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Search Results for: Aaron Swartz

The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz – Film now free online

The Internet Archive has posted for free viewing the movie – The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, “an investigative documentary from director Brian Knappenberger about the life of the internet pioneer and activist Aaron Swartz.” See also related postings on Aaron Swartz.   Continue Reading

The inside story of MIT and Aaron Swartz

Follow up to previous postings on Aaron Swartz, via the Boston Globe – More than a year after Swartz killed himself rather than face prosecution, questions about MIT’s handling of the hacking case persist, By Marcella Bombardieri. “..MIT is a cradle of world-class scientific research with unpublished data and unpatented inventions on its network, and its leaders felt… Continue Reading

Report – MIT and the Prosecution of Aaron Swartz

Follow up to previous postings on Aaron Swartz, see this Report to the President: – “MIT and the Prosecution of Aaron Swartz: “In January 2013, MIT President L. Rafael Reif asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement in the Aaron Swartz matter, from the time that MIT first perceived unusual… Continue Reading

Aaron Swartz to be honored with freedom of information award

Follow up to previous postings on Aaron Swartz, news that Aaron is to be honored with freedom of information award by the American Library Association – “A champion of open access rights to documents on the Internet, the 26-year-old activist under prosecution committed suicide earlier this year.” See also Aaron Swartz’s Lawyers Accuse Prosecutors of… Continue Reading

Commentary, action and reason for change – the death of Aaron Swartz

Marcia Hoffman/EFF: “Over the past two years, Aaron was forced to devote much of his energy and resources to fighting a relentless and unjust felony prosecution brought by Justice Department attorneys in Massachusetts. His alleged crimes stemmed from using MIT’s computer network to download millions of academic articles from the online archive JSTOR, allegedly without… Continue Reading

EFF – Aaron's Law 2.0: Major Steps Forward, More Work to Be Done

EFF: “Representative Zoe Lofgren has posted on Reddit a modified draft of Aaron’s Law, a proposal to update the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and wire fraud law in honor of our friend Aaron Swartz and to make sure that the misguided prosecution that happened to him doesn’t happen to anyone else. We’re very pleased… Continue Reading

Elsevier sends copyright threat to site for linking to Sci-Hub

Follow up to previous posting on BeSpacific – Science’s pirate queen Alexandra Elbakyan is plundering the academic publishing establishment (includes multiple sub-links) and SciHub continues to get attacked around the world – via Boing Boing: “Sci-Hub (previously) is a scrappy, nonprofit site founded in memory of Aaron Swartz, dedicated to providing global access to the… Continue Reading

Challenges to scholarly journal paywalls take several directions

The prohibitive cost of e-journal subscriptions and the wealth of critical research articles available only for fee continues to reverberate in different directions as individuals and groups work to bypass paywalls. Aaron Swartz spearheaded these efforts in 2013 when he downloaded millions of articles through MIT’s JSTOR account.  More recently, efforts to broaden access to… Continue Reading

Paper – Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime

Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, University of Tennessee College of Law. January 20, 2013, via SSRN “Though extensive due process protections apply to the investigation of crimes, and to criminal trials, perhaps the most important part of the criminal process — the decision whether to charge a… Continue Reading

EFF Commentary on Expanded Powers of Computer Fraud And Abuse Act Reform

EFF: “Law professor and historian Tim Wu has called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) the “worst law in technology.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has described the government’s interpretation of it “expansive,” “broad,” and “sweeping.” And Orin Kerr, former federal prosecutor and law professor, has detailed how the government could use it… Continue Reading