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Worldwide Aaron Swartz Day Memorial Hackathons This Weekend
New submitter sterlingcrispin writes: There are hackathons taking place all over the world in memory of Aaron Swartz this weekend, November 8th and 9th. The goal is to "bring together the varied communities that Aaron touched to figure out how the important problems of the world connect, and to share the load of working on those problems." If you are interested in open access, privacy, free speech, transparency, citizen activism, human rights, and information ethics please attend, promote this event, and contribute to its growth.
I'm organizing the Los Angeles meet up and would love to see you there! Here are the other cities hosting one.
I'm organizing the Los Angeles meet up and would love to see you there! Here are the other cities hosting one.
and the public outcry would break the decibel record set at a college football game.
Dream big, right?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
"And may the Swartz be with you."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Or maybe if you just want to break into someone's system and steal shit, or something.
INSERT SNIDE COMMENT HERE
He is not my hero. He shouldn't be yours either.
expect your pic to be posted. forever.
At least that makes it sound bigger than the 12 people that represent each of those cities. Let's hope this "hackathon" (what a stupid name) is not something illegal else what a horrible legacy.
> yum update
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
FACT: Downloading JSTOR articles was one minor footnote among the many amazing projects Aaron was working on at the time. From the fall of 2010 until his death in 2013, Aaronâ(TM)s projects included, but were not limited to: SecureDrop, the leak-protecting technology for journalists now implemented by outlets ranging from The New Yorker to Forbes to The Guardian; the SOPA/PIPA fight, The Flaming Sword of Justice (now The Good Fight), a podcast about activism which went on to reach the top of the iTunes charts; VictoryKit, an online campaigning toolset still mobilizing activists around the world; and co-founding Demand Progress. FACT: Aaron implemented a piece of software that downloaded articles from the JSTOR website faster than JSTOR originally intended. Aaronâ(TM)s software downloaded articles from the JSTOR website to Aaronâ(TM)s laptop, just like a live person would have downloaded them, but without his having to sit there and click through each of the steps manually. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1... FACT: Aaron did not hack into any of MITâ(TM)s computers. The CFAA requires that a person gain access to a computer that they werenâ(TM)t authorized to access. Aaron was obviously authorized to access his own laptop. FACT: Aaron did not hack into MITâ(TM)s network. Aaron connected his laptop to MITâ(TM)s open network by walking into an open computer closet on MITs open campus and simply plugging into an unused ethernet port. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1... FACT: Aaron was a âoeFellowâ at the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at the time. Aaron was exactly the type of academic researcher that MIT meant to have downloading articles from the JSTOR database over its open network. Aaronâ(TM)s past research in this regard was the basis of a Stanford Law Review Article where he found troubling connections between corporations and their funding of legal research. Source: Stanford Law Review http://www.stanfordlawreview.o... FACT: Aaron wasnâ(TM)t even violating JSTORâ(TM)s Terms of Service at the time. JSTOR and MIT had contractual agreements allowing unlimited downloads to any computers on MITs network. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1...
don't do the crime.
He was a pussy.
--
Suicide-murder would be a lot more impressive than murder-suicide.
lucm, indeed.
Only Cowards commit suicide!! Of course those with brain tumors and other painful diseases have an exception
FACT: Downloading JSTOR articles was one minor footnote among the many amazing projects Aaron was working on at the time. From the fall of 2010 until his death in 2013, Aaronâ(TM)s projects included, but were not limited to: SecureDrop, the leak-protecting technology for journalists now implemented by outlets ranging from The New Yorker to Forbes to The Guardian; the SOPA/PIPA fight, The Flaming Sword of Justice (now The Good Fight), a podcast about activism which went on to reach the top of the iTunes charts; VictoryKit, an online campaigning toolset still mobilizing activists around the world; and co-founding Demand Progress.
FACT: Aaron implemented a piece of software that downloaded articles from the JSTOR website faster than JSTOR originally intended. Aaronâ(TM)s software downloaded articles from the JSTOR website to Aaronâ(TM)s laptop, just like a live person would have downloaded them, but without his having to sit there and click through each of the steps manually. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1...
FACT: Aaron did not hack into any of MITâ(TM)s computers. The CFAA requires that a person gain access to a computer that they werenâ(TM)t authorized to access. Aaron was obviously authorized to access his own laptop.
FACT: Aaron did not hack into MITâ(TM)s network. Aaron connected his laptop to MITâ(TM)s open network by walking into an open computer closet on MITs open campus and simply plugging into an unused ethernet port. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1...
FACT: Aaron was a âoeFellowâ at the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at the time. Aaron was exactly the type of academic researcher that MIT meant to have downloading articles from the JSTOR database over its open network. Aaronâ(TM)s past research in this regard was the basis of a Stanford Law Review Article where he found troubling connections between corporations and their funding of legal research. Source: Stanford Law Review
http://www.stanfordlawreview.o...
FACT: Aaron wasnâ(TM)t even violating JSTORâ(TM)s Terms of Service at the time. JSTOR and MIT had contractual agreements allowing unlimited downloads to any computers on MITs network.
Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1...
So far, no-one on this thread is addressing these issues. For those who don't know, which is most of you, Aaron got Google Inc. involved in the "Stop SOPA" campaign. So don't bitch about the one thing he did wrong, we owe him.
Never was the attribute "coward" been given more appropriately than in your case.
6 months in prison is still nothing to joke about.
Since there's such a thing as a criminal record, it's really a lifetime conviction.
Whose to say there wasn't more to it than just 6 months of prison time.
He could have become an asset to people who would have used and controlled him in ways that were not in the public's interest.
I happen to think Aaron did some wonderful things, that it's a tragedy that he's gone, etc. But good intentions != legally acceptable behavior.. And a lot of these are just excuses. I also thing the government was too hard on him, but that doesn't make it legal one way or the other. I don't believe marijuana usage should be treated harshly, but it is in various places in the world. That the treatment was disproprortionately harsh, I agree. But that doesn't automatically make his behavior legally or morally correct. It is TRUE AFAIK there is no proof that he was going to disseminate the information publicly. That in itself should make the case dropped. But given his past history, and speaking only as a logical deduction, it's pretty obvious what he was going to do with it. That has nothing to do with "setting the record straight"
FACT: Downloading JSTOR articles was one minor footnote among the many amazing projects Aaron was working on at the time...
==> Yeah, no relevance, and no one is disputing. 0 points awarded out of 10.
FACT: Aaron implemented a piece of software that downloaded articles from the JSTOR website faster than JSTOR originally intended...oftware downloaded articles from the JSTOR website to AAron's laptop, just like a live person would have downloaded them, but without his having to sit there and click through each of the steps manually...
==> Sophistry. Exactly he was was downloading thousands of articles automatically. Automatically in itself is not an issue. The issue is the INTENT -- why was he downloading all these documents? Was he intending to use them for PERSONAL use, and read them HIMSELF? If not, and as was reasonably clear at the time from previous information retrievals, he was planning to publish them publicly. And that abets infringment. 3 out of 10 points awarded out of generosity.
FACT: Aaron did not hack into any of MIT's computers. The CFAA requires that a person gain access to a computer that they werenâ(TM)t authorized to access. Aaron was obviously authorized to access his own laptop.
===> Not the point. Yes, he was allowed to access his laptop. Does that mean for example he could run Silk Road 2 from his laptop legally? So irrelevant point, 0 out of 10.
FACT: Aaron did not hack into MITâ(TM)s network. Aaron connected his laptop to MITâ(TM)s open network by walking into an open computer closet on MITs open campus and simply plugging into an unused ethernet port. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1... [unhandled.com]
===> 0 out of 10. Misses the point entirely.
FACT: Aaron was a Fellow at the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at the time. Aaron was exactly the type of academic researcher that MIT meant to have downloading articles from the JSTOR database over its open network. His past research in this regard was the basis of a Stanford Law Review Article where he found troubling connections between corporations and their funding of legal research.
====> 4 out of 10. If I am allowed to do one thing in the abstract, I can still do criminal things. I can access Facebook, it's publicly available. But if I hacked it and stole everyones credit cards it would be a crime. It's the use I made of the "open network" that's relevant. Also, I am glad he published a good paper but that's not relevant.
FACT: Aaron wasnâ(TM)t even violating JSTORâ(TM)s Terms of Service at the time. JSTOR and MIT had contractual agreements allowing unlimited downloads to any computers on MITs network.
2 out of 10. The terms allow a person with certain affiliations to access the store, yes. But there are also a long laundry lists of permitted and prohibited usages of the information once you retrieve it.
Some agency is very afraid of Aaron becoming a martyr, and their paid trolls are here to throw out talking points someone else wrote for the purpose of trashing Aaron's character.
They don't even try to hide it. Giant paragraphs of garbage, shitposting, you name it. The fact of trolls indicates the truth: Aaron was ultimately victimized by his government, not MIT or JSTOR.
He put himself in the situation. And he got caught. It wasn't the first time he did it either. Prosecutors are always big-time jerks --- it is part of the job description.
If anything, the problem is hackers are usually caught up in a very juvenile culture where they decide right and wrong are decided by their social circle and social approval.
Self-pity in adults is the first sign of evil. And the opposite of being an adult. Adults make their own choices.
Self-pity is the concept that you don't create your own circumstances and a rejection of responsibility. He had the world on a silver-platter even if he did a little jail time.
Faced with the choice of growing into an adult and acknowledging there is a world outside his social circle that does not approve of his behavior, he did the childish thing and rejected this and committed suicide.
Nothing noble about this. Not one bit.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Why do we want to celebrate some guy that is famous for dying from autoerotic asphyxia while downloading JSTOR articles?
Your entire premise is that the government went after him for enabling JSTOR privacy , but the feds actually went after him on principle and used JSTOR as an excuse. The feds has raided his apartment over a year earlier for his correspondence with wikileaks.
But you shills are just here to trash his character, anyway.
Funny how all these emotional arguments for JSTOR appear whenever there's an Aaron Schwartz thread, as if anyone on slashdot really feels that strongly about piracy.
I doubt you're so naiive as to think that the fed prosecuted him purely over JSTOR when both JSTOR and MIT didn't care to continue with the charges. He was targeted by the government as an activist. That's how he was martyred, not over JSTOR.
Hates Aaron Schwartz? check.
Hates Manning, Assange, Snowden and Greenwald? Quadruple check.
An undying yet unspkoken loyalty to endless spying and the liars that enable it? You bet your ass.
You shills are so bad at this, it blows my mind. I hope for your employer's sake that you're an unpaid intern, else our tax money is going to waste twice over.
You obviously have no experience working in the public sector. "The government" is not an organized entity with a secret agenda. It's a tapestry of independent organizations with conflicting interests managed by people with little or no incentive to implement the short term policy established by whoever is temporarily in charge as dictated by the random lobbies that got them elected.
The fact that you mention GCHQ leads me to believe that you are from the UK, because nobody outside that tiny island gives a shit about your local, watered-down version of an intelligence service. I wasn't even sure about the right order of the letters in that acronym, I had to double-check your post. That should tell you how meaningless they are. If it was not for James Bond movies nobody in the world would even know that you have spies. It's like if some dude from Italy was to come here and start spewing paranoid garbage about AISE hiring people to brag about spaghetti on Yahoo Answers. (Yeah, I had to google "italy intelligence agency" to find the name for that one).
In any event, I guess believing that "the government" is posting on Slashdot to shape public opinion is a security blanket for you. So keep up denouncing random people as shills of The System if that makes you happy. In the meantime I'll definitely look up that other conversation you mention because that's immensely fascinating; if you don't see me replying in that thread it will be because your points are too strong and convincing.
lucm, indeed.