences, co-responsibility and whether the victim was a firm, a nonprofit or a government agency. Respondents saw more records as more sensitive than less; profiteers as much worse than students or activists; more expensive cases as more serious; that firms were less liable if servers were patched (but that the data were more sensitive in that case). In summary, participants recommend harsher sentences when cybercrimes involve more or more sensitive data, have costlier consequences, or are motivated by profit. This is much more rational than the reported behaviour of some prosecutors and judges."
- rational-future 12y ago
  Here's a magnet link for torrent users: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6b1c1f8476d0604d98e4a9d3d3bbf4cd131e3326&dn=The+Internet%27s+Own+Boy+-+The+Story+of+Aaron+Swartz+%282014%29&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce
- lhl 12y ago
  I haven't gotten myself in the headspace to watch this yet, but perhaps also of interest for those who are is Quinn Norton's recent essay marking the release of the documentary: https://medium.com/message/the-internets-own-boy-c815ae07a417 https://medium.com/message/the-internets-own-boy-c815ae07a41... The first half of the piece is a bit of a confessional/elegy- personal, poignant, and a bit heartrending, especially for those who knew Aaron. The second half turns decidedly more polemic, but feels all the more important for the HN crowd (or anyone thinking about the future and the society we live in). Aaron's death was tragic, yes, but it happened within a much (much) larger context of what feels like a waning in social justice and personal freedom around the world. I've certainly been thinking a lot harder about it in the past year, and I hope others are as well.
RexRollman 12y ago
The only thing I don't care for in all this is the deification of Swartz, as if he played no part in the dilemma he found himself in. That said, something need to be done about the prosecutors in this country, who overcharge and bend the law in way not intended.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  I think the community has reacted the way it has, because what Aaron did, downloading academic journals from a cabling closet, was both in the same context as things that many of us have done (Who hasn't, at one time or another scraped a few gigabytes of Academic Journals, and who hasn't, at University, spent a ton of time trapsing through campus in areas a helluva lot more locked down than where Aaron went), and, it was being done in pursuit of a noble goal, by someone who only had the best interests of others, and the internet at heart. He was then mercilessly pursued, pushed to the point of financial ruin, and threatened with several decades of prison - by a prosecutor who seemingly had zero sense of right/wrong, even in the face of the supposed victim (JSTOR) indicating they had no desire to pursue this any further. It was the sort of activity that when I went to school, would have merited a 3 day suspension, if that.
  - tzs 12y ago
    (Responding out of order) > He was then mercilessly pursued, pushed to the point of financial ruin, and threatened with several decades of prison He was not threatened with several decades in prison. Worst case, if he went to trial and lost, would have been something like 7 years. There was a plea bargain on the table that would have let him get off with a few months. His own lawyers say that if he rejected that and did go to trial, they thought the most likely outcome would be probation with no jail time. It is possible that he thought he faced several decades between the time he found out about the indictment and the time he first talked to anyone who knows how the federal sentencing guidelines work and how the totals in indictments are so exaggerated that they make Hollywood accounting look realistic. You can find a very detailed examination of the charges and the possible sentences in the two links given as references in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004640 > (Who hasn't, at one time or another scraped a few gigabytes of Academic Journals, and who hasn't, at University, spent a ton of time trapsing through campus in areas a helluva lot more locked down than where Aaron went) I traipsed a lot at Caltech. However, (1) I was a student there, and (2) if I was asked to stop because I was causing trouble, I would (to not do so would have violated the Honor System). In Swartz's case, (1) he had no connection to MIT, and (2) he did NOT stop even when it became clear that MIT did not want him to continue, and continued to the point of getting MIT temporarily cut off from JSTOR. He should have done his downloading from Harvard, where he had JSTOR access due to his position as a research fellow there, instead of sneaking around at MIT and evading their attempts to get him to stop.
Spockulus_Rift 12y ago
review by The Internet's Own Pete Townshend: 9/10
sparkzilla 12y ago
I made a timeline of Swartz' life http://newslines.org/aaron-swartz/ http://newslines.org/aaron-swartz/ Feel free to update if you see something missing.
- pa5tabear 12y ago
  I assume something's wrong with him attending Stanford in 2000 (or being born in 1986). He didn't go to college when he was 14/15, did he?
  - sparkzilla 12y ago
    Thanks for the tip.
thinkcomp 12y ago
Some links to relevant legal proceedings / profiles: USA v. Swartz: http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/my5tdot8/massachusetts-district-court/usa-v-swartz/ http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/my5tdot8/massachusetts-dist... Stephen P. Heymann: http://www.plainsite.org/attorneys/united-states-department-of-justice/stephen-p-heymann/ http://www.plainsite.org/attorneys/united-states-department-... Think Computer Foundation et al v. Administrative Office of the United States Courts et al: http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northern-district-court/think-computer-foundation-et-al-v-administrative-office-of-the-united-states-courts-et-al/ http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northe...
- Maxious 12y ago
  "Your activity looks suspicious to us. Please prove that you're human."
  - thinkcomp 12y ago
    We get a lot of scraping activity from China, Russia, and Europe. You probably have an IP from somewhere we've seen actual suspicious activity from. Sorry!
    - stephenitis 12y ago
      this HN's bot sniffer?
    - 1stop 12y ago
      I get that message from within Australia... we don't even have the bandwidth to scape a website ;-)
staunch 12y ago
"Hackers for right, we are one down, we have lost one of our own." - TimBL
thrush 12y ago
I've just watched this with my roommates, and I think we're in consensus that Aaron's beliefs, to make the Public Domain actually public and universally share information so that we may be push forward the progress of humanity, are undoubtedly correct. What I would like to know at this time is how to make Aaron's beliefs a reality. What can I do? What can my roommates do? What can anyone do? Ideally, I also don't think that this is a zero sum game. We can all be winners. I'd like to believe that we can all be winners.
- thinkcomp 12y ago
  Here's one option: http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/operation-asymptote-crowdsources-the-freeing-of-pacer-content/ http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/operation-a... http://www.plainsite.org/asymptote/ http://www.plainsite.org/asymptote/ Another is to write to your representatives in Congress demanding accountability for prosecutors and Stephen Heymann in particular. The web forms actually do get tallied by interns and closely monitored by staffers when there's a spike.
  - thrush 12y ago
    I appreciate your suggestion, but I feel like there's more to do, and I'd like to do more.
    - thinkcomp 12y ago
      I think Aaron would have advocated--as the movie aptly points out--a re-thinking of one's approach to life in a way that involves more political activism than we're typically used to, versus a one-time reaction. There's a wide range of political issues for people to make their voices heard on. Directly related to Aaron's interests, I'm suing the Courts over PACER and other related issues. See http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northern-district-court/think-computer-foundation-et-al-v-administrative-office-of-the-united-states-courts-et-al/ http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northe... , where document 23, the First Amended Complaint, is the main one to read. If anyone wants to file an amicus brief/write a letter to the judge in the case and/or the Administrative Office of the Courts, this would be a good time to do it.
jaseemabid 12y ago
Can we all be good netizens and torrent rather than overload Archive servers? Not enough seeders right now.
- 1stop 12y ago
  torrents feel like they should be part of the browser. It seems odd we rely on ISPs to do local level caching, when we could actually do a lot of it ourselves. (Think how many streams of the world cup are floating around on the internet right now...)
  - nullc 12y ago
    Last mile bandwidth tends to be a lot more expensive than more centralized data center bandwidth— moving traffic out to the edge is just not very attractive in general.
- igl 12y ago
  I downloaded the ogg and even mplayer fails to play it without stuttering and even crashing at some frames. I don't think it's the bandwidth.
gdewilde 12y ago
"The Startup Trying to Replace Congress With Software Is Running Two Candidates" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7960110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7960110
kayoone 12y ago
While i believe in the underlying vision that drove Swartz to his actions, the person that killed Swartz was Swartz himself. Prosecutors overcharge and bend the law all the time, still we don't see mass suicides from the "victims". Swartz obviously had some other unrelated issues that drove him to this extreme.
- 1stop 12y ago
  What is the suicide rate for people facing felony prosecution? What is their typical socio-economic status? Is that a factor? My bet is, you don't know the answer to either of those questions, so the "obviously" in your statement is misplaced.
  - kayoone 12y ago
    Its clear by reading his older articles about his reddit past and such that he had some trouble adjusting to a "normal" live. He did not seem like an emotionally stable person to me, even before his suicide.
    - 1stop 12y ago
      Your in depth analysis of his emotional state through blog posts? Exactly what is a "normal" life? and what adjustments are required to achieve it? What kind of trouble did he have with those adjustments?
      - ZenPro 12y ago
        Normal life is not suicide. I say that as someone who has talked two people out of suicide. Suicide not a normal emotional, biological or mental state for any living creature. What exactly is wrong with judging someone through a large canon of blog posts? I am sure you would have no trouble judging the mental state of the Westboro Baptist Church members through their blog posts.
        1stop 12y ago
stephenitis 12y ago
40 min through is a pretty good tribute to his life, humanity, and values. 10/10 It takes a turn a focus on prosecutorial zeal afterwards. 6/10
- electromagnetic 12y ago
  I had a couple opportunities to talk with him, and being part of the early reddit community, I thought the first 40 mins were a good tribute to who he was.
stephenitis 12y ago
I'm wondering... has anyone really opened JSTOR and their equivalents to the world yet? appears no. edit* there is not technology and science resource available for congressmen??? smh...
- OvidNaso 12y ago
  Apparently, everything Aaron downloaded is available at theinfo.org. Nobody has really done anything (apparent) with it. The site is down now, so maybe that is an indication this doc has inspired something in someone.
ZenPro 12y ago
I cannot get around the fact that he was offered leniency (6 months in a low security prison) in return for a plea bargain. He rejected that deal, opting instead for a trial in which prosecutors would have been forced to justify their pursuit of him. Fair enough - noble and principled if a little foolhardy. Then he committed suicide. Given the choice of ending my life or taking 6 months in jail; I know which is the more mentally stable option to take.
- 1stop 12y ago
  You are ascribing your own situation to the problem and pretending it is the same. Everyone thinks they are completely reasonable, but the fact is our brain convinces us we are even when we are not. Unless you've actually been someone else, how can you know what it is like?
  - ZenPro 12y ago
    Just to be clear; your assertion is that no human being make a reasonable or educated guess about their behaviour in a situation that is unfamiliar? That is your assertion?...because it is nonsense if it is. As humans we make effective, educated guesses about unfamiliar scenarios all of the time. I also don't physically need to be charged with wire fraud to know that I would not take my own life over it leaving behind my children. Children, if convicted today, I would be able to see again before Christmas. However - if you want to get [really] meta over the subject then your logic defeats itself. Unless you have actually been me how can you know that I am not completely accurate in my assessment of myself? Your stated position has rendered you unable to disagree with me. Since you are not me.
    - 1stop 12y ago
      The irony of this complete garble of a comment trying to convince people that we are always reasonable is quite amazing. Have you done that on purpose? Anyway, in the off chance you aren't intending to do an awesome display of irony: - People can be reasonable, but they are bad at knowing when they are and aren't. - Empathy is not applying someones situation to yourself, but instead applying yourself to someones situation (This is non-commutative). - Empathy can help reason but is not required by it. I'm not really suggesting anything controversial so I'm surprised at your adversarial responses. It's almost like we are just stuck in a "Someone is wrong on the internet" loop here.
hookshot 12y ago
Aaron's Law was just recently introduced: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2454#overview https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2454#overview There is a really great talk by Lessig about the legal issues surrounding the case at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HAw1i4gOU4#t=44m39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HAw1i4gOU4#t=44m39. After seeing the debate around the movie, this quote really stuck out at me: "He was a citizen who felt a moral obligation to do what he believed was right. And if he is guilty here it is because he acted on that view of what was right. And we need to act to respect that act of citizenship. To think beyond what Aaron did, to think beyond what was done to him, to think about the ideals he gave everything in his life to, and to make those ideals the law."

271 points by nullc 12y ago

nullc 12y ago

This is the full 120 minute long documentary. It's a heavy watch, but interesting to both audiences familiar with the background and ones who are not. In addition to the normal pay per view streaming on vimeo (https://vimeo.com/ondemand/internetsownboy/94238859 https://vimeo.com/ondemand/internetsownboy/94238859), this film was also offered at an increased price under CC-By-NC-SA. I purchased a freely licensed copy and have placed it on archive.org allowing anyone to learn from it, share it with others, or build new works out of it without risk of prosecution and without going through US-only paywall. The official site for the film is at http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy and the there is a Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy:_The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy:_The_S...

scrollaway 12y ago
Thank you.
rdhyee 12y ago
Thanks for posting the video on archive.org. Ever since I read http://boingboing.net/2014/06/19/aaron-swartz-documentary-the.html http://boingboing.net/2014/06/19/aaron-swartz-documentary-th..., I've been looking for a place to download the CC-licensed video. If I want to send money to the producers of the video, how should I do so? Buy a copy of the video from vimeo?
- thinkcomp 12y ago
  Yes, buying from Vimeo is probably the best way to support Brian and his colleagues. (I am technically one of the "executive producers" but I don't make any money from it.)
  - emm 12y ago
    I bought the video to support your team. Unfortunately it was geoblocked first and only available in SD. Please change that.
  - muloka 12y ago
    I live in a region where its geoblocked from purchasing this film. Would love to support this film/work.
jcr 12y ago
Thank You nullc. It's really tough to contribute something useful to the discussion about and around Aaron Schwartz. The best I can offer is a paper that I found a few hours ago. I haven't read it yet, but it was just released a few days ago. From what I can tell from the description quoted below by one of the authors, it may be good related research worth reading. WEIS 2014: Experimental Measurement of Attitudes Regarding Cybercrime http://weis2014.econinfosec.org/papers/GravesAcquistiAnderson-WEIS2014.pdf http://weis2014.econinfosec.org/papers/GravesAcquistiAnderso... > "Online activists appear to be treated much more harshly by prosecutors than equivalent street protesters; meanwhile online fraudsters are often treated more leniently than the traditional variety. Over two thousand mTurkers participated in six different between-subjects experiments to assess the seriousness or cybercrimes by type of data (directory vs medical info), scope 10 to 1,000,000 records) motivation (student, activist, profiteer) financial consequences, co-responsibility and whether the victim was a firm, a nonprofit or a government agency. Respondents saw more records as more sensitive than less; profiteers as much worse than students or activists; more expensive cases as more serious; that firms were less liable if servers were patched (but that the data were more sensitive in that case). In summary, participants recommend harsher sentences when cybercrimes involve more or more sensitive data, have costlier consequences, or are motivated by profit. This is much more rational than the reported behaviour of some prosecutors and judges."
rational-future 12y ago
Here's a magnet link for torrent users: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6b1c1f8476d0604d98e4a9d3d3bbf4cd131e3326&dn=The+Internet%27s+Own+Boy+-+The+Story+of+Aaron+Swartz+%282014%29&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce
lhl 12y ago
I haven't gotten myself in the headspace to watch this yet, but perhaps also of interest for those who are is Quinn Norton's recent essay marking the release of the documentary: https://medium.com/message/the-internets-own-boy-c815ae07a417 https://medium.com/message/the-internets-own-boy-c815ae07a41... The first half of the piece is a bit of a confessional/elegy- personal, poignant, and a bit heartrending, especially for those who knew Aaron. The second half turns decidedly more polemic, but feels all the more important for the HN crowd (or anyone thinking about the future and the society we live in). Aaron's death was tragic, yes, but it happened within a much (much) larger context of what feels like a waning in social justice and personal freedom around the world. I've certainly been thinking a lot harder about it in the past year, and I hope others are as well.

RexRollman 12y ago

The only thing I don't care for in all this is the deification of Swartz, as if he played no part in the dilemma he found himself in. That said, something need to be done about the prosecutors in this country, who overcharge and bend the law in way not intended.

ghshephard 12y ago
I think the community has reacted the way it has, because what Aaron did, downloading academic journals from a cabling closet, was both in the same context as things that many of us have done (Who hasn't, at one time or another scraped a few gigabytes of Academic Journals, and who hasn't, at University, spent a ton of time trapsing through campus in areas a helluva lot more locked down than where Aaron went), and, it was being done in pursuit of a noble goal, by someone who only had the best interests of others, and the internet at heart. He was then mercilessly pursued, pushed to the point of financial ruin, and threatened with several decades of prison - by a prosecutor who seemingly had zero sense of right/wrong, even in the face of the supposed victim (JSTOR) indicating they had no desire to pursue this any further. It was the sort of activity that when I went to school, would have merited a 3 day suspension, if that.
- tzs 12y ago
  (Responding out of order) > He was then mercilessly pursued, pushed to the point of financial ruin, and threatened with several decades of prison He was not threatened with several decades in prison. Worst case, if he went to trial and lost, would have been something like 7 years. There was a plea bargain on the table that would have let him get off with a few months. His own lawyers say that if he rejected that and did go to trial, they thought the most likely outcome would be probation with no jail time. It is possible that he thought he faced several decades between the time he found out about the indictment and the time he first talked to anyone who knows how the federal sentencing guidelines work and how the totals in indictments are so exaggerated that they make Hollywood accounting look realistic. You can find a very detailed examination of the charges and the possible sentences in the two links given as references in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004640 > (Who hasn't, at one time or another scraped a few gigabytes of Academic Journals, and who hasn't, at University, spent a ton of time trapsing through campus in areas a helluva lot more locked down than where Aaron went) I traipsed a lot at Caltech. However, (1) I was a student there, and (2) if I was asked to stop because I was causing trouble, I would (to not do so would have violated the Honor System). In Swartz's case, (1) he had no connection to MIT, and (2) he did NOT stop even when it became clear that MIT did not want him to continue, and continued to the point of getting MIT temporarily cut off from JSTOR. He should have done his downloading from Harvard, where he had JSTOR access due to his position as a research fellow there, instead of sneaking around at MIT and evading their attempts to get him to stop.

Spockulus_Rift 12y ago

review by The Internet's Own Pete Townshend: 9/10

sparkzilla 12y ago

I made a timeline of Swartz' life http://newslines.org/aaron-swartz/ http://newslines.org/aaron-swartz/ Feel free to update if you see something missing.

pa5tabear 12y ago
I assume something's wrong with him attending Stanford in 2000 (or being born in 1986). He didn't go to college when he was 14/15, did he?
- sparkzilla 12y ago
  Thanks for the tip.

thinkcomp 12y ago

Some links to relevant legal proceedings / profiles: USA v. Swartz: http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/my5tdot8/massachusetts-district-court/usa-v-swartz/ http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/my5tdot8/massachusetts-dist... Stephen P. Heymann: http://www.plainsite.org/attorneys/united-states-department-of-justice/stephen-p-heymann/ http://www.plainsite.org/attorneys/united-states-department-... Think Computer Foundation et al v. Administrative Office of the United States Courts et al: http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northern-district-court/think-computer-foundation-et-al-v-administrative-office-of-the-united-states-courts-et-al/ http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northe...

Maxious 12y ago
"Your activity looks suspicious to us. Please prove that you're human."
- thinkcomp 12y ago
  We get a lot of scraping activity from China, Russia, and Europe. You probably have an IP from somewhere we've seen actual suspicious activity from. Sorry!
  - stephenitis 12y ago
    this HN's bot sniffer?
  - 1stop 12y ago
    I get that message from within Australia... we don't even have the bandwidth to scape a website ;-)

staunch 12y ago

"Hackers for right, we are one down, we have lost one of our own." - TimBL

thrush 12y ago

I've just watched this with my roommates, and I think we're in consensus that Aaron's beliefs, to make the Public Domain actually public and universally share information so that we may be push forward the progress of humanity, are undoubtedly correct. What I would like to know at this time is how to make Aaron's beliefs a reality. What can I do? What can my roommates do? What can anyone do? Ideally, I also don't think that this is a zero sum game. We can all be winners. I'd like to believe that we can all be winners.

thinkcomp 12y ago
Here's one option: http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/operation-asymptote-crowdsources-the-freeing-of-pacer-content/ http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/operation-a... http://www.plainsite.org/asymptote/ http://www.plainsite.org/asymptote/ Another is to write to your representatives in Congress demanding accountability for prosecutors and Stephen Heymann in particular. The web forms actually do get tallied by interns and closely monitored by staffers when there's a spike.
- thrush 12y ago
  I appreciate your suggestion, but I feel like there's more to do, and I'd like to do more.
  - thinkcomp 12y ago
    I think Aaron would have advocated--as the movie aptly points out--a re-thinking of one's approach to life in a way that involves more political activism than we're typically used to, versus a one-time reaction. There's a wide range of political issues for people to make their voices heard on. Directly related to Aaron's interests, I'm suing the Courts over PACER and other related issues. See http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northern-district-court/think-computer-foundation-et-al-v-administrative-office-of-the-united-states-courts-et-al/ http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northe... , where document 23, the First Amended Complaint, is the main one to read. If anyone wants to file an amicus brief/write a letter to the judge in the case and/or the Administrative Office of the Courts, this would be a good time to do it.

jaseemabid 12y ago

Can we all be good netizens and torrent rather than overload Archive servers? Not enough seeders right now.

1stop 12y ago
torrents feel like they should be part of the browser. It seems odd we rely on ISPs to do local level caching, when we could actually do a lot of it ourselves. (Think how many streams of the world cup are floating around on the internet right now...)
- nullc 12y ago
  Last mile bandwidth tends to be a lot more expensive than more centralized data center bandwidth— moving traffic out to the edge is just not very attractive in general.
igl 12y ago
I downloaded the ogg and even mplayer fails to play it without stuttering and even crashing at some frames. I don't think it's the bandwidth.

gdewilde 12y ago

"The Startup Trying to Replace Congress With Software Is Running Two Candidates" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7960110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7960110

kayoone 12y ago

While i believe in the underlying vision that drove Swartz to his actions, the person that killed Swartz was Swartz himself. Prosecutors overcharge and bend the law all the time, still we don't see mass suicides from the "victims". Swartz obviously had some other unrelated issues that drove him to this extreme.

1stop 12y ago
What is the suicide rate for people facing felony prosecution? What is their typical socio-economic status? Is that a factor? My bet is, you don't know the answer to either of those questions, so the "obviously" in your statement is misplaced.
- kayoone 12y ago
  Its clear by reading his older articles about his reddit past and such that he had some trouble adjusting to a "normal" live. He did not seem like an emotionally stable person to me, even before his suicide.
  - 1stop 12y ago
    Your in depth analysis of his emotional state through blog posts? Exactly what is a "normal" life? and what adjustments are required to achieve it? What kind of trouble did he have with those adjustments?
    - ZenPro 12y ago
      Normal life is not suicide. I say that as someone who has talked two people out of suicide. Suicide not a normal emotional, biological or mental state for any living creature. What exactly is wrong with judging someone through a large canon of blog posts? I am sure you would have no trouble judging the mental state of the Westboro Baptist Church members through their blog posts.
      - 1stop 12y ago

stephenitis 12y ago

40 min through is a pretty good tribute to his life, humanity, and values. 10/10 It takes a turn a focus on prosecutorial zeal afterwards. 6/10

electromagnetic 12y ago
I had a couple opportunities to talk with him, and being part of the early reddit community, I thought the first 40 mins were a good tribute to who he was.

stephenitis 12y ago

I'm wondering... has anyone really opened JSTOR and their equivalents to the world yet? appears no. edit* there is not technology and science resource available for congressmen??? smh...

OvidNaso 12y ago
Apparently, everything Aaron downloaded is available at theinfo.org. Nobody has really done anything (apparent) with it. The site is down now, so maybe that is an indication this doc has inspired something in someone.

ZenPro 12y ago

I cannot get around the fact that he was offered leniency (6 months in a low security prison) in return for a plea bargain. He rejected that deal, opting instead for a trial in which prosecutors would have been forced to justify their pursuit of him. Fair enough - noble and principled if a little foolhardy. Then he committed suicide. Given the choice of ending my life or taking 6 months in jail; I know which is the more mentally stable option to take.

1stop 12y ago
You are ascribing your own situation to the problem and pretending it is the same. Everyone thinks they are completely reasonable, but the fact is our brain convinces us we are even when we are not. Unless you've actually been someone else, how can you know what it is like?
- ZenPro 12y ago
  Just to be clear; your assertion is that no human being make a reasonable or educated guess about their behaviour in a situation that is unfamiliar? That is your assertion?...because it is nonsense if it is. As humans we make effective, educated guesses about unfamiliar scenarios all of the time. I also don't physically need to be charged with wire fraud to know that I would not take my own life over it leaving behind my children. Children, if convicted today, I would be able to see again before Christmas. However - if you want to get [really] meta over the subject then your logic defeats itself. Unless you have actually been me how can you know that I am not completely accurate in my assessment of myself? Your stated position has rendered you unable to disagree with me. Since you are not me.
  - 1stop 12y ago
    The irony of this complete garble of a comment trying to convince people that we are always reasonable is quite amazing. Have you done that on purpose? Anyway, in the off chance you aren't intending to do an awesome display of irony: - People can be reasonable, but they are bad at knowing when they are and aren't. - Empathy is not applying someones situation to yourself, but instead applying yourself to someones situation (This is non-commutative). - Empathy can help reason but is not required by it. I'm not really suggesting anything controversial so I'm surprised at your adversarial responses. It's almost like we are just stuck in a "Someone is wrong on the internet" loop here.

hookshot 12y ago

Aaron's Law was just recently introduced: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2454#overview https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2454#overview There is a really great talk by Lessig about the legal issues surrounding the case at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HAw1i4gOU4#t=44m39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HAw1i4gOU4#t=44m39. After seeing the debate around the movie, this quote really stuck out at me: "He was a citizen who felt a moral obligation to do what he believed was right. And if he is guilty here it is because he acted on that view of what was right. And we need to act to respect that act of citizenship. To think beyond what Aaron did, to think beyond what was done to him, to think about the ideals he gave everything in his life to, and to make those ideals the law."