Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:51pm EST

(Reuters) - Internet activist and programmer Aaron Swartz, who helped create an early version of RSS and later played a key role in stopping a controversial online piracy bill in Congress, has died at age 26, an apparent suicide, New York authorities said on Saturday.
Police found Swartz's body hanging in his Brooklyn apartment on Friday, according to the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner.
Swartz founded the group Demand Progress and led a successful campaign to stop a bill introduced in 2011 in the U.S. House of Representatives called the Stop Online Piracy Act, which generated fierce opposition in the technological community.
He also played a role in building the news sharing website Reddit.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Gunna Dickson)

Guys

Is there any reason why a young guy of 26, who is at the top of his game, would want to top himself?

You know, it's a tragedy when any young person dies by their own hands but when that person is one of those gifted people that can see the bigger picture and can fight for what is right then that makes this tragedy all the more tragic.


UK Bob

My first reaction also UKBob. Looks like a setup to me with the help of those who know how to make something look like it did. ie: a professional job.
I give a huge applaud to Aaron Swartz's success in achieving what he did in such a short time. I bow my head with wet eyes.

Slightly off-topic, yesterday I was looking around on the net and I liked this page http://pirateproxy.net/legal and people's responses, not only the site's responses. Said something about personal freedom and about how the USA wants to take over the world by proxy.

LOTR (& Blackhorse 70V)

From my reading of the news on this young man, Aaron Swartz, it seems that he was under an immense amount of pressure and probably felt that he had no one to turn to or nowhere to go.

You had some stupid politician looking to score points off his misfortune and it he was also persecuted by MIT, it must have seemed like his whole world had collapsed.

Anyway, here is the URL leading to the news story on the BBC website:



UK Bob

Those who care about Aaron Swartz and Internet freedom took a big step forward today.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Sen. Ron Wyden just introduced "Aaron's Law", which would fix some of the worst parts of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), including those which make it a potential crime to violate terms of service agreements -- that fine print that nobody reads at the bottom of a website.

The CFAA is the law under which Aaron and other innovators and activists have been threatened with decades in prison. It is so broad that law enforcement says it criminalizes all sorts of mundane Internet use: Potentially even breaking a website's terms of service agreement. Don't set up a MySpace page for your cat. Don't fudge your height on a dating site. Don't share your Facebook password with anybody: You could be committing a federal crime.

Click here to sign on as a "citizen cosponsor" of Aaron's Law and tell your lawmakers to cosponsor the bill in Congress.

(From SlashDot) gnujoshua writes
"The Internet Hall of Fame inducted 32 new members, today. This years class had a number of 'policy innovators' and activists including Aaron Swartz (posthumous), John Perry Barlow, Jimmy Wales, and Richard M. Stallman. Stallman had this to say upon his induction: 'Now that we have made the Internet work, the next task is to stop it from being a platform for massive surveillance, and make it work in a way that respects human rights, including privacy.'"