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.

Comments

Ideally

[rmdingler]

Some group would make public the government's abuse of surveillance

and the public outcry would break the decibel record set at a college football game.

Dream big, right?

Re:Ideally

[PRMan]

He stole documents that were supposed to be public domain that the government had put behind a paywall and made them public. He used MIT's license and free-to-the-public internet to do this.

He got caught because he put his downloader in one of their closets. None of this should have been technically illegal, and even MIT didn't want to prosecute, but the government decided they didn't like him.

Re:Ideally

[BitZtream]

And that has exactly dick to do with Aarpm Swartz.

He didn't expose you to some massive cover up. He was a common criminal who couldn't handle the fact that he got caught. Any 'good' he did was by dumb luck and coincidental, not intentional.

He was not a hero. Stop pretending he was or bullshitting about what he did, you just cheapen the actions of those who have done heroic deeds.

Do you even know what he did and why he got in trouble? I don't think you do.

Re:Ideally

[SuricouRaven]

The accusation levied is that the prosecutors overdid the intimidation in their efforts to get to to accept a not-very-good plea bargain. It's a standard procedure: Inform someone that they could go to jail for decades, their life effectively owner, unemployable when they do get out, financially ruined, reputation in shreds. Throw in some scary talk about how dangerous prison is to leave them wondering how they'll survive in a place filled with violent criminals. If all goes to plan the subject will be so terrified they'll accept any plea offered. Prosecutor gets a good politically-advantageous outcome and the taxpayer is saved the cost of a drawn-out and expensive trial. There are downsides though - innocent people may be pressured into pleading guilty this way, and occasionally someone just can't take the pressure and has a breakdown, which is what happened here.

Ob. spaceballs ref.

[BarbaraHudson]

"And may the Swartz be with you."

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

[sterlingcrispin]

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...

Re:SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT with paragraphs

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Slashdot knows nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

... open access, privacy, free speech, transparency, citizen activism, human rights, and information ethics ...

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.

Trolls blaming the victim for prosecutorial overre

[Rujiel]

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.