Brilliant people at all times were often misunderstood by contemporaries and literally broken by the prevailing government. History remembers many such examples, one of which is American Internet activist Aaron Schwartz. He fought for free access to information, wanted to change the world for the better in a scientific sense. However, fate gave him too little time and too many obstacles along the way …
Biography
The story of Aaron Schwartz begins on November 8, 1986 in Chicago. He was born and raised in the family of the founder of the computer company - Robert Schwartz. In addition to him, the family had two more children: his brothers Ben and Noah. But only Aaron from an early age showed an increased interest in everything new. Already at the age of three, he learned to read, a little later he mastered computer and programming. According to the memoirs of his relatives, in order to master any subject, the boy needed to read several books, and he was ready to independently teach the theoretical foundations to others. This is not to say that the young child prodigy was arrogant, but his intellectual abilities astounded and made his teachers embarrassed.
Education
Of course, by the age of 7, Aaron Schwartz already had a fairly significant body of knowledge (in particular, in computer science), so it was difficult for him to be among his peers in an ordinary educational school. For several years, he attended a private school in his Illinois state, in the village of Winnetka. However, the educational process did not suit him. He believed that homework was meaningless and only took time, distracting from something more important to him. At age 14, Schwartz Aaron officially graduated from high school and plunged into the world of the Internet and cyberculture.
He entered Stanford University, but a year later left him. Over the several months of his stay there, he made many changes to the modernization of electronic systems: from the library cataloguer to the mechanical access of students to the premises.
One of the reasons Aaron left the university was the digital divide. He was an excellent theoretician and practitioner of self-education, and therefore he considered unfair the restriction of access to scientific knowledge that exists in the world. It is it that pushes young people to enter universities in order to have the right to access specialized electronic archives. Aaron Schwartz saw this as an economic motive, so he set out to change the system.
Professional activity
Leaving Stanford, a 16-year-old programmer rents an apartment and begins developing his own project - an information portal called Infogami. Funding was provided by the Summer Founders program, which was offered by venture company Y Combinator.
Later, with the financial support of the same investment fund, Aaron Schwartz created the platform for Infogami, which became the basis for the sites web.ru and Open Library. This project was quite large-scale, for its implementation Schwartz needed an assistant, a partner. Therefore, in 2005, it was decided to connect Infogami with the social news site Reddit. At that time, the young Internet genius was 19 years old. He was officially accepted into the working team of professional programmers. But Schwartz did not like office work. He wrote about this in detail in his personal blog. "Gray walls, gray tables and gray noise" literally drove him crazy. And then he decided on a bold step.
Reddit co-founder Aaron Schwartz defiantly did not go to work and sent his colleagues his photo in a T-shirt with the inscription “Fired”. After that, he sold his stake in the company to the Condé Nast publishing house, and invested the profit in the development of another service, Watchdog. The new project became a repository of data on American politicians, which were collected from available sources. However, this site is not functioning today.
Activism
In 2010, Aaron Schwartz founded the human rights group Demand Progress. Its main goal was the fight against Internet censorship, with infringement of Internet freedoms. The group openly encouraged people on the Web to influence Congress and political leaders, gathered petitions, looked for levers of pressure on the government and disseminated information about government reforms. From this time begins the political activism of the programmer.
Victory over SOPA
The pinnacle of this Schwartz activity was the campaign against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). Congress raised the issue of adopting a new bill on cyber piracy. Of course, its provisions significantly limited the Internet freedom of users. The public reacted quite sharply to this news. And all thanks to the efforts of Schwartz and his associates in the group. Thousands of people took to the streets with a demand to abandon the new bill. The lists of congressmen who voted in favor were quickly distributed and subsequently played a negative role in the career of politicians. The case ended in a victory for Schwartz.
A court case
The U.S. government did not like this kind of activity, so the FBI established surveillance on the programmer. And in 2011, they managed to catch him downloading files through the library network of the University of Massachusetts from the private scientific publication service JSTOR. In fact, his act was not a serious offense. To access the articles, the user had to pay a subscription. Aaron Schwartz went around the rules and hacked into the server. What he was going to do with publications is unknown. Most likely, put them in the public domain. But since a lawsuit was instituted on him, all the materials had to be returned to the original source. And although JSTOR had no complaints about the programmer, he was nevertheless charged and arrested. However, he was soon released on bail of $ 100 thousand.
But this incident did not stop Schwartz, and soon he began work on the new Dead Drop service. It was a secure information channel for journalists who wanted to speak out against legislative initiatives, but be anonymous.
In September 2012, Aaron Schwartz found out that the lawsuit against him was not closed. Moreover, a few more points have been added to the previously listed violations (in particular, mail and telephone fraud and damage to a protected computer). Now he was threatened with 35 years in prison and a fine of a million dollars.
Death
In mid-January 2013, a trial was to be held in the Schwartz case. His parents, friends and lawyer were sure that they would be able to win and that no punishment would follow, since the situation itself caused a strong public outcry. And many influential people defended the Internet activist. However, the very idea of a possible restriction of freedom suppressed Schwartz.
On January 11, 2013, he was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment. The suicide of a computer genius (Aaron Schwartz hanged himself on a belt from jeans) was a shock for the whole world. And although he repeatedly touched on this topic in his personal blog, the desire to change the world and the thirst for information freedom seemed higher and stronger. However, this is how Aaron Schwartz brought the scores to life. The cause of death shocked everyone who knew genius. The closest, of course, blame the US authorities for his desperate act. The pressure on their part, apparently, was too strong.
The opinion of contemporaries
A year after the tragedy, a documentary called “The Internet Boy. The story of Aaron Schwartz. " The programmer’s relatives and friends starred in it openly about the Internet genius and the reasons for his death. According to one opinion, Schwartz Aaron became a victim of the US political system, which used it as a precedent to assert his authority. In fact, he did not commit anything illegal. Having downloaded the documents from JSTOR, the programmer did no harm to anyone and did not gain material gain. But the US government, this case, apparently played into the hands in order to consolidate its dominance in the Internet space.
As it turned out after the death of Schwartz, the maximum that he could get for his actions is 6 months in a penal colony. But the psychological pressure itself, FBI surveillance and restriction of freedom were more significant for the young programmer.
The betrayal of the Massachusetts Institute (MIT) administration, which turned out to be indifferent to the Schwartz case, was also painful. Perhaps she was also pressured by the authorities.
The film "Child of the Internet. The story of Aaron Schwartz ”(another name) was shown at the festival in Canada and in the USA (Austin, Texas) and received a positive rating from the audience.
Achievements
At the age of 13, Aaron won the ArsDigita Prize contest for young programmers to create educational non-profit web pages. As a prize, he received the right to travel to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he met prominent Internet figures, in particular, Tim Berners-Lee (founder of the World Wide Web) and Lawrence Lessing (professor at Harvard University). Subsequently, he collaborated with them, taking part in the development of programs and ideological concepts.
Personal life
Little is known about Schwarz’s personal life. According to the official version, his first serious hobby was journalist Quinn Norton (Wrided magazine). They met while she was still married. A spiritual connection was immediately established between them. Her marriage was unsuccessful, so soon after meeting with Aaron Quinn moved to him with her daughter. The reason for the separation is unknown, but the young programmer and journalist to the end have maintained a warm friendship.
Aaron Schwartz developed a second serious relationship with Taren Steinbrickner-Kaufman, executive director of the Internet movement Sum Of Us. They met a few months before the tragedy.
Interesting Facts
- At the age of 13, Aaron Schwartz was a member of the team for creating RSS news feeds. When colleagues found out his real age, they were stunned and immediately arranged a meeting with a young genius.
- Taren Schwartz took the relationship with the girl quite deeply and seriously, so a few months before the trial and the tragedy, he proposed to her. He dreamed of a modest and sudden wedding, to avoid unnecessary sentiment and noise. However, the girl refused, referring to the upcoming trial.
- Aaron was a very humble and secretive person. One time, work colleague Wickler invited him to a family dinner. But Schwartz did not bother the hosts, he did not say that he suffers from ulcerative colitis, and therefore adheres to a special menu. As a result, the young Internet genius had to eat only bread.
- The Internet activist has the namesake Aaron Schwartz - an actor known for the series Gossip Girl and The Ancients.
- Two weeks after Schwartz’s death, Anonymous activists broke into the closed service of the US Commission for the Execution of Sentences, established control over it, and on the main page posted a message that the US authorities had “crossed the line” and threatened to publish classified information. It was a kind of revenge for the Internet genius and activist.
- After a tragic incident in the House of Representatives, several congressmen proposed amending the law on prosecution.
