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Aaron Swartz Indicted in Attempted Piracy of Four Million Documents

Posted by Unknown on from the but-information-wants-to-be-free dept.

An anonymous reader writes "New York Times has reported that Internet activist Aaron Swartz has been indicted for stealing more than 4 million documents from JSTOR." The indictment contains an exciting tale featuring trespassing, MAC address forgery, a Python script or two, and even computers hidden under a cardboard box. El Reg has a decent summary. Demand Progress has released an official response claiming the charges are trumped up nonsense.

3 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. It sounds like he was being an asshole by Scareduck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The "too many library books" thing is a little disingenuous; I wonder whether JSTOR's servers were capable of keeping up with this kind of assault (assuming the factual description of this event is correct). On the other hand, this looks like government deciding to throw the books at this guy because they don't like his organization, and are using this as a pretext.

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    Dog is my co-pilot.

    1. Re:It sounds like he was being an asshole by garcia · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I read an article about this earlier which said it crashed JSTOR's servers on at least three occasions.

      However, JSTOR didn't wan to press charges yet the feds continued to push it. Academic interests (hilarious considering the reason for JSTOR) be dammed.

  2. Oh, really? by Pope · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Aaron Swartz, a 24-year-old researcher in Harvard University's Center for Ethics, broke into a locked computer-wiring closet in an MIT basement and used a switch there to gain unauthorized access the college's network,"

    How ethical.

    "Members of Demand Progress, a nonprofit political action group Swartz founded, criticized the indictment."

    Oh, really? No conflict of interest there.

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