Aaron Swartz

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Person.png Aaron Swartz   Website WikiquoteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(Hacker)
Aaron Swartz.jpg
BornAaron H. Swartz
1986-11-08
Highland Park, Illinois, U.S.
Died2013-01-11 (Age 26)
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Alma materStanford University
Founder ofReddit
Victim ofPremature death
A hacker who died a suspicious death after using his talents to promote freedom of information

Aaron Swartz, according to John Naughton was an "internet activist who paid the ultimate price for his combination of genius and conscience."[1]

Activities

At the age of 14, having dropped out of school, Swartz helped create the RSS news syndication specification. Aged 19, he co-programmed Reddit, which was sold to Condé Nast in 2006. "In 2008, he co-wrote the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, which called for activists to "liberate" information locked up by corporations or publishers. In 2010, at the age of 23, he co-founded Demand Progress, an online advocacy group that successfully campaigned against internet censorship bills and attracted more than a million members. By 24, Swartz was a Harvard research fellow conducting studies on political corruption."[2]

In 2013 he "was facing potential jail time for hacking into MIT's computer network and stealing copies of 4.8 million academic papers."[3]

Death

On the evening of January 11, 2013, Swartz was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment by his partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman.[4][5] A spokeswoman for New York's Medical Examiner reported that he had hanged himself.[4][5][6] No suicide note was found.[7] Swartz's family and his partner created a memorial website on which they issued a statement, saying: "He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place." John Naughton states that Swartz "was hounded to suicide at the age of 26 by a vindictive US administration", but does not question whether his death in fact was a suicide.[1]

 

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References