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Aaron, 5 years later

bensw.com

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Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#121

Post by endlessvoid94 »

madez wrote: post #90
MollyR wrote: post #2

"Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations." - Aaron I think about his quote quite a bit lately. I wonder what he would have thought about modern facebook, google, and the extreme cons…

Have you ever had the feeling like "Uhm, I better not share this article even though I like it" or "I'm curious about a topic but I better not google it" or "I shouldn't have these files on my machine for somebody could find them". These thoughts often come out of social pressure to conform, an invisible ever-present behaviour regulation, that we never explicitly agreed upon. Social pressure is harmful to minorities,…

Ever-relevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#122

Post by joeyh »

a3_nm wrote: post #33
aplorbust wrote: post #26

"I convinced Google to allow me to give their USENET archives to the Internet Archive." Thank you.

I also thought this was interesting, but I don't see what this is referring to. Google has bought the DejaNews archive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups and I haven't find any reference of the fact that they would have given it to Internet Archive, neither on the wikipedia article nor on places where it could have been mentioned like https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/Usenet or https://archive.org/detail…

https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical appears to be from Google Groups. Its description is lacking, but it contains headers like:

    X-Google-Thread: fca3818fe8,c285ccf93b10248a
    X-Google-Attributes: gidfca3818fe8,public,usenet

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#123

Post by auxbuss »

firasd wrote: post #22

A touching note from Zephyr Teachout: "I miss Aaron Swartz. He died 5 years ago today. He was a friend and a rare, huge, soul, and oh did he ever believe in freedom and the possibilities of the future. Wish you were still on call for late night IM strategy sessions, or philosophy, dear friend. I think of you." https://twitter.com/ZephyrTeachout/status/951538523076792320 I also appreciate this thought from a fellow HN…

Similarly, Lessig:

"Five years ago, we lost Aaron Swartz. None should rest, for still, there is no peace."

https://twitter.com/lessig/status/951425535388692481

And Arron's mum:

"RIP my darling boy. It's been 5 years. If you do one thing today, honor Aaron's memory by calling your Senators and Representatives in Congress and begging them to support #Aaron'sLaw to reform the CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act)."

https://twitter.com/beadmomsw/status/951479126636027904

I still mourn for what we lost. Aaron was only at the start, and he'd already done so much.

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#124

Post by tzs »

notthemessiah wrote: post #95
khazhoux wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prosecutors were in the wrong, but they did not kill him.

They wanted to throw him in a federal prison for 50 years. How is that not robbing someone of their life?

It was around 7 years, and that only if it went to trail and basically everything at the trial when the prosecutor's way [1]. If the plea bargain had been accepted it would have been around 6 months.

Here's a good article on how those ridiculously long, completely unrealistic, sentence claims come about so often for Federal cases [2].

[1] http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aa...

[2] https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#126

Post by chris_wot »

DanBC wrote: post #80
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He felt something, near the end. Put yourself in his shoes. Speculation is all we can do, if we're serious about trying to prevent this in the future. Giving people an outlet is important. The people who reached out to me often felt cornered, for one reason or another. Isn't it reasonable to suppose Aaron felt the similarly? If people feel like they're allowed to open up about their issues, it can really do some good…

> Speculation is all we can do, if we're serious about trying to prevent this in the future. No no, if you want to prevent suicide you should avoid specualting on what went on in a person's mind. Suicide is a complex phenomena, and it's wrong to boil it down to one or two things.

Agreed. I have been very close to suicide on a few occasions, and I’m sure they were for different reasons than Aaron.

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#127

Post by chris_wot »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87
DanBC wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Speculation is all we can do, if we're serious about trying to prevent this in the future. No no, if you want to prevent suicide you should avoid specualting on what went on in a person's mind. Suicide is a complex phenomena, and it's wrong to boil it down to one or two things.

For what it's worth, I partly agree. It just seems important to try to help whatever is going on. Most people don't try, you know? It can be really hard for people who have stuff going on to find any kind of support. And you'd think it'd be the opposite: family, friends, counsellors. Yet for some reason, people tend to eschew them during dark times. There's something worth exploring there, and I want to help somehow.…

You don’t want to talk about suicidal thoughts. If you do that, then you will get locked up and not treated like a person. In Australia, the medical profession who are meant to help people with suicidal thoughts are the very last people you should speak to.

I speak from personal experience.

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#128

Post by sillysaurus3 »

chris_wot wrote: post #127
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I partly agree. It just seems important to try to help whatever is going on. Most people don't try, you know? It can be really hard for people who have stuff going on to find any kind of support. And you'd think it'd be the opposite: family, friends, counsellors. Yet for some reason, people tend to eschew them during dark times. There's something worth exploring there, and I want to help somehow.…

You don’t want to talk about suicidal thoughts. If you do that, then you will get locked up and not treated like a person. In Australia, the medical profession who are meant to help people with suicidal thoughts are the very last people you should speak to. I speak from personal experience.

That's why I want to help. I want to be someone that people can speak to.

That goes for you, too. If you ever find yourself in a dark place again, contact me. I'll listen.

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#129

Post by ionised »

narrator wrote: post #27
MollyR wrote: post #2

"Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations." - Aaron I think about his quote quite a bit lately. I wonder what he would have thought about modern facebook, google, and the extreme cons…

The Egyptian and Babylonian religions of antiquity were dedicated to maintaining the status quo and they did so for centuries. They did this by carefully guarding who was allowed to have access to sacred knowledge to control who had power in their hierarchical societies. Those with access to specialized knowledge had to be limited in number and properly initiated. Unfortunately, it seems like this pattern of social o…

"Beware he who would deny you information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#130

Post by ramblerman »

pwaai wrote: post #31

His crime was scraping a website. The accusers killed an innocent man for violating Terms of Service. Who's the real criminal here? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/ninth-circuit-doubles-...

How they treated Aaron was criminal, but let's do it justice by not using hyperbole.

This wasn't a public website. He connected to a networking switch in a controlled wiring closet with his laptop, and scraped information to non public servers from there.

Did this deserve the response he got though, absolutely not.

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