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Aaron Swartz (rss, reddit) Dead

So i didn't know who this guy was until I read this article and was surprised by it so thought id make a thread :P

Quote:

Aaron Swartz, internet freedom activist, dies aged 26

Aaron Swartz, a celebrated internet freedom activist and early developer of the website Reddit, has died at 26.

The activist and programmer took his life in his New York apartment, a relative and the state medical examiner said. His body was found on Friday.

Mr Swartz began computer programming as a child, and at 14 co-authored an early version of the RSS specification.

He later became an advocate of internet freedom, and was facing hacking charges at the time of his death.

He was among the founders of the Demand Progress campaign group, which lobbies against internet censorship.

The hacking charges relate to the downloading of millions of academic papers from online archive JSTOR, which prosecutors say he intended to distribute for free.

He denied charges of computer fraud at an initial hearing last year, but his federal trial was due to begin next month.

Mr Swartz's lawyer Elliot R. Peters confirmed the news of his client's death in an email to the MIT university newspaper The Tech.

"The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true," he wrote.

A spokeswoman for New York's medical examiner later confirmed to Associated Press news agency that Mr Swartz had hanged himself.

In a statement later on Saturday, Mr Swartz's family praised his "brilliance" and "profound" commitment to social justice and also expressed bitterness toward the prosecutors pursuing the case against him.

"Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach," the statement said.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee - the British inventor of the world wide web - commemorated Mr Swartz in a Twitter post: "Aaron dead. World wanderers, we have lost a wise elder. Hackers for right, we are one down. Parents all, we have lost a child. Let us weep."

BBC News - Aaron Swartz, internet freedom activist, dies aged 26

Oh i recognize him from this picture when he was a kid

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...N0982_ASLL.jpg

what he looked like, older

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...009-08-18_.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

rip

wow had no idea the founder of two well known technologies had such an interesting backstory either
Posted via RS Mobile

What a bitch move to kill your self and not face what you supposedly believe in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by murd0c (Post 8131087)

What a bitch move to kill your self and not face what you supposedly believe in.

Iunno man...when you're facing up to 50 years in prison and $4 million in fines looming over your head....

Aaron Swartz, Coder and Activist, Dead at 26 | Threat Level | Wired.com

Life sentence for a nonviolent crime is just fucked up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeedee (Post 8131089)

Iunno man...when you're facing up to 50 years in prison and $4 million in fines looming over your head....

Aaron Swartz, Coder and Activist, Dead at 26 | Threat Level | Wired.com

You fight what you believe in and make your views known. Whats the point of view of the freedom of the internet known. You don't give up and kill yourself you need to fight and it's sad no question he didn't have it in him to fight it like he should of

Quote:

Originally Posted by murd0c (Post 8131102)

We'll never know what was going on in his life.

It doesn't matter if he's some enigmatic freedom fighter, if he was getting no pussy, socially isolated, facing jail and poverty, and on a major down, shit can turn south with depression real fast.

People prone to depression need to develop coping skills, and no matter how much weed I smoke and how much Lil Wayne I dance to, I don't know if I could cheer myself up if I was facing 50 years in jail and like $8m in fines or whatever.

Could have been staged to look like a suicide. N.W.O.

One of the true geniuses of our generation but he'll never get that sort of recognition because he never wanted to be rich and so never made anything to make money...just did shit to better the Internet.

Shows how much those in power understand today's world when a guy like that faces a heavy prison sentence but bankers couldn't possibly go to jail and for some reason Lindsay Lohan is still free.

Maybe he had other problems...
What a loss for the world, where the retards continue to live but the geniuses die

im surprised Conde Nest fired him right after buying reddit though that explains why he got a chill farewell in reddit too i suppose interview with him 5yrs ago pretty neat A Chat with Aaron Swartz

and in regards to JSTOR im surprised the govt. went after him even though JSTOR dropped their charges/case against him; probably because he's credited for spearheading the movement that stopped SOPA

anyway what a waste

Quote:

Originally Posted by murd0c (Post 8131102)

Or you kill yourself, becoming something of a martyr. I knew he was a founder of Reddit but that was it. Yet he killed himself, and now has a post on RS which means he has posts on forums all over the place.

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." - Ernest Hemingway

RIP
Posted via RS Mobile

I was not disappointed that I did not have to go to page 2 before someone mentioned possible conspiracy theories regarding his death.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp (Post 8131540)

i was gonna say this. I don't believe he did it for this reason, but either way, the issue and what was going on with him is probably now known by 10x more people than it otherwise would've been, including myself. Seemed like a hardcore activist so his death at least raised crazy awareness for what he believed in

Quote:

Originally Posted by LiquidTurbo (Post 8131095)

Life sentence for a nonviolent crime is just fucked up.

I have to agree completely with this.

Assault is what, only 5-10 years?

And this guy got 30+ years for pulling some files?

The only thing I can think of is that they were threatened by his power to give him any less..

Quote:

Originally Posted by murd0c (Post 8131087)

What a bitch move to kill your self and not face what you supposedly believe in.

I understand the kneejerk reaction, but if you read more into it you'd know that he's spent years (since 2007) battling depression with medications... he wasn't a happy guy and definitely had some serious problems. Depression is pretty powerful on its own let alone the other stuff hanging over his head, don't bitch someone out unless you've experienced it.

Rip. I'm a daily user of RSS feeds and Reddit

.
Posted via RS Mobile

theverge has been doing a lot of stories on Aaron Swartz

and the latest one says that Swartz was a wikileaker and his legal troubles had the secret service behind it

Wikileaks claims Aaron Swartz was an ally and possible source, breaking anonymity | The Verge

interesting if you've got nothing to do tonight :okay: