Anonymous Won’t Forgive Aaron Swartz's Death

Aaron H. Swartz, born on the 8th of November, 1986, a genius, brilliant computer programmer, author, political and online activist, took his life in January because US government was threatening him with prison time and huge fine. In response to this, Anonymous hacking group has broken into some of MIT’s servers.



The prodigy that was Aaron Swartz, who helped develop the RSS and wrote web.py, committed suicide this month. In the meantime, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology promised to start an investigation meant to underline its role in Swartz’s suicide. After this, the Anonymous collective hacked the University’s official site.

Aaron Swartz, 26, met the criminal justice for being accused of downloading a huge number of documents from both the MIT and JSTOR (Journal Storage). Aaron, if found guilty, could have been given a sentence of 50 years in prison and a $4,000,000 fine.

Right after MIT President announced they are going to conduct a thorough analysis of their involvement from the time that MIT first perceived unusual activity in 2010, the hackers broke into at least two sites that belong to MIT.

Anonymous announced they call for this tragedy to be a basis for reform of computer crime legislation, and the overzealous prosecutors using them. They also want Aaron Swartz’s death to be a basis for reform of copyright and IP law, which would return it to the proper principles of common good to everyone, instead of private gain to some.

Anonymous called for that tragedy to be a basis for greater recognition of the oppression and injustices heaped on the everyday basis by certain people and authorities upon anyone who is strong enough to stand up and be counted for their beliefs, as well as for greater solidarity and mutual aid in response.

The hackers called for that tragedy to be a basis for a renewed and unwavering commitment to a free web – free from filtering with equality of access and franchise for all. Swartz’s family also made a public statement, claiming that Aaron’s death wasn’t simply a personal tragedy, but rather the product of a criminal justice system suffering from intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Both the hacker collective and many industry observers believe that decisions taken by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT were reasons for Aaron’s death.