aaron swartz

Edward Tufte said, "Aaron's unique quality was that he was marvelously and vigorously different. Perhaps we can all be a little more different too."

A memorial service for Aaron Swartz will be held at Cooper Union today, as friends and family members continue to probe what drove the 26-year-old to his death.

Another lawyer said that the feds' interest "was driven by a desire to turn this into a significant case, so that some prosecutor could put it in his portfolio."

"Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach."

Swartz, who co-authored RSS 1.0 authentication at age 14, was, in Cory Doctorow's words, a "full-time, uncompromising, reckless and delightful shit-disturber."

An Internet-activist associated with Reddit was charged with stealing millions of documents from M.I.T. and scientific/academic journals: “It’s like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library.”