The sad story of Aaron Swartz. Try https://brilliant.org/Newsthink/ for FREE for 30 days, and the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium subscription
Video on dark web mastermind Ross Ulbricht (Silk Road): https://youtu.be/HBTYVVUBAGs
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Thumbnail source:
Aaron Swartz image: Sage Ross, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Sources:
0:02 Z on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SfOP0dyX08 Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
0:05 Image of Aaron Swartz: Fred Benenson / www.fredbenenson.com, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
0:21 Daniel J. Sieradski, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
0:40 Quinn Norton, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
2:22 Raindrop Works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LAN4pmNElE Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
3:18 Joi, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
3:28 Videos from the Aaron Swartz investigation, released by the U.S Secret Service under the Freedom of Information Act after a request by Wired https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL11OBefj1HUaUAwSB7ADlH3b3ELI1guh3 Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
7:38 Jacob Appelbaum from San Francisco, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
8:31 Peretz Partensky, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
10:48 Timothy Krause via Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/timothykrause/8417553781 Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
10:53 Gohsuke Takama, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
11:06 Sage Ross, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
11:34 Alec Perkins from Hoboken, USA, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons Sage Ross, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
11:49 Daniel J. Sieradski, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Interviews referenced:
0:26 War for the Web interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OhyBJxg9RA
0:56 Interview for Steal This Film II (Short 2007)
8:08 Memorial: O’Reilly on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Fz1V3LZtw Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
Aaron Swartz was nothing short of a child
prodigy. At the age of 14, he helped create RSS, a
popular tool for keeping up with the latest news and blog posts before the advent of social
media. He formed a company that merged with Reddit
and is credited with making Reddit one of the most popular sites on the internet. Yet that’s not what he was known for. He was known for his internet activism, which
led to the ultimate tragedy. I couldn’t wait until the whole world was
on the internet and I never
had to call anybody again. The computer was his favorite toy growing
up in a wealthy suburb of Chicago. His father worked in the tech industry, so
computers were always a part of his life. They were also a distraction from the serious
bowel condition that often crippled him with stomach pain. As a result, he only ate bland food like rice
and pasta. He hated fruits and veggies. Aaron thought the internet was magical. One of the exciting things about Wikipedia
is that it doesn’t just have an arti
cle on the 100 most popular things, or the thousand
most popular things. You can pick the most obscure subject on the
world and there’s an article about it. Because for everything there’s someone who
cares a great deal about it. And that’s what television, that’s what
radio doesn’t provide, but the internet does. Yet he also felt there were barriers that
limited the ability of people to share and distribute knowledge freely, like strict copyright
laws. We have the right as American citizens to
h
ave this sort of free and open communication to share what we think, what we feel, what
we’ve created. I think that’s a huge part of our culture. This notion that we’ve become a permission-asking
society that every time you do something you have to ask permission. That’s basically against the freedom culture
we have here. That’s the opposite of a free country. Aaron believed no one should be deprived of
information and sought to break down these barriers. He dropped out of Stanford after a year
to
pursue his interest in internet freedom. In 2008, he wrote this 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. We need to take information, wherever it is
stored, make our copies and share them with the world.” That year, he took on the U.S. government’
s
online court records system, PACER, which stores information about cases, court filings,
and docket details. He was frustrated that PACER charged for documents
-- 8 cents per page at the time – 10 cents today. Aaron believed the documents should be free
because they were produced at the taxpayer’s expense. So he set out to republish these documents
on a public website for anyone to access. He visited one of the few public libraries
that did allow free downloads of PACER documents and installed
code he'd written to request
a new document every three seconds. This way, he got his hands on nearly 20 million
pages of documents - or around 20% of the database, and uploaded the files to Amazon’s
cloud computing service. When the court system’s IT department realized
something was up, the FBI got involved, and contacted Amazon, which provided his name,
phone number, and address as their user agreement allows them to do so at the government’s
request. Aaron recalled in an interview, “I had t
his
vision of the feds crashing down the door, taking everything away.” The feds investigated but didn’t prosecute
him. Two years later, it would be a different story…when
authorities say he hacked the servers at MIT to steal millions of files from a digital
library. In September 2010, federal authorities say
Aaron broke into MIT’s computer network by accessing a restricted utility closet on
campus in the basement of Building 16, which housed network equipment and cabling. The room was reportedl
y left unlocked. He hardwired his laptop into the network and
hid it under a cardboard box. The laptop ran a script called “keepgrabbing.py”
which set it to automatically download academic journals from the digital library JSTOR. Aaron used a guest account to access JSTOR. At the time, any computer connected to MIT’s
open wireless network could access the digital library. Many institutions pay a lot of money so their
students can subscribe for free. Otherwise, plans for individuals cost $19.50
a
month for just 10 PDF downloads. He created the fake guest identity “Gary
Host” which prompted the computer network to identify his computer as “ghost” when
shortened - an apparent reference to its ability to disappear. Although Aaron used a legitimate guest account,
he violated JSTOR’s terms of use by using an automated program to access articles. At one point, he downloaded about 700 articles
a minute! Between September 2010 to January 2011, he
downloaded nearly 5 million articles or 80% of J
STOR’s database, valued at hundreds
of thousands of dollars. A federal indictment claims he intended to
upload all of the documents to a peer-to-peer file-sharing site where anyone could access
them for free. But he never got the chance. JSTOR noticed the huge spike in downloads
and alerted MIT, which launched an investigation alongside the Cambridge Police Department
and the U.S. Secret Service. Blocking the IP address from which the requests
originated didn’t work; the person responsible simpl
y switched IPs to continue the mass downloading. A second computer then connected to MIT’s
network. Both laptops downloaded articles at such a
staggering rate that several of JSTOR’s servers crashed. JSTOR then blocked access to all MIT users
for several days. On January 4, 2011, authorities discovered
a laptop hidden in the utility closet in Building 16. They decided to leave the laptop in place
to see if the person who put it there would return. They also installed a hidden camera in the
close
t to identify the intruder. 30 minutes later, Aaron is captured on video
entering the closet to purportedly replace the hard drive. The video you’re watching was originally
published by Wired.com, which obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit
against the U.S. Secret Service. Two days later, on January 6, 2011, someone
entered the closet again, covering their face with a bike helmet. They removed the laptop and hard drive and
left. The MIT police weren’t able to reach the
closet
in time to apprehend the person. But the suspect didn’t leave the campus
immediately. The same laptop then connected to MIT’s
Student Center. Perhaps to access the network from a different
location to avoid detection. Later that afternoon, an MIT police officer
who saw the surveillance footage recognized the same guy riding his bike on campus. When the officer approached Aaron, Aaron leaped
off his bike and ran away. But MIT police and a secret service agent
caught up with him and arrested him f
or breaking and entering. At the time of his arrest, Aaron was found
to possess a USB drive containing the program “keepgrabbing.py” - the same software
program found on the laptop in the closet. There was no doubt they had the right person. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston charged
Aaron with numerous counts of wire fraud and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse act. The charges carried a maximum sentence of
35 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. His supporters called it ludicr
ous; they argued
he simply wanted to make academic research more widely available. They believed the punishment didn’t fit
the crime. However, Carmen Ortiz, the then U.S. Attorney
for the District of Massachusetts who oversaw Aaron’s prosecution, argued: “Stealing is stealing, whether you use a
computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars.” JSTOR chose NOT to press charges after Aaron
turned over his hard drives. The prosecution offered Aaron a plea deal. Had he
accepted it, he would have gone to
prison for only six months. His girlfriend Taren reflected on the difficult
decision he had to make. The whole thing was so hard and so stressful. And he felt - he carried so much of the weight
of it on his own. He didn’t want to involve his friends. He wanted to protect people but he wasn’t
very good at protecting himself. Aaron refused the plea bargain because he
didn’t want to be labeled a felon. A close friend and former girlfriend recalled
to Rolling Ston
e how they were standing outside the White House one day when Aaron turned
to her and said, “‘You know, they don’t allow felons to work there.'” At the time he was charged, he had been a
research fellow at Harvard. Harvard then suspended his fellowship and
banned him from campus. Aaron settled into a studio apartment in Brooklyn,
awaiting trial. He grew increasingly isolated and depressed. He had struggled for years with depression,
often triggered by his stomach issues. Long before the JSTOR in
cident, he wrote a
blog on his personal website that described his state of mind: “Go outside and get some fresh air or cuddle
with a loved one and you don’t feel any better, only more upset at being unable to
feel the joy that everyone else seems to feel. Everything gets colored by the sadness.” “You feel as if streaks of pain are running
through your head, you thrash your body, you search for some escape but find none.” On January 11, 2013, Aaron Swartz was found
dead in his apartment in New Y
ork City. He was 26 years old. I think he woke up two years after this ordeal
started, and I think he couldn’t face another day of the stress, the uncertainty, the lack
of control over his own destiny. Aaron’s partner and family blamed his death
on prosecutors, declaring in a statement: “Aaron’s death is not simply a personal
tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system
rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts
U.S. Attorney’s
Office and at MIT contributed to his death.” There were calls for U.S. Attorney Carmen
Ortiz to be removed. She defended her handling of the case this
way: “...this office sought an appropriate sentence
that matched the alleged conduct – a sentence that we would recommend to the judge of six
months in a low security setting. While at the same time, his defense counsel
would have been free to recommend a sentence of probation. Ultimately, any sentence imposed would have
been up to the judge. At
no time did this office ever seek – or
ever tell Mr. Swartz’s attorneys that it intended to seek – maximum penalties under
the law.” Aaron leaves a lasting legacy. He was an early contributor to the development
of the Creative Commons license, which provides a legal framework for creators to share their
work with others under certain conditions. It has since become an important tool for
promoting open access to information – his goal all along. I have personally benefited from the use of
creativ
e commons. If I couldn’t access this vast library of
free and open content, I would have had to spend much more time sourcing material, making
videos like this one much more difficult to produce. Aaron’s belief in limiting the power of
institutions has influenced debates on free speech and whether social media companies
have gone too far in censoring information. He had co-founded an advocacy group dedicated
to protecting civil liberties and fighting censorship. People often ask me, what’s going
to happen? And the answer is: it’s up to you. You get to decide what will happen. This isn’t something playing out on a stage
somewhere where big giants fight each other, and you get to sit and munch popcorn. This is a fight you can join in. It’s up to you. The case against Aaron wasn’t the first
of its kind to challenge online civil disobedience. The same year of Aaron’s death, Ross Ulbricht
was arrested and charged with running the dark web online marketplace Silk Road. The harsh sentence Ros
s received has been
the topic of widespread discussion. You can check out my video on that, which
I’ve linked in my description. The computer science skills of Aaron Swartz
and Ross Ulbricht played a huge role in their attempt to change the world. Although their actions led to legal consequences,
their stories demonstrate the power that STEM can have to make an impact. Well, Brilliant.org is a website and app where
you can learn science, computer science, and math interactively. My viewers espec
ially love their computer
science courses. They’re great whether you’re starting
out or if you want to brush up on your skills. You can dive deeper into more advanced topics
as you progress through their lessons. Brilliant supports you every step of the way. If you’re stuck, you can view the explanation
to see where you went wrong. There are thousands of lessons to choose from,
everything from foundational and advanced math to data science. I personally use Brilliant to go through their
logic pu
zzles to improve my analytical thinking. Brilliant is FREE for you to try out for 30
days if you head to my custom link in my description: brilliant.org/newsthink. And the first 200 people who sign up with
my link will get 20% off their annual subscription. Thanks for watching, I’m Cindy Pom.
Comments
Do you believe Aaron was treated unfairly by the justice system? Try https://brilliant.org/Newsthink/ for FREE for 30 days, and the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium subscription.
The potential jail time and the way he was treated was worse than how the law deals with peadophiles and drug dealers. There's so much wrong with the law.
35 years??? Serial killers get less!!
Saddening. Broken system. People behind Google, Facebook can see user data without user’s consent and pay a few million dollars and live a happy life. But a person like Aaron emotionally tortured. Stealing is crime irrespective of form. That’s how she justifies. The only diff between Aaron and Zuck is zuck got money to make the lawmakers happy.
This is disgusting. Our govt makes me physically sick when I see these things.. attacking good hearted, intelligent, and enlightened people. Who just fight for our rights as people, as citizens, our right to information and a real education on laws and on social injustice. This is horrific.
Thank you for keeping Aaron's story alive. Something else that not many people know is that he also helped create Markdown, a markup language that's vastly used everyday. Rest in power!
Thank you, Newsthink, for bringing awareness to this. Means a lot.
Brilliant is literally what Aaron was against, knowledge locked behind a paywall.
It's a shame that the few who have a vision and knowledge and dare to step out of the norm for the benefit of mankind find themselves in such horrific situations. We are such a passionate, compassionate, and cruel species.
Its called the american dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. - George Carlin
I remember reading about Aaron Swartz years ago. Such a tragic loss of someone so talented. His vision of the benefits to humanity of the Internet was so optimistic. He was ahead of his time.
Aaron would be turning in his grave if he knew what reddit is like now
There are a lot of people including Aaron that the world does not deserve - Snowden, Julian Assange, Edward Manning to name a few. They are too pure to understand that even though they fight for everyone, "few" will stand up for them.
I'm so happy to see such a large channel shining light on Aaron's story. Thank you
the irony of having a paid educational ressource as a sponsor
What a guy. What a freaking guy. I thought those things are only in movies.
💔 😢 he was not only genius but a good person too.. your legacy will never be forgotten 💗🙏
This broke my heart. I had no idea. I use Creative Commons all the time. Seeing where it came from breaks my heart. I wish he was still here. I think we'd be in a vastly different world.
When I started learning to program, I learned about him because he was the creator of markdown. Just reading his wiki page broke my heart. I wish that somehow I could turn back time and meet him before he took his own life. If I met him back then, could I have stopped it? If even I thought that, I can't imagine the grief the people around him felt. Everyone who has ever spoken to him would probably grieve for the genius that we lost too soon.
Sad story. I understand partly why he took the "extreme decision" since my walk of life is tainted as well by depression