In the memory of web activist Aaron Swartz

Hacking News BY Bradley Sep 5th, 2017

In the memory of Aaron Swartz, The Hacktivist group Anonymous hacks (defaced) in to two MIT websites and leaves a Message for Aaron Swartz.

The 26-year-old Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide just 2 days back was arrested in July 2011 and accused of stealing 4 million documents from MIT and JSTOR, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers.

JSTOR had dropped the charges after the digital copies of the articles were returned. However the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) did not do the same and decided to continue with charges against him. If convicted He would have faced $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison. His trial was set to begin this April. Unfortunately On Friday evening, Swartz was found dead in his apartment.

Anonymous decided to attack only hours after MIT released a statement on Swartz’s death, announcing it would launch an internal investigation on the events that led up to Swartz’ passing.

The group wrote in the message:

“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 Aaron died fighting for”

Anonymous also called for a reform of computer crime laws, copyright and intellectual property laws, and a renewal of a commitment to a “free and unfettered internet.

The 2 hacked Websites are:

1) http://cogen.mit.edu/ (Now restored)
2) http://rledev.mit.edu/aaron.html

Aaron Swartz:
Aron S (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013)
Aaron Swartz was a computer programmer, writer, archivist, political organizer, and Internet activist. He was a co-founder of Reddit.com, helped create RSS and was know as Internet freedom activist. He was also one ff The Earliest Google Bloggers. Swartz also focused on sociology, civic awareness and activism.