• @ratman150
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    554 months ago

    I am unfamiliar with this historical event, care to explain?

    • @[email protected]
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      994 months ago

      Tl; Dr:

      • Savant-genius in our time works on/with and drives a large amount of the early “Web 2.0” era that champions decentralization, openness, and freedom of information
      • This ethos is carried throughout his work in tech, leading him to mass copy databases that are paywalled or closed access to students, that he had permission to use, and dump the info online for free
      • JSTOR and MIT get salty about this, set up a sting at the school servers where he’s doing said mass copying
      • Prosecutor wayyyy overcharges Aaron and seeks to neuter him from using tech, Aaron gets scared and (due in part to a longstanding mental & physical illness) commits suicide

      There’s more info and context, but that the broad strokes. Fuck MIT for pushing his prosecution, JSTOR was fine once he stopped uploading their database

      • @[email protected]
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        14 months ago

        There is actually speculation that he never intended to dump the files online for free. He was working on information research at the time.

          • @[email protected]
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            124 months ago

            In the same way that whistleblowing or “leaking” evidence of a crime is punished far more severely than any crime. It’s basically a death sentence.

      • dzervas
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        64 months ago

        that’s very fucked up

        i’d say to him to install a small computer or something (raspi?), leave it there and leak the pdfs slowly - would take weeks, maybe months

        • @[email protected]
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          24 months ago

          Unless you misplaced a decimal point somewhere and we’re pretty sure they’re gonna notice 80,000 PDFs copied! D:

        • SuperDuper
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          4 months ago

          You’d need a time machine in order to go back in time to warn a presently deceased person about certain events before they happen. I don’t see how you needed someone to explain this to you.

        • @[email protected]
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          84 months ago

          You don’t see how someone with a time machine can go back in time (with aforementioned time machine) and warn Aaron Swartz to stay away from the cabinet?

          • @[email protected]
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            4 months ago

            I didn’t know this was saying that. I thought they were film references or something. “Here’s what girls do in time travel films, here’s what guys do.”

    • @[email protected]
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      234 months ago

      If I remember correctly it relates to the death of the other reddit founder. The not spithead one.