Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
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Re: Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
#2As well as Tufte, the video at the end of the post, where Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman talks, is well worth listening to.
Re: Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
#3As well as Tufte, the video at the end of the post, where Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman talks, is well worth listening to.
I hope someone takes the time to transcribe it...at the end of an already emotionally draining service, Taren still managed to bring out a collective, audible weeping in the packed auditorium.
She was very aggressive on her calls to make sure the prosecuting attorneys face reproach. But interestingly, Carmen Ortiz was mostly mentioned in passing. Stephen Heymann by far was the target of Taren's anger.
Re: Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
#4> And so I told Bill Bowen that he had a great opportunity here to not wreck somebody’s life. And of course he thankfully did the right thing.
MIT take note please.
Re: Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
#5Oh, another old counter-culture guy who egged on an impressionable kid. How sad that Aaron's attempt to strike a blow like those of his mentors was so squalid. Kids, I'll tell you since these heroes won't: if your "hack" involves picking locks, buying multiple computers to bypass a download limit, and violating terms of use, it's not a movement and it is not heroic. Don't let these lazy essayits lead you down this path. Find your own cause, and make it worthwhile.
Re: Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
#6As well as Tufte, the video at the end of the post, where Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman talks, is well worth listening to.
I hope someone takes the time to transcribe it...at the end of an already emotionally draining service, Taren still managed to bring out a collective, audible weeping in the packed auditorium. She was very aggressive on her calls to make sure the prosecuting attorneys face reproach. But interestingly, Carmen Ortiz was mostly mentioned in passing. Stephen Heymann by far was the target of Taren's anger.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-...
The petition asking for Heymann firing still lacks 15.000 votes.
From what I read he was more instrumental than Ortiz in the aggressiveness the prosecution.
Not that the witch hunt is very useful in itself, but it keeps people involved and the more shit we stir, the most likely things will move.
Re: Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
#7I had no idea Tufte had been a blue box hacker. Amazing story.
Re: Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
#8This reminds me of a line in Schindler's List: "Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't."
Re: Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
#9> And so I told Bill Bowen that he had a great opportunity here to not wreck somebody’s life. And of course he thankfully did the right thing. MIT take note please.
(I know this will be an unpopular post, so I'll preface this by saying that Swartz's transgressions didn't warrant multiple years in prison and the whole situation is a tragedy.)
MIT take note please.
I think they have - in Tufte's anecdote he mentions that the AT&T security person asked "why we went off the air after about three months." The implication is that between the security guy's technical interest and the fact that Tufte wasn't hacking the phone system anymore, there was no real reason to go after him.
In Swartz's case, after the first few time MIT/JSTOR detected his activity, all they did was to (try to) block Swartz's access to the system. If Swartz had given up, that may have been the end of it. There are parallels between Tufte and Swartz but there are also differences.
(again, I am in no way saying that Swartz deserved a long prison sentence or he deserved to die.)
Re: Edward Tufte’s defense of Aaron Swartz and the “marvelously different”
#10> And so I told Bill Bowen that he had a great opportunity here to not wreck somebody’s life. And of course he thankfully did the right thing. MIT take note please.
(I know this will be an unpopular post, so I'll preface this by saying that Swartz's transgressions didn't warrant multiple years in prison and the whole situation is a tragedy.) MIT take note please. I think they have - in Tufte's anecdote he mentions that the AT&T security person asked "why we went off the air after about three months." The implication is that between the security guy's technical interest and the f…
The major difference that sticks out for me in your comparison is that free access to long distance calls is optional but free access to knowledge is not. A second difference is that it seemed there was a dialogue going, a dialogue during which if a similar one had happened between MIT and Aaron, MIT might have found out they were about to destroy something precious. AT&T, that well-known bastion of freedom and openness could do that. MIT apparently could not.
Finally I urge you to please watch Taren's video at the end of the linked article.