great documentary on a brilliant kid that wanted to make this world a better place...

[Ghenghis Kahn]

brilliance, ambition, and imagination is just not enough in this day and age...

[chipper]

Looks interesting... now I just need to find 1 3/4 hours to watch. Thanks for posting.

[Plaza23]

I've seen it. This is the kid that wanted to make library documents free for internet usage and wrote a program and stole nearly the entire catalogue at MIT. Feds found out and arrested him. While his prosecution was pending he killed himself.

[Ghenghis Kahn]

I've seen it. This is the kid that wanted to make library documents free for internet usage and wrote a program and stole nearly the entire catalogue at MIT. Feds found out and arrested him. While his prosecution was pending he killed himself.

jesus pal. don't be so simple minded. he was a political activist and started pointing out all the injustices that's going on. do you really think the feds care about what he downloaded from the mit library? there's more to him than just trying to give the public free knowledge. he could've lived a comfortable life making millions, heck with his mind probably into the billions but he wanted to do good for the human race. who would do that in this day and age? this kid was what you call a true patriot. not some asshole sitting in the white house taking orders from the bankers.

so let me ask you this, how come most of the americans don't know him? he should be portrayed as a hero and inspire all the brilliant young minds out there.

but why was his death swept under the rug by the mainstream media? ah that's right... "i don't want a nation of thinkers, i want a nation of workers." -john d. rockefeller

and who controls the main stream media, that's right the rockefellers.

he was an ultra genius that wanted to change the world for the better but when people with power feel threatened, they do something about it. that's why the feds wanted to put him away for a long fukking time for some bullshit crime. we need 100s of brilliant young minds like aaron swartz to fight the battle but minds like his only come once in a generation. you have to admire his moxie, it's just a big shame that things didn't go as planned...

[muldoon]

I've seen it. This is the kid that wanted to make library documents free for internet usage and wrote a program and stole nearly the entire catalogue at MIT. Feds found out and arrested him. While his prosecution was pending he killed himself.

"Stole" an open catalog that anyone with a connection on campus could take. Articles that were paid for by grants and public money and which MIT claimed ownership of.

And for this, 35 years was his sentence.

[Ghenghis Kahn]

i lost all respect for mit. that piece of shit institution could've saved him but did nothing.

[Plaza23]

"Stole" an open catalog that anyone with a connection on campus could take. Articles that were paid for by grants and public money and which MIT claimed ownership of.

And for this, 35 years was his sentence.

The MIT students who paid tuition to attend there deserved access to those files. Not everyone else, which is who this guy was trying to give access to for free.

IMO, it's like someone getting a free version of the New York Times. A subscriber that paid money for a subscription deserves to read it. Not someone that pays nothing.

The MIT students in this case were the "subscribers" of the library in that they paid for the right of access.

This guy somehow believed "knowledge and research" were free for the public's comsumption. They aren't. If MIT pays a researcher for their papers so that they can put it into their library, then the researcher gets paid by MIT for his work. MIT can afford to pay the researcher thru charging students (in the form of tuition) for access to the library.

Nothing is free. I think he wanted to create the Napster of Library documents but it's still stealing.

[muldoon]

The MIT students who paid tuition to attend there deserved access to those files. Not everyone else, which is who this guy was trying to give access to for free..

I disagree. MIT freely makes the documents available to students AND visitors. His offense was figuring out how to bulk collect. Maybe inconsiderate, but a felony?

Inconsiderate in the same way that a store might offer a free sample with no restrictions, and someone takes 20.

It was bullshit - and the same government that sent 0 HSBC bank executives to jail for laundering cartel money, pushed for the maximum sentence for this kid bulk gathering of data.

That would be the same government that says that bulk gathering of our data is legal because we use our phones on public cell towers and wifi and is public domain - but his gathering of data presented without any terms of service or restriction on an open network was a felony.

Many of the documents were available at other libraries - and many were public domain or the research paid for by public taxpayer funds.

So no - I disagree that he was stealing. He may have exploited a loophole, but there were no network terms or service violated, and this kid was railroaded.

[Ghenghis Kahn]

The MIT students who paid tuition to attend there deserved access to those files. Not everyone else, which is who this guy was trying to give access to for free.

IMO, it's like someone getting a free version of the New York Times. A subscriber that paid money for a subscription deserves to read it. Not someone that pays nothing.

The MIT students in this case were the "subscribers" of the library in that they paid for the right of access.

This guy somehow believed "knowledge and research" were free for the public's comsumption. They aren't. If MIT pays a researcher for their papers so that they can put it into their library, then the researcher gets paid by MIT for his work. MIT can afford to pay the researcher thru charging students (in the form of tuition) for access to the library.

Nothing is free. I think he wanted to create the Napster of Library documents but it's still stealing.

what you don't seem to get is all the billionaires, for example steve jobs and bill gates did illegal shit but the feds were never after them.

so why aaron swartz? that's because he didn't care about the money, he had political aspirations that didn't go along with the system.

[Grits n' Gravy]

i remember reading about this a few years ago and thinking he was getting shafted. 35 years for trying to provide useful information to the masses yet a pedo like that fat fuk jared may only get 12 years max? justice system is a joke.

[SBRMAN23]

i remember reading about this a few years ago and thinking he was getting shafted. 35 years for trying to provide useful information to the masses yet a pedo like that fat fuk jared may only get 12 years max? justice system is a joke.

Preach Grits

[marcoloco]

interesting, will check it out. Thanks for sharing