
Strongbox and Aaron Swartz - Libertatea
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/strongbox-and-aaron-swartz.html
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d23
> Nine days after Aaron’s death, his familiar Skype avatar popped up on my
> computer screen. Somewhere, somebody—probably a family member—had booted up
> his computer. I fought the irrational urge to click on the icon and resume
> our conversation. Then he vanished from my screen again.

Holy shit, that ending. Chilling.

~~~
cwb71
It is chilling—but is it true?

My immediate reaction when reading that paragraph was that someone as
security-minded as Aaron would probably not leave his password saved in a
Skype client.

~~~
breakyerself
Isn't that safer than typing it every time? A key logger could get it then.
Has anyone ever extracted a password stored in a client like that?

~~~
eli
I don't know anything about Skype but yes, people have definitely extracted
passwords saved in IM clients like that.

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RyanMcGreal
The link to Swartz' 2006 essay for Wired is broken. Here's the correct link:

<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2006/11/ringside_at_cop>

~~~
codfrantic
Found the same, didn't feel like creating a newyorker/facebook/twitter account
to post it as a comment to the original piece either :P

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Jun8
"His suicide also raised new questions: Who owned the code now? (Answer: he
willed all his intellectual property to Sean Palmer, who gives the project his
blessing.)"

Isn't his deaddrop code GPL licensed?

~~~
admax88q
That doesn't answer the question of who owns the code. The code must have an
owner to enforce the GPL or re-license or whatever.

~~~
jrochkind1
Yes, but the quote still implies some confusion about things.

If the code is licensed GPL, you do not need the blessing of the owner, you
already have a license. If the code is licensed GPL, and you want to use it,
why do you even care who owns the copyright? There are reasons you might care,
but they are not obvious, and the OP does not say why he was interested -- the
implication of that sentence to the casual non-geek reader, is that the new
yorker needed the copyright owners permission to launch. The OP doesn't even
mention the GPL.

If the code really is licensed GPL, that passage is misleading, is it not?
Probably because the author himself is confused.

~~~
3825
>If the code is licensed GPL, and you want to use it, why do you even care who
owns the copyright?

GPL protects the users' investments in that as a purchaser (there has to be a
better word than purchaser here) of a derivative of GPL will have freedoms 0
through 3[1].

\-- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). The freedom
to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you
wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The
freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). The
freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3).
By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your
changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. \-- [1]

~~~
jrochkind1
Right, that's why you care that it was released as GPL. Other than to verify
that it was legally released as GPL, why would you be concerned with the
identity of the copyright owner?

