Yesterday would have been Aaron Swartz’s 27th birthday. On January 11 2013, Swartz hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment. At the time of his death, Swartz, a programmer, internet activist and outspoken advocator of open access, faced more than 30 years in prison and a maximum of one million dollars in fines for allegedly downloading a large number of academic articles from the subscription database JSTOR from within the MIT campus network (to which he had legal access), a crime with no real victims. Federal prosecutors filed a total of 13 felony charges, among them breaking and entering with intent, grand larceny and unauthorized access to a computer network.
Here is Ana Pinto’s tribute to Aaron Swartz following his death in January, two days after the prosecution denied his lawyer’s second offer of a plea bargain.