
Anonymous R.I.P Note for Aaron Swartz - throwdaway
http://rledev.mit.edu/aaron.html
======
hkmurakami
_> Aaron, we will sorely miss your friendship, and your help in building a
better world. May you read in peace. _

"read in peace" where we'd expect "rest in peace. I'm guessing that this
expression was intentional, given that Aaron was a voracious reader, and
considering the eloquence of the postscript[0].

This is the first time I've read any message from Anonymous (and my
understanding is that there is no "one" Anonymous organization, but rather a
loose collection of fragmented groups), but I am quite impressed by the
author's command of the English language.

 _[0] Postscript: We tender apologies to the administrators at MIT for this
temporary use of their websites. We understand that it is a time of soul-
searching for all those within this great institution as much — perhaps for
some involved even more so — than it is for the greater internet community. We
do not consign blame or responsibility upon MIT for what has happened, but
call for all those feel heavy-hearted in their proximity to this awful loss to
acknowledge instead the responsibility they have — that we all have — to build
and safeguard a future that would make Aaron proud, and honour the ideals and
dedication that burnt so brightly within him by embodying them in thought and
word and action._

\---

edit: it also seems that the closing line, _"You were the best of us; may you
yet bring out the best in us."_ is an original phrase by the author? (a quick
google search didn't yield any prominent matches) It is a beautiful line.

~~~
gazrogers
The "read in peace" line was the final line of the EFF's tribute ->
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/farewell-aaron-swartz>

------
goronbjorn
I don't know that's it's appropriate to bundle this with #freemanning and
#OpFreeAssange. I understand that they're somewhat related from a political
standpoint, but the association polarizes Aaron Swartz in a way that Aaron
Swartz alone does not.

------
thornjm
I thought it was interesting how the images used are not hosted anywhere.
Instead the source contains a base64 encoded copy of the image.

~~~
skeletonjelly
I suppose it's easier to hack into a site and overwrite the file with a big
string rather than find a way to write the images to disk or what have you.

------
Yaggo
If you are living normal life in your mid-twenties, the idea of spending rest
of your life in prison for nothing must feel worse than death. Even without
prior mental health issues.

------
carb
Almost any MIT affiliate can get a *.mit.edu domain name and host a website on
it. The student in charge of the original probably forgot to protect against a
simple SQL injection attack.

They bypassed that student's security and his website, not the "administrators
at MIT" and "their website".

~~~
sweettea
Both rledev.mit.edu and cogen.mit.edu are MIT departments (one the part of MIT
powering much of campus, one a laboratory doing electronics). It wasn't a
student's bad security.

~~~
raverbashing
Oh so it was a department's bad security. Not surprising

Yes, I know how these things work. Even at MIT it's the same apparently

I wouldn't be surprised if this was an old Windows 2000/2003 server box
hosting some static pages (and also it's the same computer the secretary uses)

------
orofino
Original Text:

In Memoriam, Aaron Swartz, November 8, 1986 — January 11, 2013, Requiescat in
pace.

A brief message from Anonymous.

Whether or not the government contributed to his suicide, the government's
prosecution of Swartz was a grotesque miscarriage of justice, a distorted and
perverse shadow of the justice that Aaron died fighting for — freeing the
publicly-funded scientific literature from a publishing system that makes it
inaccessible to most of those who paid for it — enabling the collective
betterment of the world through the facilitation of sharing — an ideal that we
should all support.

Moreover, the situation Aaron found himself in highlights the injustice of
U.S. computer crime laws, particularly their punishment regimes, and the
highly-questionable justice of pre-trial bargaining. Aaron's act was
undoubtedly political activism; it had tragic consequences.

Our wishes

We call for this tragedy to be a basis for reform of computer crime laws, and
the overzealous prosecutors who use them. We call for this tragedy to be a
basis for reform of copyright and intellectual property law, returning it to
the proper principles of common good to the many, rather than private gain to
the few. We call for this tragedy to be a basis for greater recognition of the
oppression and injustices heaped daily by certain persons and institutions of
authority upon anyone who dares to stand up and be counted for their beliefs,
and for greater solidarity and mutual aid in response. We call for this
tragedy to be a basis for a renewed and unwavering commitment to a free and
unfettered internet, spared from censorship with equality of access and
franchise for all.

For in the end, we will not be judged according to what we give, but according
to what we keep to ourselves.

Aaron, we will sorely miss your friendship, and your help in building a better
world. May you read in peace.

\----

Who was Aaron Swartz? A hero in the SOPA/PIPA campaign, Reddit cofounder, RSS,
Demand Progress, Avaaz, etc...:

Aaron Swartz's funeral is on Tuesday. Here are details:

Remove United States District Attorney Carmen Ortiz from office for overreach
in the case of #Aaron Swartz

\----

Guerilla Open Access Manifesto

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. Want to read the papers
featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send
enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought
valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but
instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow
anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only
apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have
been lost.

That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the
work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the
folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite
universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It's
outrageous and unacceptable.

"I agree," many say, "but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights,
they make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it's perfectly
legal — there's nothing we can do to stop them." But there is something we
can, something that's already being done: we can fight back.

Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you
have been given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge
while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally,
you cannot — keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it
with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling
download requests for friends.

Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have
been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the
information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.

But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It's called
stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral
equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't
immoral — it's a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to
let a friend make a copy.

Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they
operate require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the
politicians they have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the
exclusive power to decide who can make copies.

There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light
and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to
this private theft of public culture.

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share
them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it
to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We
need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks.
We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.

With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message
opposing the privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past.
Will you join us?

Aaron Swartz

July 2008, Eremo, Italy

\-----

You were the best of us; may you yet bring out the best in us.

-Anonymous, Jan 13, 2013.

\----

(Postscript: We tender apologies to the administrators at MIT for this
temporary use of their websites. We understand that it is a time of soul-
searching for all those within this great institution as much — perhaps for
some involved even more so — than it is for the greater internet community. We
do not consign blame or responsibility upon MIT for what has happened, but
call for all those feel heavy-hearted in their proximity to this awful loss to
acknowledge instead the responsibility they have — that we all have — to build
and safeguard a future that would make Aaron proud, and honour the ideals and
dedication that burnt so brightly within him by embodying them in thought and
word and action. Original frontpage)

------
codybrown
"Aaron died fighting for ______." Very upsetting to read sentiments like this.
When you commit suicide, who do you die fighting for?

~~~
droithomme
Suicide as an act of protest of brutality and injustice has a reasonably solid
history of resulting in revolutions that toppled governments.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Quang_Duc>

~~~
gosub
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Younger#Death>

------
RealGeek
Seems to be down now.

Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Frledev.mit.edu%2Faaron.html&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Frledev.mit.edu%2Faaron.html&aqs=chrome.0.57j58.3383&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

------
sunwooz
Aaron's death seems to be expediting a lot of political/social change. Do you
think he foresaw this coming?

~~~
mayneack
Not a whole lot has changed yet. Won't really know that for a few months.

~~~
thomasvendetta
It is however generating conversation, which is a start.

------
dmix
Also on this domain: <http://cogen.mit.edu/>

------
Nano2rad
The harsh punishment and discretion of the prosecutors may have had advantage
in prosecuting mafia bosses with tax fraud. It did not work in this case.
Sometimes American justice system is ineffective. There is little difference
between 25 years and 50 years, 100 year sentence is completely absurd. It does
not act as a deterrent. Someone else would have sold his skills for crime, if
the punishment is so big for an activist kind of activity.

------
SagelyGuru
It is time to join a real political force to defend people like Aaron through
democratic means: the Pirate Party

------
rdl
Surprised they didn't put some of the tasty new Java exploits on the page --
the gift that would keep on giving.

------
dwoldrich
A message from your government:

We hope this unfortunate Aaron Swartz incident will be a teaching moment for
you all.

1) You are encouraged to cede as much power and treasure as you are able to
your government. We're here because we care, and to care FOR you, we need you
to care LESS. 2) Our laws are there to protect you. There has been some
confusion on this point, so let us repeat: please do not break our laws. All
of our laws, crafted by our wisest men and women, apply justice equally and
have a basis in nature: the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong. As we
restrict you, we perfect you! 3) Don't you worms ever step out of line. If you
do, or if you get in our way, you and your family will be destroyed. You will
be ostracized, beat, and crushed by any and all means. You will not be missed
when you are gone.

Have a wonderful day!

------
sweettea
See cogen.mit.edu for an identical note. It appears cogen was running IIS.

------
unimpressive
Web pages like this are the digital equivalent of a wheatpaste. Anyone can
make a political statement as anonymous.

