Outrage over suicide of troubled IT genius

Legalbrief reports that Aaron Swartz, who helped create an early version of the Web feed system RSS and later played a key role in stopping an online piracy Bill in the US Congress, was last week found dead in his Brooklyn, New York apartment. He was just 26. The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner ruled the death a suicide. Moneyweb reports that in 2011 he was indicted on computer fraud and other charges related to the unauthorised download of academic journal articles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with the intention of making them freely available. He faced charges of wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer. His attempts to reach a plea bargain with the government had broken down and he faced up to 35 years in prison, and up to $1m in fines. His trial was due to start in April. Swartz is widely credited with being a co-author of the specifications for the Web feed format RSS 1.0, which he worked on at age 14. RSS, which stands for Rich Site Summary, is a format for delivering to users content from sites that change constantly, such as news pages and blogs. Swartz also played a role in building the news sharing website Reddit, but left the company after it was acquired by Wired magazine owner Conde Nast. Full Moneyweb report

Swartz's family has accused prosecutors and MIT officials of being complicit in his death, blaming the apparent suicide on the pursuit of a young man over 'an alleged crime that had no victims'. His parents, Robert and Susan, siblings Noah and Ben and partner Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman said the Reddit builder's demise was not just a 'personal tragedy' but 'the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach'. The Guardian reports that they also attacked MIT for not supporting the Internet activist in his legal battles and refusing to stand up for 'its own community's most cherished principles'. Full report in The Guardian

Hacktivist group Anonymous has attacked the MIT websites and posted a memorial to Swartz. A report in The Guardian notes that a message calling for an overhaul of US computer crime laws appeared on MIT websites. The message, in red type, said it did not hold MIT responsible, and apologised to the institution for the 'temporary use of their web sites', but described Swartz's prosecution as a 'gross miscarriage of justice'. 'Whether or not the government contributed to his suicide, the government's prosecution of Swartz was a grotesque miscarriage of justice, a distorted and perverse shadow of the justice that Aaron died fighting for,' said an Anonymous statement posted on the MIT website and reproduced elsewhere. A report on the discovery.com site noted that the Department of Justice site was also attacked. Full report in The Guardian

At the heart of Swartz's projects was a compulsion to form new systems for the flow of information in the digital era, and challenge those which had emerged already as inadequate. In a column in The Independent, Jack Riley notes that he was a vocal advocate of the free flow of information and the dangers of allowing traditional corporations to play a disproportionate role in forming the information systems of the 21st century. 'Discussion of his life's work has understandably focused on the last great debate in which he was involved - the freedom of academic information on the internet. Perhaps a victory in the trial he faced would have been his greatest achievement, and an opportunity to reexamine the draconian rules around academic publishing. As it is, the death of one of the internet's great young pioneers is all the more tragic given the remarkable accomplishments made in those first 26 years of his life.' Full column in The Independent