Honor the internet freedom activist’s life and legacy with hackathons and a screening of the biographical film “The Internet’s Own Boy.”
Sunday, November 8, is Aaron Swartz’s birthday, which has been celebrated annually as Aaron Swartz Day pretty much since he died by suicide in 2013. He was a young man of 26 when he died, so Sunday he would be celebrating his 40th and probably thinking that he was getting old. If you’re in your twenties, you maybe don’t remember him. At most you would’ve been 16 when he was taken from us, but I’m sure if you’ve been following open source or free software, that you’ve heard of him.
During his brief life he accomplished a lot. He remains known as a computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and internet hacktivist. He helped develop the RSS web feed format; the technical architecture for Creative Commons; web.py, the Python website framework; and the markup language Markdown. He was also a co-owner of Reddit until it was sold in 2006, and continued to contribute to its development until he left the company in 2007.
On January 6, 2011, he was arrested by MIT police on Massachusetts state B&E charges after connecting a computer to MIT’s network and downloading academic journal articles from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT. The feds charged him with two counts of wire fraud and for 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which carry a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release. I’ve seen some figures that say that’s a low figure, and that he was actually facing something like 50 years.
He declined a plea bargain which would have resulted in six months at a federal prison, because he would have been forced to plead guilty to federal felonies. He made a counter offer which prosecutors rejected. Two days after that he hung himself in his apartment in Brooklyn. Later that year he was inducted posthumously into the Internet Hall of Fame. In the years since, he’s been considered a martyr by most free tech activists. For many years his birthday has been celebrated worldwide with hackathons bearing his name.
Aaron Swartz Day Celebrations
On Sunday there will be Aaron Swartz celebrations taking place in San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. I’m sure there will be others; these are just the two I know about, mainly because EFF published an article about its involvement in the Frisco event, which mentions the event in Portland.
The San Francisco event, a hackathon and more, will take place from 10 am until 5 pm PST, with lunch being served from 1 pm – 3 pm. Organizers say that lunch is the “best time to come if you just wish to hang out, eat pizza, and be social.” At 2 pm, or for the second hour of lunch, there will be a special guest: Danny O’Brien — ex-EFF, ex-Committee to Protect Journalist, founder of the Open Rights Group, and all round hardcore Internet freedom fighter — will be on hand to exclusively reveal his new project and ask “what are *your* Terminal Values?” (punctuation and link theirs, not mine).
Some of the projects being hackifested include SecureDrop (Freedom of the Press Foundation), Atlas of Surveillance (EFF), Onion Press, and several Internet Archive and Creative Commons projects. There will also be two 30-minute (plus Q&A time) AI Chatbot Workshops on “Build a Low-Touch Travel Assistant” (11 am), and “Build a Voice Agent for Your Community” (3 pm). Also, everyone is invited to bring a color print of your favorite photo of Swartz for a huge collaborative collage they’ll be making (“potentially for post cards and customized wrapping paper”).
The San Francisco event is taking place at 300 Funston Ave; San Francisco, CA 94118. Everything’s free, but you do need to RSVP.
The Portland event won’t be a hackathon, but a free community screening of “The Internet’s Own Boy,” a documentary about Swartz’s life, work, and fight for an open internet. The screening will take place at 2 pm at the 5th Avenue Cinema at 510 SW Hall St. Organizers say the event will be simple and consist of a short welcome, the film, and a brief closing. “You don’t need a technical background or any familiarity with Aaron’s story to join us.” If you want to participate or need more information, contact Edan Krolewicz at edan@portlandciviclab.org.
Those of you who can’t attend in person because maybe you live hundreds or thousands of miles from California and Oregon shouldn’t feel left out of the loop. You can join by way of a special Aaron Swartz Day Discord that’s been established.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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