Release of 33GiB of Scientific Publications

An anonymous reader writes "A Wikipedian, Greg Maxwell, has released 33GiB of scientific publications [note: torrent] from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in response to the arrest of Aaron Swartz for, effectively, downloading too many articles from JSTOR. The release consists of 18,592 scientific articles previously released at $8-$19 each and all published prior to 1923 and so public domain."

Comments

Biased summary

[the_raptor]

in response to the arrest of Aaron Swartz for, effectively, downloading too many articles from JSTOR

No, that jackass got arrested for not only hacking MIT systems but physically breaking into equipment cabinets and messing with the hardware. He did this so that he could "effectively download too many articles from JSTOR", but that isn't what he got arrested for.

I am all for civil disobedience when it is merited, but don't go crying when you get arrested and charged for that disobedience. Especially don't go trying to distort the reasons for your arrest to try and trick people into supporting you. There are so many causes I support where I wouldn't be caught seen with the "activists" pushing them because they do bullshit like this.

Re:Biased summary

[Anonymous Coward]

The description and even the Wikipedia page on the issue imply that he simply brought a laptop into MIT and downloaded the data. Actually looking at news articles on the same issue reveal he did a bit more than that:

"According to the indictment, Swartz connected a laptop to MIT's system in September 2010 through a basement network wiring closet and registered as a guest under the fictitious name, Gary Host, in which the first initial and last name spell "ghost." He then used a software program to "rapidly download at 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 allegedly made 2 million downloads from JSTOR, 100 times the number made during the same period by all legitimate JSTOR users at MIT.

The indictment also alleges 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. It said that he fled when MIT police tried to question him that day."

Yyyyeah, I don't think he's being charged simply for downloading too much from JSTOR.

Re:Biased summary

[nomadic]

Yeah, that Rosa Parks, stop whining, bitch.

You bring up an apt comparison, but it says the reverse of what you intended it to say. Rosa Parks practiced true civil disobedience; she broke a law out in the open, expecting to get arrested; that's a critical component of civil disobedience. She didn't do it secretly using a false name.

Re:Biased summary

[Anthony Mouse]

I am all for civil disobedience when it is merited, but don't go crying when you get arrested and charged for that disobedience. Especially don't go trying to distort the reasons for your arrest to try and trick people into supporting you.

The problem with modern civil disobedience is that they don't hold you overnight and then let you go anymore, or even charge you with a crime for which the penalty is a $500 fine or 30 days in the county jail. They trump up some nonsense charges for which the penalty is 5-10 years or more in Federal PMITA Prison so that you have to spend enough on legal fees to bankrupt anyone who isn't a millionaire, because nobody sane is willing to go pro se against the prospect of that sort of excessive, life-ruining penalty. Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr. were arrested in 1955 for his ("illegal") bus boycotts, and then thrown in prison for the next 10 years. Somehow I doubt the 1963 "I have a dream" speech would have been quite as effective standing on a table in the prison cafeteria in front of a dozen inmates as it was in front of a quarter of a million people at the Lincoln Memorial.

So today, prospective young men and women who feel that they have no real political representation are presented with a Sophie's choice. If they want to keep their freedom and have any continued hope of creating change through official channels or by shaping public opinion through open discussion, they have to forgo civil disobedience and are deprived of one of the most effective methods to bring about change in the face of a broken political system. (This is, obviously, by design from the perspective of the broken political system.) Or they can break the law as their predecessors did, but then have to rely on anonymity and whatever criminal defense a person can muster against outrageous penalties in order to retain the freedom to continue the fight and continue to violate unreasonable laws until they are repealed.

Naturally someone will respond that this is a different fight and how dare I compare freedom of information to the civil rights movement etc. But that is just a political perspective -- history is written by the winners. Just because you don't agree with the politics of the accused (whether it be MLK or Julian Assange), that is no excuse to support the suppression of nonviolent political movements through criminal felony prosecutions.

Re:Biased summary

[Caerdwyn]

No, he was arrested for burglary (note to readers: "burglary" is not a crime of larceny/theft. It is breaking-and-entering in furtherance of actions which in themselves are also illegal.). Plenty to cry over.

The "anonymous reader" who claims the arrest was over downloading is, in fact, lying.

Re:Biased summary

[the_raptor]

The problem with modern civil disobedience is that they don't hold you overnight and then let you go anymore, or even charge you with a crime for which the penalty is a $500 fine or 30 days in the county jail.

When did THEY ever do that for real civil disobedience? Now days the worst you are likely to suffer from civil disobedience in the West is a few years in jail. Those fighting for causes such as civil rights for African-Americans or women's suffrage faced being beaten, tortured, and killed. Mandela was in prison for TWENTY-SEVEN years. The whole point of civil disobedience is to show the injustice in something by pointing the public at the disproportionate sentences handed out.

Modern activists are generally a bunch of pussies that scream about the injustice of The System but don't actually want to suffer the losses that an actual fight requires. If a cause isn't worth spending a few years in jail, it isn't worth making a fuss out of at all. People like MLK Jr knew their cause was worth the back-lash.

Re:Biased summary

[the_raptor]

No the more oppressive the regime the MORE resistance needs to be in the open. Oppressive regimes work by making people afraid, especially by making dissidents feel they are alone and isolated. When oppressive regimes fall from internal causes it is nearly always due to people making public stands. The current "Arab spring" is the perfect example of this. Those regimes are only falling because people are marching in the streets and willing to die to see the end of the current regimes.

Re:Biased summary

[sjames]

Open and anonymous need not be separate things. A person flagrantly violating the law and then disappearing before the goon squad can come haul them off to the organ harvester is effective. Same thing but calling out your name and address just makes people think you were suicidal anyway and gets your family killed as well.

Re:Biased summary

[Anthony Mouse]

Now days the worst you are likely to suffer from civil disobedience in the West is a few years in jail.

Since when is that a small thing to suffer?

Mandela was in prison for TWENTY-SEVEN years.

That's what I'm talking about. Mandela accomplished what he set out to, but it basically took him his whole life to do it. And what happens if the people with his level of dedication are executed rather than imprisoned? What happens if the change sought is time-sensitive, such that whoever wins the day today will capture enough power to keep the balance in their favor going forward?

Civil disobedience doesn't work if you're the only one doing it. In that case the opposition merely has to come down on you hard enough to take you out of the running and deter anyone else from taking your place. It works when people take part on a mass scale. And if there are enough people willing to have an "example" made of them for the cause then great, but in many situations, even for very worthy causes, there are insufficiently many people willing to make that sacrifice. There are, in fact, things worth fighting for that aren't worth dying for.

So anonymity and penalty avoidance allow the process to bootstrap. If people can show that they can break bad laws without being caught, more people will be emboldened to join them. Once enough people are doing it, some of them will do what you want -- step forward, put their heads on the chopping block and dare the oppressors to martyr them. And by that point, when most every citizen is guilty of the crime, no jury will convict.

If a cause isn't worth spending a few years in jail, it isn't worth making a fuss out of at all.

This is nonsense and is the main flaw in your argument. There are undeniably non-frivolous causes worth taking action over that aren't worth going to prison over.

Re:Biased summary

[burris]

Wire Fraud, Computer Fraud, Unlawfully Obtaining Information from a Protected Computer, and Recklessly Damaging a Protected Computer. The charges that the state will try to prove in it's case, along with the probable cause, are all in the indictment.

COUNT 1 Wire Fraud 18 U.S.C. 1343 & 2
34. The Grand Jury realleges and incorporates by reference the allegations in paragraphs 1-33 of this Indictment and charges that:
From on or about September 24, 2010, through January 6, 2011, or thereabout, in the District of Massachusetts and elsewhere, the defendant,
AARON SWARTZ,
having devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud and for obtaining property — namely, journal articles digitized and distributed by JSTOR, and copies thereof — by means of material false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, transmitted and caused to be transmitted by means of wire communication in interstate commerce writings, signs, signals, and pictures — namely, communications to and from JSTOR’s computer servers — for the purpose of executing the scheme, and aided and abetted the same.
All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1343 and 2.

COUNT 2 Computer Fraud 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(4) & 2
35. The Grand Jury realleges and incorporates by reference the allegations in paragraphs 1-33 of this Indictment and charges that:
From on or about September 24, 2010, through January 6, 2011, or thereabout, in the District of Massachusetts and elsewhere, the defendant,
AARON SWARTZ,
knowingly and with intent to defraud, accessed a protected computer — namely, a computer on MIT’s network and a computer on JSTOR’s network — without authorization and in excess of authorized access, and by means of such conduct furthered the intended fraud and obtained things of value — namely, digitized journal articles from JSTOR’s archive — and aided and abetted the same.
All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1030(a)(4) and 2.

COUNT 3 Unlawfully Obtaining Information from a Protected Computer 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2), (c)(2)(B)(iii) & 2
36. The Grand Jury realleges and incorporates by reference the allegations in paragraphs 1-33 of this Indictment and charges that:
From on or about September 24, 2010, through January 6, 2011, or thereabout, in the District of Massachusetts and elsewhere, the defendant,
AARON SWARTZ,
intentionally accessed a computer — namely, a computer on MIT’s computer network and a computer on JSTOR’s network — without authorization and in excess of authorized access, and thereby obtained from a protected computer information whose value exceeded $5,000 — namely, digitized journal articles from JSTOR’s archive — and aided and abetted the same.
All in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2), (c)(2)(B)(iii) and 2.

COUNT 4 Recklessly Damaging a Protected Computer 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(5)(B), (c)(4)(A)(i)(I),(VI) & 2
37. The Grand Jury realleges and incorporates by reference the allegations in paragraphs 1-33 of this Indictment and charges that:
From on or about September 24, 2010, through January 6, 2011, or thereabout, in the District of Massachusetts and elsewhere, the defendant,
AARON SWARTZ,
intentionally accessed a protected computer — namely, a computer on MIT’s computer network and a computer on JSTOR’s network — without authorization, and as a result of such conduct recklessly caused damage to MIT and JSTOR, and, during a 1-year period, caused loss aggregating at least $5,000 in value and damage affecting at least 10 protected computers, and aided and abetted the same.
All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1030(a)(5)(B), (c)(4)(A)(i)(I),(VI) & 2.

Re:Biased summary

[slashqwerty]

And her penalty was a $10 fine plus $4 in court costs*. Rosa Parks also spent one day in jail waiting to be bailed out. Her trial took place one week after she was charged.

Today, it would costs tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees just to get the charges moved down to the real offense rather than some trumped-up felony. It would also cost tens of thousands of dollars to post bail. Anyone who can't post bail has to sit in jail awaiting trail which can potentially take years.

*adjusted for inflation $14 in 1955 would be $120 in 2011.

Re:legal?

[martin-boundary]

No, it's volunteer work written up and edited for free for the benefit of mankind, then locked up by transfer of copyright and published very expensively. If you don't pay $19 for each article you read, then the world will be destabilized and fall into a spontaneously created black hole, and baby Jesus will weep from his expensive condo on Mount Olympus, Mars.

He's right about academic publishing

[15Bit]

I know a lot of academics are becoming annoyed by the publishers and their business models. Frankly its a disgrace that most research isn't freely available to the general public. More often than not they have paid for it via taxation and university fees (most research, at least in europe where i am, is taxpayer funded). Add to that the fact that the academics do the work, write the papers, review the papers (for free i might add) and mostly act as journal editors (for free again), and its hard to see really what the publishers are doing beyond hosting the PDF.

Oh and the best bit - when you submit your paper to the publisher, you also sign over copyright. So they even own all the taxpayer funded work. Actually i was wrong at the start, its beyond a disgrace.

Librarians

[__aazsst3756]

I thought the reason for librarians is to make data easily found by users of the library. Then I go to do research and am astonished by the amount of effort required to find anything in digital format. I think my mom could come up with a better system... the librarians are failing.