
Aaron, 5 years later - bensw
https://www.bensw.com/blog/Aaron-5-Years-Later/
======
firasd
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](https://twitter.com/ZephyrTeachout/status/951538523076792320)

I also appreciate this thought from a fellow HN poster: "'They say you die
twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on,
when somebody says your name for the last time.' That was not even close to
the ending of Aaron Swartz."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11719398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11719398)

~~~
alelefant
The quote about death seems very similar to David Eagleman's book "Forty Tales
from the Afterlives".

Here's an excerpt that you might find interesting:
[http://www.eagleman.com/sum/excerpt](http://www.eagleman.com/sum/excerpt)

~~~
wickawic
It is also a way of thinking about death prevalent in Jewish culture.

~~~
akoster
Indeed! It's why many Jews choose to name children after deceased relatives to
honor and remember them.

Also a similar quote by Irving Yalom:

"Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has
ever known me. That's when I will be truly dead - when I exist in no one's
memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living
individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that person
dies, the whole cluster dies, too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder
who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?"

[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/153699-some-day-soon-
perhap...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/153699-some-day-soon-perhaps-in-
forty-years-there-will-be)

------
MollyR
"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 consolidation of
american corporations.

~~~
CydeWeys
I think Aaron would've been happy with the developments in the field of
scientific publishing over the last half decade, had he been able to see them.
I've specifically got Sci-Hub in mind here. Sure, it's not exactly legal, but
everyone uses it regardless.

~~~
pazimzadeh
It's too bad Aaron and Alexandra Elbakyan never met. They might have made a
good team.

~~~
jacquesm
She's currently in hiding after Elsevier won an injunction. There's one
company I'll be very happy to see the last of.

~~~
stryk
I still don't see why all the scientific paper publishing stuff is allowed to
work in the way that it does. I mean, don't a large % of the people doing that
research use funding from government grants? If public money was used to
produce the research, then the public should have free and available access to
it -- we already paid for it.

~~~
jacquesm
Ostensibly you are not paying Elsevier to access the research, you are paying
them because they obtained the right to _copy_ the paper.

That's the loophole that many of the writers use to publish pre-prints from
their own homepages. That did not stop the publishers from suing them:

[http://www.wired.co.uk/article/elsevier-versus-open-
access](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/elsevier-versus-open-access)

~~~
sapper123
Is the right to copy the paper an agreement between universities and the
publisher? If so, can't the universities just give a middle finger to the
publisher, cancel those rights and allow the research to be publicized for
free, in the interest of furthering research, or is money that they get from
the publisher that significant?

~~~
marvy
I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm pretty sure they get no money at all
from the publishers. Other way around in fact: their libraries spend large
fraction of budget subscribing to the journals.

~~~
black_puppydog
Plus a one-time fee for every paper they publish. Whith the option to pay more
and make it open access. And _then_ the library of the same university will
still pay to access this article.

------
jimnotgym
I didn't know Aaron, I don't remember being that aware of him while he was
alive, but I did see the SOPA campaign of course, even in the UK. One day I
watched the 'Internets own boy' documentary and was profoundly moved. All of a
sudden open source, access to information, freedom from surveillance etc
really started to matter to me. In fact that is how I found HN!

When the snoopers charter came in to the UK it was Aarons story (and what I
read afterwards) that made me recognise the danger in such legislation. I
wrote to my MP for the first time.

Aaron in lots of ways changed my life in that way. Ben I really appreciate
your post.

------
jacquesm
Hard to respond to this. Hard to believe it has already been five years.

Thank you for writing that, not a week goes by that I don't see your brothers
hand in something I'm using or that I read about. The whole open access
movement and what has been achieved in those five years would have made Aaron
both very happy and would have probably had him bouncing off the walls because
'it goes so slow'.

Very few people appear to me to be all good but your brother was one of those.
Cherish his memory and be proud, like any brother would be, and I'm pretty
sure he'd be just as proud of you.

~~~
sillysaurus3
We should also celebrate people's flaws. There's no such thing as an entirely
good person.

Aaron had mental issues. But those same issues were what gave him strength,
because they were a part of him. If you took them away, Aaron wouldn't be
Aaron.

If we celebrate people's flaws, maybe people won't feel like they're not
allowed to have flaws. And maybe that might help people who feel like ending
it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16089930](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16089930)

The response to that was overwhelmingly positive. Over 20 people reached out.

It feels time to help people who are concealing problems. The internet gives
us recourse. I don't know Aaron's motivations toward the end, but it feels
true that if he had just kept talking, things might have turned out
differently.

~~~
jacquesm
Mental issues are flaws but they don't make a person bad in my book.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Mm, yes and no. It's one of those things where if you reveal you have them,
you feel like less of a person. People look at you differently.

Be honest: If you were in a position of authority, would you place someone
with known suicidal tendencies in a position of power? What if things went
very badly? How about someone with outbursts of anger, or serious sleep issues
that prevent them from showing up to work on time?

When people feel pressure to conceal their problems, the pressure builds.

Aaron had some political aspirations, and a felony conviction would've
precluded him from running for certain offices. Maybe that, combined with his
internal issues, may have made him feel like less of a person. I don't know. I
just want people to feel okay with themselves, however they are.

Once people realize that it's genuinely ok to have issues, hopefully society
will relax a bit.

Or maybe there is no solution, and people will eventually take their own lives
for one reason or another. And that's ok too. We can remind them that it's not
the only option, and give them some space to unwind.

That seems like the crux of it: People are so hung up on doing well or being a
good person or accomplishing their careers, that their whole self-worth is
tied up in it. When it goes badly, it's easy to take it out on yourself. But
there's no reason to. The chips fall wherever they fall.

~~~
jacquesm
> Aaron had some political aspirations, and a felony conviction would've
> precluded him from running for certain offices. Maybe that, combined with
> his internal issues, may have made him feel like less of a person. I don't
> know.

If you don't know then don't speculate.

~~~
chris_wot
I agree.

------
ilamont
_Ortiz continued to pursue the case, comparing Swartz’s transgression to that
of a common thief. The lead prosecutor on the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney
Stephen Heymann, compared Swartz to a rapist who had “revictimized” MIT by not
taking a plea bargain, according to a later MIT investigation. Heymann was
also bothered that Swartz launched a “wild Internet campaign” in his own
defense. (He had not done so.)_

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carmen-ortiz-us-
attorne...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carmen-ortiz-us-attorney-
marty-walsh-prosecution_us_577a7ddce4b09b4c43c0e29a)

 _Swartz’s attorney Elliot Peters accused Massachusetts assistant U.S.
attorney Stephen Heymann of pursuing federal charges against Swartz to gain
publicity.

Heymann was looking for “some juicy looking computer crime cases and Aaron’s
case, sadly for Aaron, fit the bill,” Peters said. Heymann, Peters believes,
thought the Swartz case “was going to receive press and he was going to be a
tough guy and read his name in the newspaper.”

Heymann, the deputy chief of the criminal division in the Boston-based U.S.
Attorney’s office, also headed the computer crimes task force there, a
position Peters said “doesn’t carry much prestige and respect unless you have
computer crimes cases.”_

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-
steph...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-stephen-
heymann_n_2473278.html)

 _MIT’s behavior throughout the case was reprehensible, and this report is
quite frankly a whitewash.

Here are the facts: This report claims that MIT was “neutral” – but MIT’s
lawyers gave prosecutors total access to witnesses and evidence, while
refusing access to Aaron’s lawyers to the exact same witnesses and evidence.
That’s not neutral. The fact is that all MIT had to do was say publicly, “We
don’t want this prosecution to go forward” – and Steve Heymann and Carmen
Ortiz would have had no case. We have an institution to contrast MIT with –
JSTOR, who came out immediately and publicly against the prosecution. Aaron
would be alive today if MIT had acted as JSTOR did. MIT had a moral imperative
to do so._

[http://tarensk.tumblr.com/post/56881327662/mit-report-is-
a-w...](http://tarensk.tumblr.com/post/56881327662/mit-report-is-a-whitewash-
my-statement-in)

~~~
vardump
I hope Carmen Ortiz will one day be held responsible for her actions.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Ortiz#Prosecution_of_Aa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Ortiz#Prosecution_of_Aaron_Swartz)

------
newscracker
If you haven’t watched “The Internet’s Own Boy”, [1] I’d recommend that you
do. If you think about freedom, privacy, surveillance, abuse of power and
related things, this will make you both sad and angry. We cannot truly have a
better world without fighting for these and keep the struggles alive, because
the powerful ones are good at retaining their power and at finding ways to
keep people’s memories brief.

I’m glad that Sci-Hub exists. Though I’m not in research as such, it’s a
painful exercise to find relevant information that’s useful and goes into some
detail. I struggle with getting full papers from PubMed sometimes.

[1]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy)

------
Egidius
I have nothing constructive to say except for that I was really touched by
"The Internet's Own Boy". It made me feel related to something I did not
experience.

I think memories about unnecessary sad events like Aaron's death help us think
about the significance of more profound, thoughtful analysis of problems at
hand, that have direct impact on human beings.

------
aplorbust
"I convinced Google to allow me to give their USENET archives to the Internet
Archive."

Thank you.

~~~
a3_nm
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](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](https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/Usenet)
or [https://archive.org/details/usenet](https://archive.org/details/usenet).
Does anyone know what this implies?

~~~
aplorbust
[https://archive.is/PUk3](https://archive.is/PUk3) <\--- This posting
describes the different collections that Google acquired or received. Is there
irony in that one needs archive.is (archive.today) to access it? Maybe someone
can find the original still accessible?

[http://web.archive.org/web/20110110080509/http://www.skrenta...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110110080509/http://www.skrenta.com:80/rt/utzoo-
usenet/) <\--- This is the collection I am most interested in. 1981-1991.
Thankfully, one does not need Google to get it.

~~~
zandorg
UT Zoo is indexed on my usenet site:
[http://www.dejadejadeja.com/](http://www.dejadejadeja.com/)

------
MrQuincle
A very moving story. To pick up your life and start living again is not easy.

Importantly, to become relaxed and happy again without the feeling to have to
become more and more productive or create legacy for ourselves or the ones we
love is yet another even more difficult step.

There are very few self-help methods that do not have as Target to "improve
yourself". Take your time and remember the good times of the past. These times
are never wasted.

~~~
urda
> Importantly, to become relaxed and happy again without the feeling to have
> to become more and more productive or create legacy for ourselves or the
> ones we love is yet another even more difficult step.

I still deal with this problem daily, I never feel that I'm good enough for my
family to be happy for me.

------
glacials
Ben, every point I've been lucky enough to witness you argue at Twitch has
alway shone this Neutral Good seed behind it. Unjustified process, user-
harmful acts, and any worsening of free speech cause you to interject, never
to "wait and see" forever and never to disagree without speaking up.

I honestly have become better at this skill by being nearby when you exercise
it. And I believe I have spread that to others in my life in turn. I
absolutely would be a different person had our desks not happen to end up
across from each other through three office shuffles. And I never met Aaron,
but I believe by influencing those around you in this way you've done so much
more to honor him than the two big ticket items you give yourself credit for.

------
reificator
Thanks for everything you've done since, and everything he was proud of you
for before. Aaron Swartz was a rolemodel for me when I was really starting to
understand the internet and the value it provided beyond chatting with friends
and playing games.

When I heard what happened I was angry more than anything, and it reminded me
to not take progress for granted.

I hesitate to bring this up because it'll probably sound more like criticism
than a heads up, and I definitely mean it just as a heads up:

It was very jarring to get to the end of the post and have it followed up by
"You should follow me on Twitter." I checked another post and it looks like
it's just the footer on the blog, but without that knowledge it jumps out at
you.

------
peterwwillis
Don't let your loss or grief manifest itself as guilt, because you have
nothing to feel guilty about. Feel the loss, but don't blame yourself, or the
victim.

And don't feel like you have to live up to the image of someone else. Don't
give yourself expectations on account of someone else. Set your own goals and
expectations, from a place of self-compassion. And just like a good parent
should never be hard on their child for failing to complete a project, neither
should you be hard on yourself.

I'm sure none of that is helpful right now. But the next time you feel
pressure or guilt rising up: Gently let it go. You don't owe anyone your peace
of mind.

------
numbers
I didn't personally know Aaron but I've read a lot of his blog posts and I was
extremely sad to hear about his passing.

His blog posts are filled with a lot of information, insights, and thoughts
that I usually don't get from other people. Whenever I go back and read his
posts, they sound like a friend of mine talking to me.

------
joering2
RIP. Glad to see at least Carmen Ortis [1] is out so she won't hurt anyone
anymore with the long stretch of government arm she used as a overzealous
prosecutor.

Fun fact: For a little while she wanted to run for Governor of Massachusetts
(good grief!), but the past of butchered prosecution of Mr. Swartz hunted her
and she changes her mind.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Ortiz#Prosecution_of_Aa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Ortiz#Prosecution_of_Aaron_Swartz)

------
beardog
Sci-hub and Library Genesis take a decent amount of inspiration from Aaron
Swartz mission.

------
limeblack
I lived in Highland Park when he committed suicide and attended the same high
school he did(NSCDS). NSCDS talked a lot about Martin Luther King and Malcolm
X. They also talked a lot also about Gandhi and other activists. It is a day
school so they have an alternative form of teaching. I feel comfort saying
this influenced his decisions for later in his life.

~~~
contingencies
Good education is so important. Some high profile hackers such as Alan Kay
have spent a lot of effort on tools for education and for children. We should
all take a leaf out of his book and try to dedicate some resources to assist
with free online public education and related technologies for the benefit of
subsequent generations.

------
icelancer
You're a good man, Ben. Always a privilege to share diner tables with you in
Seattle. Happy to do it again if you're around.

------
cvaidya1986
Sometimes it’s the life in the years rather than the years in the life.
Amazing impact although bright career cut short tragically.

------
fjabre
I hope the Massachusetts based AG who prosecuted him rots in hell.

------
DaniFong
Just in case it ever comes to this, if I die, it was NOT a suicide.

RIP Aaron, I wish I knew you.

~~~
andreyf
I don't consider Aaron's death a suicide, either. It was not exactly a
Magnitsky-style beaten-in-prison death, but overly-zealous prosecutors trying
to "make an example" of him had more to do with his death than mental illness.

Note what happened, in that context, when someone who was _not_ an American
political activist did what criminal prosecutors were going after Aaron for:

[https://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-
upload...](https://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-uploaded-
millions-of-journal-articles-in-an-attempt-to-open-up-science)

~~~
tzs
The scihub woman isn't doing any of the thing Swartz was being prosecuted for.
All she's doing is copyright infringement.

------
whisk
I will always remember Aaron Swartz. I was a student when he leaves. His story
really shocked me and taught me what is free, taught me what should I do with
my knowledge. I didn't aware it has been five years since then. But now I gaze
at the past five years, I'm glad that I'm on the right way which I expected
five years ago.

------
failedartifact
I first read this not knowing it was Aaron Swartz. When I read the comments
and found out it was instantly heart dropping. I found Aaron to have fought
very tough battles for humanity. I tried to get commission on doing an art
installation on a side of an old university building. There was 5 wall
sections where I want to place 5 inspirational famous people in B&W portrait
format.

The 5 people were: Elon Musk Neil deGrasse Tyson / Brian Cox (couldn't
decide!) Angelina Jolie Malala Yousafzai Aaron Schwartz

I made a proposal to my university (Dundee, Scotland), and really thought I
had a chance since the building was derelict and that it was covered in shite
graffiti. I was turned down because it was going to be torn down. People said
I should have just done it, but I couldn't face the possibility of getting
kicked out of uni because I graffitied the building.

------
Improvotter
I'd like to wonder what Aaron would be doing right now with Net Neutrality.
He'd be at the forefront of all of these things against the Trump
administration. He's the hero we need, that we deserve, but have tragically
lost. RIP

------
KasianFranks
Insight:
[http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html](http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html)

~~~
teddyh
That link leads to a page with only this on it:

> _certificate error_

> _A client certificate was invalid or not provided._

------
rokhayakebe
The scariest thing to me is how fast people forget.

------
NelsonMinar
Some days it's hard to believe he's really gone.

------
mylons
i had no idea he was your brother. sorry for your loss.

------
johnnydoe9
Just like everyone here Aaron has had a huge impact on my life. I don't have
much to say here, just hope you're doing well.

------
andreyf
What did SOPA have to do with Net Neutrality?

~~~
r3bl
Doesn't take too big of a stretch to see the connection.

No net neutrality: Big companies will be able to afford paying to ISPs to get
into "fast lanes", smaller companies will not.

SOPA: Big companies will be able to afford scanning user generated content for
piracy, smaller companies will not.

End result is pretty much the same.

~~~
wooter
I dont see that connection at all.

In fact, it is the 'benevolent' government that has abused surveillance, tried
to corruptly enable large companies to censor the internet under the guise of
'anti-piracy' (SOPA), and pushed Aaron to suicide through prosecutorial
overreach which Net Neutrality proponents want to grant more control over the
ISPs over fear-mongering (like piracy) of prices/throttling. (despite the
obvious failures of government-enabled regional monopolies)

~~~
omnimus
So you think Aaron would be against net neutrality?

------
subcosmos
RIP Aaron. You had a profound influence on my life, and I'm sad we never got
to meet.

------
luhn
To clarify for anybody who may not know, "Aaron" in this blog post is Aaron
Swartz.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)

------
pwaai
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-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/ninth-circuit-doubles-down-
violating-websites-terms-service-not-crime)

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

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

~~~
tzs
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...](http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-
part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/)

[2] [https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-
sentenc...](https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-
eleventy-million-years/)

~~~
syshum
>If the plea bargain had been accepted it would have been around 6 months.

I always love how people think the prision term is the only effect or
punishment, 6 mos + a felony record for life which is not something that
should be taken lightly.

Any felony conviction is a life sentence, you are a 2nd class citizen, you are
denied everything from housing to employment, you are denied your rights as a
citizen, can not vote, can not own a gun, can not do many things.

This moronic idea of "well it was really only 6mos" is bullshit.

------
bluepandacode
For those unfamiliar with him, feature length documentary
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ)

------
irq
I really like this piece, but your font size is WAY too small, especially on
mobile.

------
chris_wot
Carmen Ortiz is still in office. Now that is a tragedy.

~~~
pacifist
She apparently resigned after Trump won. That she wasn't run out of office is
a tragedy.

