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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and I love all things tech. Today,

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Speaker 1: it is time for another tech Stuff classic episode that

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Speaker 1: published back in February two thirteen. It is styled tech

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Speaker 1: Stuff Remembers Aaron Swartz. Aaron Swartz, very important person, tragically

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Speaker 1: short life, and Lauren Vogelbaum and I sit down and

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Speaker 1: talk about who he is and why he was important.

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Speaker 1: So I hope you enjoy this episode. Well, today we

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Speaker 1: we have a topic that's both happy and sad. It's

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Speaker 1: sad and that the world lost an activist and and

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Speaker 1: legitimately a genius in January fellow by the name of

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Speaker 1: Aaron Schwartz. And you may have heard this name, and

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Speaker 1: you you may even be fairly aware of who he

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Speaker 1: was and what he did. He's been in the news

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch, and you've probably been hearing about him

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Speaker 1: for years because he's done some really breakthrough work in technology.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and both from a actual technological standpoint and

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Speaker 1: from a political standpoint, as it turns out, So we

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Speaker 1: wanted to really talk about who he was, what sort

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Speaker 1: of impact he's had on technology, both from a policy

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Speaker 1: side and from actual zeros in ones right physical, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and to kind of talk about why his his life

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Speaker 1: and death matter in the world of tech. And to

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Speaker 1: do this, we we wanted to kind of take an

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Speaker 1: overview of his life. So first, before I really dive in,

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Speaker 1: I have to give major props to The Verge, which

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Speaker 1: is if you guys have never gone to The Verge,

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Speaker 1: it's a fantastic It's one of my favorite sites out

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Speaker 1: there right now. It's really really well done. And a

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Speaker 1: fellow by the name of Tim Carmody wrote an exhaustive

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Speaker 1: article about Swartz's life and was very thorough and very respectful,

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Speaker 1: and see it was a really gorgeous piece of journalism, honestly,

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Speaker 1: and it was it was a very personal piece of

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Speaker 1: journalism that it bled a few lines into editorial, but

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Speaker 1: it was and gave you a gave you insight to

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Speaker 1: what it's like being a journalist to have to cover

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Speaker 1: a story that has personal implications. Because he had had

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Speaker 1: met Sworts at least once, and so you know, it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a kind of an inside look to what

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Speaker 1: it's like being a journalist and covering a story like this.

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Speaker 1: And also he's very good at breaking down the myths

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Speaker 1: because they you know, Aaron Swarts was sort of a

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Speaker 1: legendary mythical figure in many ways, the kind of person

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Speaker 1: who's whose contributions were huge, and they got bigger depending

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Speaker 1: upon who was telling the story and how how many

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Speaker 1: times they told it. Sure the same way to say

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Speaker 1: Steve Jobs a lot of That's a good, good example.

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Speaker 1: Although we should also add Swarts was was magically very

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Speaker 1: young when he when he committed suicide, only twenty six

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Speaker 1: years old. Yeah. So, so going back to his childhood,

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Speaker 1: he was born in Chicago. In nineteen six his father,

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Speaker 1: Robert Schwartz, founded a software company which was called Mark Williams,

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Speaker 1: which actually named after Aaron's grandfather and uh and Mark Williams.

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Speaker 1: The company was all about creating a clone of the

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Speaker 1: Unix operating system and also ce compilers, C language compilers

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Speaker 1: and debuggers for IBM PCs. And that's that's a term

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Speaker 1: that brings me back because I remember when when computers

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Speaker 1: were either called Apple or IBM compatible or you know,

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Speaker 1: eventually kind of specificity doesn't really exist anymore. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: IBM compatible became a term like I was referring to

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Speaker 1: PCs a IBM compatibles long after that was appropriate because

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Speaker 1: sometimes things stick with you. But anyway, Robert Swartz would

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Speaker 1: eventually become an intellectual property consultant for M I T S.

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Speaker 1: Media lab and intellectual property was something that Aaron became

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Speaker 1: very interested in and very passionate about. And the idea

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Speaker 1: of is information property. Does it belong to one person

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Speaker 1: or one entity in the case of say a corporation

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Speaker 1: or organization, or does it belong to the world. Should

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Speaker 1: it belong to the world? And this is a philosophical

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Speaker 1: debate that a lot of people have had, and I

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Speaker 1: think most people fall somewhere in the spectrum of gray. Sure, well,

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Speaker 1: you know it's we We all want to especially those

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Speaker 1: of us who work in the media, want to be

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Speaker 1: paid for our ideas because that's the only thing that

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Speaker 1: we produce. But at the same time, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: if someone wants to learn something, I'm certainly not going

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Speaker 1: to say, like, no, no, give me money first. If

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Speaker 1: you know, if for example, if they need that money

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Speaker 1: to eat, I would gather them know things and eat. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: And so Aaron kind of we'll get into it. But

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Speaker 1: Aaron kind of developed an idealistic philosophy that was very

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Speaker 1: much in the realm of information wants to be free,

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Speaker 1: that that sort of idea that that that data needs

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Speaker 1: to be out there for people to make use of

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Speaker 1: it and to make lives better. He called it a

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Speaker 1: moral imperative. Yeah and um yes, so that that kind

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Speaker 1: of gives you a quick philosophical overview, But we don't

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Speaker 1: want to jump ahead too far. Tim's work in the Verge.

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Speaker 1: There was one little piece of information that I thought

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Speaker 1: was adorable, which is that when Aaron was eight years old.

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Speaker 1: Keep in mind out this is early days, okay, so

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Speaker 1: s plus eight that means in in, in and and wait.

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Speaker 1: I got nineteen nineteen ninety four. Liberal arts education has

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Speaker 1: paid off people. When the World Wide Web was really

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Speaker 1: just two years old. Um, he was actually going on usenet,

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Speaker 1: which is not the same thing as Worldwide Web, so

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Speaker 1: don't write me. But he was going on usenet, which

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Speaker 1: was a newsgroup database essentially kind of like a network

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Speaker 1: database where you could go and have discussions about different topics.

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Speaker 1: And apparently when exactly when he was eight, he went

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Speaker 1: on to ustet and his first post was to a

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Speaker 1: newsgroup dedicated to Beakman's World, which is kind of awesome.

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Speaker 1: That's wonderful. Yeah. Uh. He was also a big fan

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Speaker 1: of the Star Wars movies, which I think is phenomenal

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Speaker 1: because he was born three years after the last one

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Speaker 1: came out, Return of the Jedi, as we have discussed before,

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Speaker 1: year old. Sorry, yeah, well I saw Return of the

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Speaker 1: Jedi in the theater when it was released. And man,

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Speaker 1: I sure hope that one day Lucas comes out with

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Speaker 1: movies that really explain how Anakin became Darth Vader. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't that be That would be so great, that would

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Speaker 1: be fantastic. I love a follow up. I really wish

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Speaker 1: that those movies existed, just like I hope one day

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Speaker 1: they make a sequel to Highlander, the Matrix or The Matrix.

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Speaker 1: These are yeah, so many movies that I wish there

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Speaker 1: were sequels to that. I'm not actively denying exist. Um.

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Speaker 1: It's exhausting being Miguel, really, but anyway, he was also

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Speaker 1: fans of other things like I went visited his blog

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Speaker 1: uh in preparation for this podcast, and and he had

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Speaker 1: a way of taking pop culture and applying various thought

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Speaker 1: experiments to it that was engaging and enlightening and funny.

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Speaker 1: He has a great one in the final one, sadly

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Speaker 1: about the Dark Night. Uh. The most recent, the last

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Speaker 1: and the Christopher Nolan series actually was the second one.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't yeah because it was all about the Joker. It

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Speaker 1: was because he was he was going back to looking

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Speaker 1: at that one. It was written. It was written in November. Um.

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Speaker 1: The blog post was uh, and it was about how

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Speaker 1: the Joker applies game theory throughout the movie. And he

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Speaker 1: breaks down almost scene by scene every time the Joker

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Speaker 1: appears and and explains which game in game theory applies

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Speaker 1: to that scene. And there's like a dozen different games

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Speaker 1: that he specifically references, and he makes a case for

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Speaker 1: every single one. And I looked at that and I thought,

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Speaker 1: you know, I I kind of had the same idea

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Speaker 1: once or twice, because I I know about game theory

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Speaker 1: fleetingly and things like Prisoner's dilemma, the trolley problem, things

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Speaker 1: like that. Um, but he broke it down for every

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Speaker 1: single scene. I said, I never saw all of those connections.

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Speaker 1: So he really had that ability to to to kind

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Speaker 1: of look at the world around him and art and

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Speaker 1: and and entertainment. And even if you even if you

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Speaker 1: don't want to call it art, if you just want

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Speaker 1: to call it entertainment, He's able to see the underlying

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Speaker 1: thoughts that kind of maybe not consciously but guided that work.

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Speaker 1: And uh, even if even if it was completely unintentional,

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Speaker 1: he could draw parallels, which was really kind of an

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Speaker 1: awesome thing. I really admire that quality in people. Certainly

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Speaker 1: I do not possess it, not to that extent anyway. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: skipping ahead of all that, I mean, that's so bottom

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Speaker 1: line geeky guy. Okay, he's a geek, and I say

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Speaker 1: that with full love. I say that as a man

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Speaker 1: who has a Lord of the Rings tattoo on his

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Speaker 1: left arm. Okay, I love the geek. I learned things

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Speaker 1: about you every day. John didn't know I had a

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Speaker 1: tattoo with a Lord of the Things. I don't think

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Speaker 1: I did right here. Um, I can't show you up

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Speaker 1: wearing a long sleep today. Um. But anyway, skipping ahead

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Speaker 1: a little bit too. When he was the ripe old

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Speaker 1: age of thirteen years old, circle two thousand or so thirteen,

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Speaker 1: he begins to work on the Info Network, which is

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Speaker 1: his idea for the Info Network was sort of like

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Speaker 1: what Wikipedia became. It's the idea of this an online encyclopedia,

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Speaker 1: storage of knowledge that anyone can can add to add

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Speaker 1: to an edit, so essentially the same idea as Wikipedia.

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Speaker 1: It's this, you know, he saw that the Internet was

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Speaker 1: that had the potential to be like the guide in

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Speaker 1: the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. If you guys

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Speaker 1: have not read the books, then that's okay. You go

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Speaker 1: ahead and do that. Will wait, because they're worth it.

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Speaker 1: Don't don't watch the movie, but you can watch the

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Speaker 1: BBC television series or listen to the radio show. You

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Speaker 1: can watch the movie. Alan Rickman was excellent in that film.

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Speaker 1: That movie was so bad. Martin Freeman was excellent in

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Speaker 1: that film where Don't Make Me. Performances were fine, the

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Speaker 1: script was terrible. I am from the Internet. I will

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Speaker 1: fight you about Martin Freeman. No, no, no no, no, You're

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Speaker 1: not gonna get any argument on me. I mean, Freeman

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Speaker 1: was the best thing about the map I took during

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Speaker 1: the hobbit um. So anyway, Uh, the Info Networks he's

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Speaker 1: working on this this project, and the work gets him

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Speaker 1: some attention. He actually becomes a finalist in the second

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Speaker 1: Our Digita Prize and as a finalist. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: keeping mind, he's thirteen years old. He's he's competing, not

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Speaker 1: necessarily competing, but he's he's in the same against in

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Speaker 1: the Brackett bracket with people who are big names today

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Speaker 1: in technology and who were adults. Many of these people

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Speaker 1: knew his work. Yeah, they knew him. They knew him

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Speaker 1: on online as as it staid at the time, Aaron

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Speaker 1: sw but they did not know that Aaron sw was.

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Speaker 1: They're like, whoa who am I being punked? Yeah? Is

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Speaker 1: that that? That's a really dated reference. That's point in it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: okay around two thousand they might have been saying it. Maybe, okay,

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Speaker 1: so ask your parents. So he he ended up winning

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Speaker 1: as a finalist, a thousand dollars and access to a

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Speaker 1: web server for life and a two day trip to

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Speaker 1: m I t to meet a couple of a couple

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Speaker 1: of geeks, a couple of dudes who a little, a

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Speaker 1: little influential in technology. One of those two was Tim

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Speaker 1: berners Lee, who most of us know as the guy

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Speaker 1: who invented the World Wide Web back when he was

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Speaker 1: working with a CERN. Kind of kind of a big deal. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so he's the one who kind of developed the framework

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Speaker 1: that would become the World Wide Web, and yeah, big name.

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Speaker 1: The other fellow that he got to meet on this

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Speaker 1: two day trip was Hal Abelson, who was professor of

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Speaker 1: Electrical engineering and Computer Science at M I T. He's

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Speaker 1: also a fellow of the I E E E or

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Speaker 1: as longtime listeners of tech stuff, know how I pronounced

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Speaker 1: it the because it's cajun um not cajun And then

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Speaker 1: he was also a hal Abelson's also a founding director

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Speaker 1: of Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation and Creative

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Speaker 1: Commons will come in to play later in this discussion

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Speaker 1: as well. Abelson himself, Um, so big deal. You know,

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Speaker 1: he got to meet some people who were definitely influential

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Speaker 1: in the techno technology space as well as this idea

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Speaker 1: that information is powerful and it's important and it's necessary

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Speaker 1: and people should have access to it. Um these are

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Speaker 1: these are big ideas for a thirteen year old, and

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Speaker 1: he had embraced them already. Uh. A little bit later,

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Speaker 1: he became interested in something called r S s rs S,

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Speaker 1: of course being m a rich site summary. I believe

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Speaker 1: originally it stood for resource description framework Site summary. Wow,

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Speaker 1: look at you, Yes, that's exactly right. It's a it's

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Speaker 1: sometimes also called really simple syndication. And you got it.

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Speaker 1: You nailed it. And yes, I can read really good.

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Speaker 1: I wrote it down. You do read really good. You

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Speaker 1: don't speak so well, but to read really good. That's

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Speaker 1: why I'm a podcasters fair. And it's it's what it's

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Speaker 1: what the Internet uses to syndicate itself. Yeah. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: so I'll give you, guys a for those of you

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Speaker 1: who are not aware of what RSS is or what

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Speaker 1: it does. Uh, let's go back to the old days

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Speaker 1: of the web now, pre RSS or pre any other

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Speaker 1: syndication format, because RSS is not the only one, it's

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Speaker 1: just it's sort of the one that came out on top.

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Speaker 1: But pre RSS and other syndication formats, the way you

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Speaker 1: would get information on the net is you would go

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Speaker 1: visit a website. Yeah, you would. You would type in

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Speaker 1: the URL and you would click go, and you would

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Speaker 1: visit the website right, and you would look and you

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Speaker 1: would actually scan the website to see if anything you

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Speaker 1: had popped up. This applied for everything from website that

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Speaker 1: was about specific company you were interested in or a community.

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Speaker 1: Blogs were kind of not a thing yet, but but

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Speaker 1: web web comics maybe, or a news site, so you

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Speaker 1: would you might think, oh, you know, I hadn't checked

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Speaker 1: the news in a while, let me go, And then

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Speaker 1: you would go and you would actually have to start

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Speaker 1: kind of scanning through stuff and look, all right, well,

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Speaker 1: what's what's new? What have I not read? I know,

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Speaker 1: I think I read that one. So it was it

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Speaker 1: was very time consuming. The idea behind the syndication was

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Speaker 1: that instead of you going to the site, the sites

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Speaker 1: would send little bits of information to some sort of

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Speaker 1: portal page, a reader aggregator like Google Reader is a

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Speaker 1: very popular one. You might log into this reader program

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Speaker 1: or reader site really is what it was, uh, and

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Speaker 1: then all that information would get fed to you whenever

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Speaker 1: a new piece of information came in and you could

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Speaker 1: just look at a glance and see, oh, this one

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Speaker 1: website I'm interested in published a new article and you

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Speaker 1: can read the headline and think, oh, is that something

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Speaker 1: I want to look into more, And depending upon the

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Speaker 1: way they syndicated their feed, you might even be able

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Speaker 1: to read the entire article within your reader without having

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Speaker 1: to ever visit the site. Uh. Not a lot of

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Speaker 1: websites like that, because it meant that you could read

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Speaker 1: their content without visiting the site, which often meant that

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Speaker 1: they were not looking at their as Yeah, they were

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Speaker 1: getting ad impressions. So a lot of sites instead would

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Speaker 1: allow the first paragraph and a half and then a

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Speaker 1: click through. Yeah, and then you would have to click through.

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Speaker 1: But the the idea was all about making sure that

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Speaker 1: that you would be getting the ist information as you

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Speaker 1: were as it was being generated, so that you didn't

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Speaker 1: have to keep checking. Yeah. And around around two thousand one,

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Speaker 1: a version of RSS called RSS one point now was

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Speaker 1: being developed. Yeah. Yeah. The RSS originally was kind of

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Speaker 1: being created by by essentially Netscape, So the Netscape group

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Speaker 1: was working on RSS, and they came out with things

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Speaker 1: like r s S zero point nine which used r

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Speaker 1: DF elements, which is that resource description framework that you

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Speaker 1: were mentioning, Lauren. Um that, by the way, it essentially

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Speaker 1: is all about how links linked to each other and

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Speaker 1: the information between the links. It's a meta data issue. Um.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of complicated. So and ultimately it doesn't matter

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Speaker 1: because they removed the r DF elements when they released

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Speaker 1: RSS zero point nine one. Once they removed the r

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Speaker 1: DF elements, they said, oops, we yes, our acronym no

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Speaker 1: longer means r D F r D F. Uh you know,

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Speaker 1: site syndication. We got to call it something else, and uh,

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Speaker 1: that's when we became rich site syndication. Uh, and then

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Speaker 1: of course eventually became really simple syndication. Um, a rich

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Speaker 1: site summary, I should say, not syndication. Sorry, that's my

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Speaker 1: brain is totally syndicated. So anyway, Netscape releases point nine

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Speaker 1: and point nine one. Uh, it becomes rich site Summary

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Speaker 1: and then Netscape ends its development with the standard. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So the thing was there are a lot of people

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Speaker 1: were saying this was kind of a guard Yeah, guys,

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Speaker 1: why why did we just put that down? Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: kind of want that. So two different uh entities, I guess,

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Speaker 1: one person and one group began to work on developing

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Speaker 1: RSS further. On one end you had the the r

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Speaker 1: S S Dev Working Group, and on the other end

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Speaker 1: you had a fellow by the name of Dave Winer

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Speaker 1: and uh the they were independently working on creating and

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Speaker 1: furthering the standard of r s S. UH. Weiner attempted

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Speaker 1: to trademark RSS, but due to a clerical technicality, that

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Speaker 1: trademark did not go through. The RSS dev Working Group

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Speaker 1: ended up publishing RSS one point oh, and that was

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Speaker 1: part of that working group. There were there were originally

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Speaker 1: I think about twelve or fourteen people on it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was basically the Hobbit Party. Yeah. One of one

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Speaker 1: of those people was fourteen year old Aaron Swartz. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so Aeron swarts En, he's working with people like people

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Speaker 1: from the O'Reilly media group who were working on this

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Speaker 1: set of standards at fourteen years old, he was one

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Speaker 1: of the people helping define the standards of RSS one

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Speaker 1: point oh. Specifically, he was looking at creating some semantic

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Speaker 1: elements in RSS specification, uh, semantic being that it would

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Speaker 1: have a more almost like a natural language recognition ability

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Speaker 1: to it. It's it's really all about meta data, the

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Speaker 1: data about data, and how that helps aggregate information in

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Speaker 1: a way that's useful to human beings, so that you know,

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Speaker 1: because computers don't understand the actual information that is that

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Speaker 1: they handle, right, so you have to create information about

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Speaker 1: that information so computers can start to make associations and

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Speaker 1: start filing. Yeah, for humans, it's natural. For computers, it

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Speaker 1: takes a lot of work. So that's kind of what

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Speaker 1: he was building out, was this whole um semantic element

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Speaker 1: into it that was kind of what he was specifically

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Speaker 1: interested in. Meanwhile, just to kind of wrap up the

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Speaker 1: RSS stuff, um Winer would go on to develop RSS

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Speaker 1: two point oh, which would take the place of RSS

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Speaker 1: one point oh, even though it was not based on

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Speaker 1: one point oh at all, because he was developing his

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Speaker 1: simultaneous Yeah, the development forked and on one branch you

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Speaker 1: had one point oh and the other branch you had

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Speaker 1: two point and two point oh ended up eventually taking over. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so one point I wasn't really it's still really

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Speaker 1: impressive that they were creating it, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: the work that that sports especialated with metadet data he

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Speaker 1: ended up taking other places. Yes, Yeah, but it's kind

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Speaker 1: of important to bring that into perspective because I've seen

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Speaker 1: a lot of reports that just says he invented RSS,

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Speaker 1: which one is not accurate and too is certainly not accurate.

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Speaker 1: Uh once you go forward a couple of years when

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Speaker 1: RSS two point out takes over. But but his contributions

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Speaker 1: were nonetheless important, and as you've just pointed out, they

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Speaker 1: were applicable to other elements of technology, not just the

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Speaker 1: RSS project. So yeah, that was that was his involvement

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Speaker 1: in that at age fourteen. I will not tell you

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Speaker 1: what I was up to when I was fourteen years old,

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Speaker 1: because none of it is even remotely as impressive as

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Speaker 1: that one accomplishment. I'm pretty sure I was like watching

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Speaker 1: Mystery Science Theater three thousand and playing Mario Kart at fourteen,

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Speaker 1: I was probably wishing there was something called Mystery Science

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Speaker 1: Theater three thousand. It happens to all of us because

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Speaker 1: I'm old. As Lauren has pointed out from the Star

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Speaker 1: Wars discussion, I wonder episode one per episode. Um, so

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Speaker 1: this is about the same time that that Aaron Sports

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Speaker 1: made a made a big decision in his life. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he decided to drop out of high school that year. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's um that's a bold decision for someone who is

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Speaker 1: uh already showing so much promise. Uh, It's not not

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Speaker 1: an unusual and that I've seen a lot of prodigies.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Steve Stephen Hawking I think did terribly in

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Speaker 1: primary school. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates both dropped out,

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Speaker 1: but they dropped out of college. They completed high school,

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Speaker 1: but they dropped out of college. Well, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: I think that he sounds like Aaron had a lot

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Speaker 1: of support from his family and that he was, you know,

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Speaker 1: being encouraged to take on these crazy projects. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: I have a feeling he was also one of those

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Speaker 1: people who the curriculum in a school just did not

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Speaker 1: match up to this to his pretty bored in high school.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not that smart, you know. I was also

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Speaker 1: pretty bored in high school when we weren't talking about Shakespeare.

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Speaker 1: When we were talking about Shakespeare, was very much engaged.

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Speaker 1: Um No, I had some great teachers in high school.

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Speaker 1: Please people, if don't don't write me hate mail teachers. Um.

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Speaker 1: So he also, while not in high school, taught himself

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Speaker 1: how to code and Python, so that was kind of impressive.

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Speaker 1: You know, he decided that he needed to learn some

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Speaker 1: more coding language. Um and uh. Then he ended up

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Speaker 1: meeting a couple of important people, including Abelson again, also

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Speaker 1: Lawrence Lessig, who would become uh sort of a mentor

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Speaker 1: and friend to him throughout his life. And um uh

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Speaker 1: Eric Eldridge, Eldred Rather and they they were they had

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Speaker 1: just weren't banded together to create um creative commons. Now,

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Speaker 1: creative comments is a way of licensing and copyrighting software

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Speaker 1: that is not as restrictive as the traditional copyright right,

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Speaker 1: because traditional copyright in the United States, at least, um

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Speaker 1: it's pretty much a one zero it's a yes no

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Speaker 1: kind of permission thing, wherein it's it's very possessive and

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Speaker 1: it lasts forever and not literally forever, but you might

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Speaker 1: as well be it's and it gets it seems like

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Speaker 1: every year there are more companies petitioning to lengthen the

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Speaker 1: the era of copyright. Um. Often you'll hear people talk

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Speaker 1: about Disney being one of the big ones that they

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Speaker 1: never want Mickey Mouse to pass out of copyright, and uh,

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Speaker 1: I mean from a from a business perspective, you can

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Speaker 1: totally understand their point of view. From a creative perspective,

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Speaker 1: and someone who wants to be able to take other

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Speaker 1: creative works and do something new with them, it's a

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Speaker 1: very frustrating experience because you might have a great idea

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Speaker 1: that would make someone else's great idea a superlative idea,

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Speaker 1: but you can't do it without the fear of being sued.

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Speaker 1: And so what lessig Abelson and Eldred wanted to do

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Speaker 1: was create a form of licensing that would allow people

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Speaker 1: who are creating works to choose how those works could

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Speaker 1: be protected, distributed and protected and remixed and exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that way, like if if Lauren were to create

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Speaker 1: something really awesome. But she says, you know, I know

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Speaker 1: there are people out there who are going to look

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Speaker 1: at this in ways I never imagined, and I want

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Speaker 1: to see what comes of it. She could choose to

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Speaker 1: license it under creative Comments in such a way that

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Speaker 1: other people could use that work, possibly with some restrictions

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Speaker 1: some and there were a lot of different options where

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Speaker 1: you could do things like say, yes, you can use

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Speaker 1: this work, but not in a commercial sense, or you

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Speaker 1: can use this work, but you must attribute the originational creator.

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Speaker 1: So um, it gave a lot more flexibility. But they

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Speaker 1: had a problem. While they were working out all the

429
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: technical issues from the law side, the legal issues, the

430
00:24:55,800 --> 00:25:00,119
Speaker 1: policy issues, they weren't sure how to incorporate this the

431
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 1: actual technological side, right because at the you know, at

432
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: the end of a text article you can throw in

433
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 1: a tag that says copyright this person, or you know,

434
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 1: you can you can use this work in these ways,

435
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: But how do you do that on a music file

436
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 1: video without without actually having it pop up as you know,

437
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: someone say, y'all, this is creative Commons and it's a

438
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: song about my dog. Um, yeah, you don't want to

439
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 1: do that at the beginning of very file. And so

440
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: what Aaron ended up doing was he began to work

441
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,959
Speaker 1: on code that would allow him to embed that information

442
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: again data meta data, data about data. Uh. This code

443
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: would be able to exist within a file and be

444
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 1: readable and meaningful, so that when you were distributing this file,

445
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 1: you would actually be able to see how it was

446
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: distributed under the Creative Commons and make sure that it's

447
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:54,680
Speaker 1: following the right standards. So he played a very important

448
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: part early on the Creative Commons world to make sure

449
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 1: that it made sense for him a technical perspective, technological

450
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: perspective and yeah, huge influence on that. And again talking

451
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: with people like Lessig and A. Wilson and Eldred gave

452
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 1: him an even greater appreciation for this idea that information

453
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 1: is important and people needed so once more reinforcing his

454
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 1: own philosophy which again he had already started to develop

455
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 1: before he began to work on this project. Um. Then

456
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: in two thousand one he co wrote a paper with

457
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,400
Speaker 1: James Hendler, was a professor at the University of Maryland.

458
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 1: The paper was called the semantic web, a network of

459
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:42,679
Speaker 1: content for the digital city. So this again is that

460
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: idea of a web that is almost intelligent in a

461
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 1: way that everything is mapped to everything else in such

462
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: a way that associations are made very naturally. Uh. He

463
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:56,679
Speaker 1: ended up going to co present this paper in Kyoto

464
00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: so in two thousand one. Yeah again, yeah, this is

465
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:03,239
Speaker 1: this is when he was still fourteen on the right

466
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,880
Speaker 1: around that age. Yeah, kind of crazy. And then um,

467
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: just to kind of illustrate his philosophy on licensing. He

468
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 1: he had a very um clever sense of humor, and

469
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: he could he could word things in such a way

470
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: where you get the meaning and you get the humor

471
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: at the same time. For instance, he decided to to

472
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 1: summarize certain organizations views on copyright in the form of haiku,

473
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: and he was trying to explain what what these different

474
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: approach is meant in a very simple way. So, for example,

475
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: for the public domain, public domain meaning that it is

476
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: not under copyright and anyone can access it without fear

477
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 1: of any you know, legal repercussion exactly says do what

478
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:00,639
Speaker 1: you feel like, since the work is abandoned, the law

479
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:04,880
Speaker 1: doesn't care. That was hiking Number one might tease approach,

480
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 1: take my code with you and do whatever you want,

481
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: but please don't blame me. And then you have the

482
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: r I double A. That's the the Recording Institutent Associate

483
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:22,479
Speaker 1: Industry Association America in this little litigious group you might

484
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: have heard, famously infamously opposed to UH to digital distribution,

485
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 1: or at least digital digital distribution without some form of

486
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 1: really restrictive d r M. Yeah. They really wanted everything

487
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: to run off of d r M. Yeah. Anyway, R

488
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: double A. They're also infamously UH known for getting involved

489
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: in policy decisions, advocating for policy decisions, his take on

490
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: their approaches. If you touch this file, my lawyers will

491
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: come kill you, so kindly refrain out. Yeah. Well, I

492
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: think this is a good moment to take a quick

493
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: break and hear from our sponsors. And now back to

494
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 1: the show. So we're gonna skip ahead to when he

495
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: was the right old age of seventeen, and that's when

496
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: he began to work on a project called info Gummy

497
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: and this was a WEEKI platform, yep, and it eventually

498
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 1: merged with another company that has gone on to UH

499
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: to some acclaim. You might have heard of it. It's

500
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: called Reddit. Ye. Reddit. I know some people who think

501
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 1: of read it as really it really is at their

502
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 1: front page to the Internet, you know, because Reddit, of

503
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: course divides things up into categories and then subcategories or

504
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: reddits and subreddits if you prefer, and you can read

505
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: all about these different headlines that are coming out all

506
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: across the web from all sorts of different sources. You

507
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: can vote up or vote down stories, so that the

508
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 1: ones that you've think are particularly well written or pertinent

509
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 1: are at the top, and ones that are not applicable

510
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: or whatever get voted down. A free flowing sharing of information.

511
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: Yeah uh. And ideally it works really well, although depending

512
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: upon which reddit commentary pill bits and pieces if it

513
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: can be wretched, has this common villainy right, and some

514
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: some subreddit communities are fantastic, absolutely, and then some subreddit

515
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: communities just are filled with flame wars um and it happens.

516
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: But anyway, so he was he was technically he was

517
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 1: a co creator, a co creator of Reddit. Yeah so

518
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: so Reddit as a company existed before Aaron came on

519
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: board because the company's merged. But it wasn't. It wasn't

520
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: what it is. It wasn't what it is today. Exactly.

521
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: So he ended up creating it a special kind of

522
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 1: web development library, uh that they ended up switching to.

523
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: They had it a previous one, they switched to the

524
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: one that Sworts creates, and then the site kind of

525
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: took off and in fact was purchased by the Nast

526
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: and uh that purchased that deal ended up making Aaron

527
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: wealthy overnight, extremely wealthy. Yeah, and you know, the the

528
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 1: entire Reddit team was moved into Wired's offices. Wired is

529
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: owned by Conde Nasty. Wired's offices in San Francisco, because

530
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: before that he had been working in other parts of California,

531
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: which um he preferred. Uh. He was not a fan

532
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: of San Francisco. He was not really a fan of

533
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: the Wired offices or of the entire He didn't like

534
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: the job. Like I have a feeling that anytime Swartz

535
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: encountered constraints, he became frustrated, and the more constrained he was,

536
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: the more frustrated he would become. And Uh, one of

537
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: the other elements of Swartz's life, and it's a it's

538
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: a tragic element, is that he was, uh he battled

539
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: depression and that in this environment where he was coming

540
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: up against all these constraints that he did not like.

541
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: Depression was starting to get to him. Um he wrote

542
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 1: a story, a fictional story, but people began to question

543
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: how fictional it was that that some people began to

544
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: interpret as a potential suicide note a plea for help,

545
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: and people began to check on him and UM he

546
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 1: then was essentially asked to resign and or fired, depending

547
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 1: upon the depending on the right the terminology you really

548
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: want to use. Either way, the it was it was

549
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: clear that his his his happiness was not going to

550
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: come into play while he's working there. He was not

551
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: contributing to the company in the way that they wanted,

552
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: and UH, no party in that relationship was happy. So

553
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: he ended up leaving uh Reddit. But but that was

554
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 1: probably for the best because again it was just clear

555
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: that it was not a good fit. Um And in

556
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: two thousand seven he ended up joininging UH the Internet

557
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 1: Archive Project and launched a project called open Library now

558
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: open Library. Essentially, it creates a web page for every

559
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: book that's within the database of various libraries and research

560
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: facilities and other organizations. It takes the meta data about

561
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: those books and creates a web page based on the metadata.

562
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: So you're not getting necessarily the content come to book.

563
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, so so it's a useful tool. And uh,

564
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: it also allows anyone to add to that tool to

565
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 1: the open library project, which again it's involving metadata, it's

566
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: involving sharing information. We're starting to see a real theme

567
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: developed with Aaron's life and his work. He he also

568
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: at that point, um, not quite with permission, posted all

569
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 1: of the book cataloging data kept by the Library of

570
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: Congress to open library. And this is this is another

571
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: theme that goes on frequently in Eron's life of of

572
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: just just small I mean, okay, not even small, because

573
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 1: that's kind of big, big activism, big peaceful informational activism. Yeah.

574
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: He he would take initiative. Let's let's put it that way.

575
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 1: That taking initiative is going to become a theme very

576
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 1: quickly too. Absolutely. And in two thousand and eight, in fact,

577
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: he he wrote what he called the Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto,

578
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:25,399
Speaker 1: and this was this this really kind of kicked off

579
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: his um, his public persona I think of of being

580
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 1: that kind of activist. There's a great quote from it

581
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 1: that I want to read real quick. Um he said,

582
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,439
Speaker 1: it's called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth

583
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:40,919
Speaker 1: of knowledge where the moral equivalent of plundering a ship

584
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,800
Speaker 1: and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't moral, it's a

585
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to

586
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: let a friend make a copy. Mm hmm. Interesting And

587
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:56,279
Speaker 1: then moving on from that, and the same year, in

588
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, uh, he got involved in a

589
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:04,800
Speaker 1: little kerfuffle. Uh, alright, So so to explain the kerfuffle,

590
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 1: we have to talk about the PACER system, and that's

591
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 1: the public Access to Court electronic record system, and it's

592
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:16,240
Speaker 1: essentially a government run database and it's mostly court filing,

593
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: so it's all the stuff that happens in open court.

594
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: And by by definition, they are uncopyrightable. They are public access. Yes, yes,

595
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: because these are you know, the government cannot copyright information.

596
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 1: You know, it's not allowed to. It's the same reason

597
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: why if you go look at information that was generated

598
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: by NASA, it's not protected by copyright. Um. So, same

599
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: sort of thing here. But the database, what I was

600
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 1: doing was just trying to solve a problem. You've got

601
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: so much information that it's very difficult to track down

602
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 1: specific files in a physical filing system and Also, it

603
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: generates a huge amount of material that you have to

604
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: create physical space for it to store it. So Pacer

605
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 1: was the let's create an electronic system one that will

606
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 1: cut down on the amount of space we need to

607
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:06,359
Speaker 1: store all these files. And too, it will make it

608
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: way easier to find stuff. Sure. Sure in order to

609
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 1: do that, however, I mean, because you know to to

610
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: to run the servers to do all of that uploading,

611
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 1: it was charging at the time an eight cent per

612
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 1: page fee to access all of this information. Um and

613
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:23,840
Speaker 1: and that was I mean that was mostly for giant

614
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: law firms or corporations that were downloading large amounts of

615
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:29,759
Speaker 1: that data. You were if you were an individual, you

616
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: could get something for for for a couple bucks or

617
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,719
Speaker 1: for free sometimes free. Frequently you were limited as an

618
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: individual to how many times you could get court files

619
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: within a certain span of times. So for example, every

620
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 1: three months or four months, you might be able to

621
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: download five files, but then you would have to wait

622
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:53,399
Speaker 1: to download more or pay or pay right exactly and

623
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:57,360
Speaker 1: uh and Sworts philosophy was that why should you be

624
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:00,400
Speaker 1: forced to pay for something that should be publicly possible?

625
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 1: It is, it is the public and it should be right,

626
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: So so if it's you know, if it's not under copyright,

627
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:15,240
Speaker 1: then why you So Pacer kind of responded to criticisms

628
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: about this database and began to create a pilot program

629
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:23,720
Speaker 1: and allowed seventeen libraries in the United States free access

630
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: to the database, so anyone could download as many documents

631
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 1: within Pacer. Yeah, so Aaron decided that he had a

632
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,759
Speaker 1: clever idea. He was like, well, so, well, I can

633
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 1: get as many of these for free as possible, and

634
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: then because they're not under copyright, I can upload them

635
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: to a free database which anyone can access at any

636
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: time for absolutely free, because and no one can come

637
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 1: after me because there if I just uncopyrightable files, if

638
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:54,239
Speaker 1: I just write a script to do that for me,

639
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: that's much faster. I don't have to sit there and

640
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: set up the little uh, the little ducking birdie thing

641
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: that Homer Simpson used to flick yes over and over

642
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:07,880
Speaker 1: again when he when he had that takeover for his job. Um,

643
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: it's a great episode. But yeah. No, he created a

644
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 1: script that would automatically and continuously download these files. Um.

645
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: He downloaded almost twenty million pages of text, or about

646
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: about one point five million dollars worth if you're going

647
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 1: by that eight cents of right, which you know, again

648
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 1: you can debate on what the actual value is. But way,

649
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: he downloaded all of this, and once once it hit

650
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: around that that much, someone over at Pacers said, WHOA,

651
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 1: something something funky is going down. Something's wrong. Someone is

652
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: just downloading all of it. Yeah, And whether or not

653
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: they thought that it was an attack or maybe the

654
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 1: system itself was just malfunctioning, they decided to to pull

655
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: the plug both on the servers. Literally, they shut the

656
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: servers down at first of that the they would no

657
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 1: longer be serving up the information, and then they canceled

658
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 1: the program. Though with the libraries, they canceled that program

659
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 1: and then they they were not. They also had to

660
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: deal with a nasty pr problem because the documents that

661
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 1: that Sworts got showed that the Pacers system was not

662
00:39:23,200 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: good at eliminating personal data out of court files. So

663
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 1: this is data that should be the should be private

664
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: and secret, It should be anonymous, should be protected. Right,

665
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 1: So the court filings themselves are not necessarily anonymous, but

666
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 1: the personal data about the people in them should be.

667
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: So it began to raise some questions about the PACER system,

668
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 1: and some critics said, you know, technologically, we should not

669
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 1: have this problem. Uh, we are at a place now

670
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: where this system should be way better than what it is.

671
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: And so it kind of gave the government a black eye.

672
00:39:56,520 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: Some people have said it perhaps this gave the United

673
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 1: States government, or at least certain agencies within the government,

674
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 1: the the inspiration to look more closely into Aaron Schwartz

675
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:14,320
Speaker 1: and his activities. Supposedly the FBI at that point created

676
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 1: a profile on him, Yeah, which which Swarts said he

677
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 1: got hold of and found uh entertaining. Um, but yeah,

678
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 1: it was so some would argue that this kind of

679
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 1: created a grudge against Swarts on the on behalf of

680
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 1: the government, and that perhaps some of the other things

681
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 1: that unfold were part of that. I wouldn't I personally

682
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:38,919
Speaker 1: wouldn't go so far as to say that, But then

683
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: I'm not intimate with all the details I know. Um,

684
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,279
Speaker 1: but then let's let's move ahead. In two thousand and eight,

685
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:50,400
Speaker 1: he became part of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. He

686
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:53,720
Speaker 1: was one of the original members. This was a campaign committee.

687
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 1: It was really about UH campaign financing reforms, trying to

688
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 1: do things like eliminate corporate UH contributions during election campaigns

689
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 1: and to just limit political contributions in general from corporations,

690
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: saying that, well, one of the things they suggested was,

691
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 1: why don't you hold it up to a vote from

692
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 1: shareholders whether or not you contribute to a particular political candidate. Um,

693
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. Uh. He was definitely very opinionated

694
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: on that subject. Also, in case you're curious, I mean,

695
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 1: just for full information, Uh, this committee mostly backs progressive Democrats.

696
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: That's not to say that there aren't progressive Republicans. There are.

697
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,239
Speaker 1: There are progressive conservatives and progressive liberals, but in particular,

698
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:48,239
Speaker 1: this particularly this committee, the specific committee tends to lean democrat. Um.

699
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: So just in the full, full disclosure, full disclosure information

700
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: there and in two Swartz. Swartz was not afraid of

701
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: of of poking the bear, as it turns out, and

702
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:07,240
Speaker 1: he was also very again, very passionate about information. And uh.

703
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 1: He proved it again in when he filed a Freedom

704
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:14,280
Speaker 1: of Information Act request to learn about how Bradley Manning

705
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 1: was being treated in US custody. Uh. And if you

706
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with the story of Bradley Manning, Bradley Manning

707
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:25,800
Speaker 1: was a U. S. Army soldier private actually who gained

708
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: access to some some pretty high level security clearance information

709
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: within the military and leaked it to wiki leaks. So

710
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 1: when you heard about all those cables from a few

711
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:42,959
Speaker 1: years ago, thousands and thousands of communication cables that were

712
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: leaked to wiki leaks, a lot of that was traced

713
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 1: back to Bradley Manning, and Manning has been held in

714
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 1: confinement awaiting trial. The trial is supposed to take place

715
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 1: this year in June. UM, but for a long time

716
00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: he was being held and the Marine or brig in Quantico, Virginia,

717
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: which was similar to being held in solitary confinement. His

718
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: conditions were uncomfortable, to say the least. He was by

719
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,319
Speaker 1: many reports. Uh, he was in a cell where he

720
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:20,280
Speaker 1: was unable to see any other prisoner. Within those cells,

721
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 1: they could hear each other, but they could not see

722
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: each other. Um. Supposedly he was not allowed to sleep

723
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: between the hours of five am and eight pm at

724
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:35,879
Speaker 1: all um and then uh he was only allowed out

725
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,279
Speaker 1: of his cell to take a walk for one hour

726
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: the first time he was in a cell. Um. His

727
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 1: his cell had I think no window. I think it

728
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: had a sink, a toilet, and a bed, and the

729
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: bed had a mattress that had a pillow incorporated in

730
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:55,840
Speaker 1: the mattress, and that when Manning made a comment about

731
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:58,720
Speaker 1: the only way he could hurt himself, they essentially started

732
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 1: to take away all his clothing as well, according to

733
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: the reports I read, when he made a comment saying

734
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 1: that the only way he could possibly hurt himself at

735
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 1: this point would be with his flip flops or underwear,

736
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: those were taken away as well. Future Jonathan again, doubly future,

737
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 1: since I'm recording this in twenty nineteen, We're gonna take

738
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 1: another quick break. So this is the reason why uh

739
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: Swarts was sitting in this Freedom of Information Act request.

740
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: He felt that one that what Manning had done possibly

741
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 1: was not as big a crime as everyone was making

742
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:38,760
Speaker 1: it out to be, and certainly he did not deserve

743
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: the sort of treatment before he had even gone to trial. Certainly,

744
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 1: um so Manning, for his part, by the way, was

745
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 1: pleading not guilty. So to be treated this way, uh Swarts,

746
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:56,799
Speaker 1: I'm sure felt passionately was completely wrong, completely um And

747
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 1: I should also rush to add this is all based

748
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: on what I've read about how how Manning was so again,

749
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, and it could be that he was

750
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: treated completely fairly. And this information has been fabricated for

751
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: some reason. But this this was the information that was

752
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: out there at the time and or that is out

753
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:19,280
Speaker 1: there now right and then um, ultimately he was manning

754
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: was moved to the Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, which

755
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 1: was a relatively new facility. And from what I understand

756
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 1: his the cell that he is in is much improved

757
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: over the one he was in Quantico. Um. So, anyway,

758
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: that was another thing Sports got involved in. And uh. Again,

759
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: some conspiracy theorists suggests that that the government, the grudge

760
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: that the government had back in the Pacers situation was

761
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: up to mega grudge after this, uh this request, although

762
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:52,319
Speaker 1: Sports was not the only person in the world to

763
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:56,399
Speaker 1: ask for the suscormationum So, I don't know, I don't

764
00:45:56,440 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 1: really buy into that. Uh. Skipping ahead just a little bit.

765
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 1: We're gonna backtrack in a second. But he was also

766
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:09,440
Speaker 1: Sports was also an advocate against the SOPA campaign Stop

767
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:14,720
Speaker 1: Online Piracy Act in two thousand and eleven that was proposed. Yeah,

768
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,959
Speaker 1: the general idea behind this act was that a lot

769
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:21,720
Speaker 1: of the stuff, a lot of the computers that host

770
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: the files that violate intellectual property rights of companies and

771
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 1: people within the United States. A lot of those computers

772
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: exist in countries outside the US jurisdiction, and so how

773
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:38,879
Speaker 1: do you and how do you stop those sites from

774
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 1: distributing illegal copies of stuff within the United States. And

775
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:48,760
Speaker 1: SOPA's approach was to break links to those sites, essentially,

776
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:51,239
Speaker 1: to remove those sites from domain name servers here in

777
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:53,839
Speaker 1: the United States, so that if you were to try

778
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: and navigate to one of those sites, he would get

779
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:58,840
Speaker 1: an error. Essentially, you would get redirected to the FBI

780
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:03,799
Speaker 1: while page, which would in theory scare you and to

781
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:06,399
Speaker 1: stop to stop looking for ways to do it. There

782
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 1: were definitely work arounds to this um and a lot

783
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 1: of people protested SOPA because they said that one it

784
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 1: would not stop pirates from pirating because they could find

785
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 1: ways around it, and too, it could break the Internet

786
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:24,959
Speaker 1: in unintended ways. I think Swartz was more of more

787
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: of information wants to be free, not so much like

788
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: it will break the Internet or we can get around this,

789
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: but more like more of it's wrong to shut down

790
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 1: information where information exists. Yeah. So, but he was definitely

791
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 1: on the anti SOPA side, and he gave a very

792
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:47,320
Speaker 1: eloquent speech when SOPA failed to pass, and and really

793
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 1: was passionate about telling people don't rest because this idea

794
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:55,279
Speaker 1: is not a not a new idea, it's something that's

795
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: been tried multiple times and will be tried again. Yeah,

796
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 1: So that that leads us to to the I guess

797
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 1: the last part of this this saga the story about

798
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 1: j store, which actually started back in November, So this

799
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 1: predates the SOPA stuff, but it kind of it envelops it.

800
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: J Store the company Essentially, it stands for journal storage, right,

801
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,880
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a library of publicly funded academic articles. Yeah,

802
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: so we're talking again about scholarly information. So this is

803
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:30,279
Speaker 1: kind of similar to the the the the information that

804
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:32,759
Speaker 1: was in Pacer. Of course that was court filings, not

805
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: scholar scholarship. But in this case we're talking about academic journals,

806
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 1: books and papers that are from primary sources. These are

807
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,280
Speaker 1: the people who are doing the rescientific research, medical research,

808
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: all kinds of really terrific stuff is in Jason. Essentially,

809
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 1: all the blogs you read are based off of the

810
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,800
Speaker 1: academic papers that are stored in databases like j store,

811
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 1: and j store has about well a little bit over

812
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 1: four hundred journal titles and more than fifty disciplines are

813
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: represented in j stores database. And it was the whole

814
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 1: purpose of J store. Well, first it was founded by

815
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,719
Speaker 1: William J. G. Bowen or Bowen, who was president of

816
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 1: Princeton University, and it was again trying to solve that

817
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: same problem that Pacer was trying to solve. How do

818
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: you make this vast amount of academic information searchable and

819
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,800
Speaker 1: feasible to store because it takes up so much space.

820
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:29,280
Speaker 1: Libraries were having trouble storing all this stuff, of course,

821
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 1: so J store was kind of the solution. And most

822
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:35,080
Speaker 1: of the stuff, not all of it, like anything that's

823
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:38,760
Speaker 1: in the public domain is publicly accessible through j store,

824
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 1: but anything that's currently under you know, the copyright or

825
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:45,320
Speaker 1: whatever you have to you have to pay to access

826
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 1: behind a paywall. And uh and and again Swartz Swarts

827
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily think that it needed to be behind a paywall.

828
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:57,759
Speaker 1: Um or they needed or then needed to just exist

829
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:03,360
Speaker 1: uh on J store and uh and there's some arguments

830
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 1: about exactly what he did, but essentially he got access

831
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 1: to a computer at the Mighty, which was fine. He

832
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:12,280
Speaker 1: had he had authorization to access right he was currently

833
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: a fellow at the Center for Ethics at Harvard. Yeah,

834
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:21,400
Speaker 1: which some people would say is ironic, but yeah, he

835
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,279
Speaker 1: got access to a computer at in mighty um, and

836
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 1: he began to use again another kind of algorithm to

837
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:31,400
Speaker 1: start downloading documents from j store. I think it was

838
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:33,719
Speaker 1: a Python script actually, which you had mentioned that he

839
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 1: learned he had learned when he dropped out of high school.

840
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:41,320
Speaker 1: Relying on that Python knowledge, uh and not the Monty kind. Um,

841
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:46,480
Speaker 1: he managed to download around four million journals out of

842
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 1: j Store, and Jay Store was able to identify that

843
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:55,760
Speaker 1: it was Swartz and essentially confronted him with this, and

844
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:59,839
Speaker 1: ultimately Swartz and j Store ended up settling this this

845
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:04,439
Speaker 1: dispute out of court. Uh, and Swords actually handed over

846
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:08,400
Speaker 1: the information he had downloaded from j Store, and j Store,

847
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:11,440
Speaker 1: for its part, essentially said all right, we're cool. You

848
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: know what. We don't agree with what you did, but

849
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:15,640
Speaker 1: we understand why you did it, and you returned everything.

850
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:18,319
Speaker 1: So where everything's cool and it could have ended right

851
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:22,479
Speaker 1: then and there. Sure, but but um, well, people people

852
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: argue a little bit about what role M I T

853
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 1: has had in all of this, and some people say

854
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:32,279
Speaker 1: that the administration they're really cracked down unnecessarily hard on him,

855
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 1: and a lot of I think a lot of alumni

856
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,120
Speaker 1: have come out saying like, well, in my day, you know,

857
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:39,319
Speaker 1: earlier in the nineteen seventies at M I T, if

858
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:42,560
Speaker 1: someone had had hacked our system and started downloading this

859
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 1: amount of information from such a terrific databases J store,

860
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 1: we would have we would have congratulated them, we would

861
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 1: have given given them a certificate. And and and it's

862
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:56,000
Speaker 1: a little parade. Yeah, yeah, And and there's some who

863
00:51:56,040 --> 00:52:00,239
Speaker 1: say that M I T did not actively pursue a

864
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 1: case against Sports, but also did not discourage They did

865
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:07,960
Speaker 1: certainly call the cops on him. Yeah, so that's when

866
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:11,880
Speaker 1: the government gets involved. And uh, the government essentially charges

867
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: Sports with thirteen Ultimately it was thirteen criminal court criminal counts,

868
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: which included things like wire fraud, computer fraud, information, you

869
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:25,480
Speaker 1: have to information, this kind of stuff. Um and Uh.

870
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: He was released on a hundred thousand dollars bail. The charges,

871
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 1: depending upon the accounts you read, could have resulted in

872
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,960
Speaker 1: him serving a prison sentence of between thirty and fifty

873
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:41,240
Speaker 1: years at max. UM. Many of many of the accounts

874
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:46,359
Speaker 1: I say, CE say, thirty five several. Yeah, there's one

875
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:49,879
Speaker 1: I think CNN article that said fifty and I think

876
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:52,400
Speaker 1: I think that people are adding them up in different ways.

877
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:55,240
Speaker 1: But but um, and this is all under the Computer

878
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:58,799
Speaker 1: Fraud and Abuse Act. And uh. He also would have

879
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 1: faced up to maybe as much as four million dollars

880
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:05,279
Speaker 1: and fines, and now it's far more likely that the

881
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:09,840
Speaker 1: government would have ended up reducing that to just six months.

882
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:12,840
Speaker 1: And some fine say that it would have been they

883
00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:16,400
Speaker 1: were offering a a plea based on the fact that

884
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 1: there was no personal gain intended from right and um.

885
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 1: So some have said that the government was essentially using

886
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 1: Swarts as an example to scare the heck out of

887
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:33,320
Speaker 1: any of anyone else who would want to try something similar.

888
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 1: So you could kind of compare this to stories about

889
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:42,120
Speaker 1: cases where people who downloaded some music files ended up

890
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 1: getting pulled into a court case where the fine would

891
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:49,960
Speaker 1: have been, you know, an astronomical billion dollars, five dollars

892
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:53,280
Speaker 1: per song or something like that, And it's a similar

893
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 1: situation in that sense. It could have been that, you know,

894
00:53:56,800 --> 00:53:58,799
Speaker 1: that the whole goal here was not so much to

895
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 1: punish Swartz into next century, but rather to act as

896
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 1: a deterrent for anyone else to scare people, which, by

897
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:10,879
Speaker 1: the way, government and everybody else that rarely works. More

898
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:18,320
Speaker 1: often than not, you get people more angry terrible things. UM.

899
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:20,399
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you aren't you know, you don't

900
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:22,800
Speaker 1: have a right to act on things that are against

901
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:24,960
Speaker 1: the law. I'm just saying, think about the way you

902
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: do it, because you could end up making a worse

903
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:31,319
Speaker 1: enemy for yourself. You might find a better way of

904
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 1: working around it, is my point. So again not saying

905
00:54:34,680 --> 00:54:37,239
Speaker 1: that they're in the wrong. I mean, Sports was in

906
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:39,919
Speaker 1: the wrong, but how much he was in the wrong

907
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:43,680
Speaker 1: was another question. And and in in this case, um

908
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 1: and again, like like we said at the beginning of

909
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:48,719
Speaker 1: the podcast, and like I'm sure that you've heard on

910
00:54:48,719 --> 00:54:52,840
Speaker 1: the news on January eleven, Sports was found dead in

911
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:57,120
Speaker 1: his apartment. Uh. He had he had apparently committed suicide.

912
00:54:57,600 --> 00:55:00,239
Speaker 1: Uh and um uh. You know, there's been a lot

913
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 1: of people raising suggestions about what it was that specifically

914
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:07,320
Speaker 1: led to his decision to end his life. And again,

915
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:11,600
Speaker 1: because we are not Aaron, we can't we can't be

916
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,279
Speaker 1: sure what led to it. And his family has come

917
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 1: out as being very very passionately saying that it was

918
00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 1: because of this persecution. Yeah, that he was feeling a

919
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:25,359
Speaker 1: huge amount of stress and that again his depression was

920
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 1: something that was was was really plaguing him at that time.

921
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:34,640
Speaker 1: That and you can sort of imagine that if you

922
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:37,239
Speaker 1: are this person who has this idealistic view of how

923
00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:40,520
Speaker 1: the world should be and then you start to encounter

924
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: so much, so much persecution and resistance to to your

925
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:46,839
Speaker 1: dream where you know, you you can see in your

926
00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 1: mind you think, there's this idealistic world we could be

927
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:52,799
Speaker 1: living in and it would be so easy. But I'm

928
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 1: I'm hitting resistance all the way and every time I

929
00:55:55,719 --> 00:55:58,640
Speaker 1: try and make a change, I get ten more obstacles

930
00:55:58,640 --> 00:56:00,480
Speaker 1: in my way. You can kind of see where that

931
00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:03,799
Speaker 1: sort of hopelessness could creep in if if that was

932
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 1: you know, in fact, what Aaron was thinking. And again

933
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 1: this is just kind of it's all it's all speculation.

934
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:12,839
Speaker 1: And you know, the U. S. Attorney's Office of its

935
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: Carmen Orts is in fact office, She's the U. S.

936
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 1: Attorney of Massachusetts has said that um that that their

937
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:27,120
Speaker 1: office is contact conduct was not in fact inappropriate. They

938
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:30,919
Speaker 1: they have maintained that what everything they did was well

939
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: within the limits of the law and in ethics, which

940
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:37,840
Speaker 1: because again, just because something's legal doesn't mean it's ethical,

941
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: and vice versa. Yeah, there's there's been there's been a

942
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 1: huge pushback against her office. There's a white House dot

943
00:56:43,640 --> 00:56:46,359
Speaker 1: gov petition out right now as of as of late

944
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 1: January with over forty six thousand signatures to remove her

945
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:53,040
Speaker 1: from office. Yeah, and there's been a lot of outcry

946
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 1: on the internet on behalf of sports. There's also been

947
00:56:56,719 --> 00:57:01,360
Speaker 1: some resistance, uh, some people who have criticized Swartz and

948
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:03,880
Speaker 1: his his ideals. I've seen some of that. There have

949
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:07,480
Speaker 1: been some hackers who have kind of made you know,

950
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 1: they've defaced some memorials online. You know, it's it's a

951
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:14,840
Speaker 1: complex thing. Some sometimes you could argue that, you know,

952
00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:17,480
Speaker 1: maybe the hackers really do feel that Swartz was not

953
00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:20,040
Speaker 1: the person that other people are making him out to be.

954
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:22,280
Speaker 1: In other cases, I think, you know, it could just

955
00:57:22,320 --> 00:57:25,960
Speaker 1: be you know, making a play for attention, for attention. Yeah,

956
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 1: this is a high profile instance on the flip side.

957
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:31,919
Speaker 1: M I T s website has been hacked twice since

958
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 1: Swarts of suicide, once by anonymous who also threatened action

959
00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 1: against the Westbergo Baptist Church when they announced that they

960
00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:40,680
Speaker 1: would pick at swarts as funeral, which they backed off of.

961
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 1: They did not, They did not show up. Yeah, and

962
00:57:45,280 --> 00:57:48,280
Speaker 1: again when we say that Anonymous does something, keep in

963
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:51,080
Speaker 1: mind that's you know, that's a group that has no

964
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 1: real uh well, there's there's no real structure to it.

965
00:57:56,160 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 1: So sometimes members of Anonymous may act. That's very true. Yeah,

966
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 1: It's always hard to say that Anonymous did anything because

967
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: it could just be a group of people, could be

968
00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 1: one person. But anyway, yes, uh, they did definitely send

969
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:14,800
Speaker 1: out a message saying that if if the WBC showed

970
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 1: up at Swartz's funeral, they would block them from from

971
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:23,760
Speaker 1: view of the grieving parties. Um And probably there was

972
00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:25,560
Speaker 1: a little bit more of a threat there too, because

973
00:58:25,600 --> 00:58:28,920
Speaker 1: Anonymous has been known to make people's lives difficult, if

974
00:58:29,200 --> 00:58:34,240
Speaker 1: difficult if they oppose the ideals that the group follows

975
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:39,880
Speaker 1: um and and slightly slightly more positive action. Representative Zoe

976
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:43,160
Speaker 1: Lofgren off California wants to propose Aaron's Law, which would

977
00:58:43,200 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 1: be a bill to amend the cf A and uh,

978
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:52,400
Speaker 1: you know, change it so that so that these violations

979
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:56,000
Speaker 1: of terms of service and network use UM cannot be

980
00:58:56,240 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 1: federally prosecuted unless they really should be. It's it's it's

981
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:03,400
Speaker 1: it's a complex issue, right, I mean, this is this

982
00:59:03,480 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 1: is That was part of the whole argument in the

983
00:59:06,800 --> 00:59:10,600
Speaker 1: whole Creative Commons approach was that it's not necessarily that

984
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:13,480
Speaker 1: one party is absolutely in the wrong or absolutely in

985
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:15,640
Speaker 1: the right. It is a complex issue, and so it's

986
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:17,800
Speaker 1: one of those things where you know, you don't want

987
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 1: to paint with a wide brush and then find out that, oh,

988
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:24,400
Speaker 1: you know, we need to take a much more precise

989
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:28,240
Speaker 1: approach to this um And also, you know, a lot

990
00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:32,720
Speaker 1: of luminaries technology luminaries have come out and spoken on

991
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 1: this subject. Lawrence Lessig has said several things about He's

992
00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:43,480
Speaker 1: criticized the prosecution's approach to going after swords and tim berners.

993
00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:47,240
Speaker 1: Lee wrote a very poignant tweet, really gorgeous tweet. Yeah,

994
00:59:47,280 --> 00:59:49,520
Speaker 1: if if I can, I'm probably gonna tear up in

995
00:59:49,560 --> 00:59:51,040
Speaker 1: the middle of this tweet. And if I don't, it's

996
00:59:51,040 --> 00:59:53,600
Speaker 1: going to be a miracle. But he he tweeted, um

997
00:59:53,640 --> 00:59:56,960
Speaker 1: Aaron dead, world wanderers, we have lost a wise elder.

998
00:59:57,240 --> 01:00:00,400
Speaker 1: Hackers for right, we are one down. Parents always lost

999
01:00:00,400 --> 01:00:03,720
Speaker 1: a child. Let us a weep, oh timmer nurs Lee

1000
01:00:03,760 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 1: what are you doing to me? Yeah, he's uh yeah.

1001
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:09,840
Speaker 1: He definitely definitely summed it up really well for a

1002
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:15,440
Speaker 1: lot of people. Um. Shortly after after the discovery that

1003
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:19,160
Speaker 1: Sports had committed suicide, I appeared on an episode of

1004
01:00:19,160 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 1: Tech News Today and we discussed the the the story

1005
01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:27,760
Speaker 1: and uh uh yeah it was. I mean, that was

1006
01:00:27,800 --> 01:00:31,200
Speaker 1: a tough discussion even then, and that was fresh after

1007
01:00:31,440 --> 01:00:34,760
Speaker 1: finding out about it. Um, and it has not become

1008
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:38,120
Speaker 1: easier as time has gone on. Also over at m

1009
01:00:38,160 --> 01:00:41,000
Speaker 1: I T, for m I T S part, they decided

1010
01:00:41,040 --> 01:00:45,520
Speaker 1: to create a review panel to look into how m

1011
01:00:45,520 --> 01:00:49,760
Speaker 1: I T handled the whole situation and whether or not

1012
01:00:50,960 --> 01:00:55,040
Speaker 1: the people at m T as a whole behaved in

1013
01:00:55,080 --> 01:00:58,000
Speaker 1: a way that is up to m T standards. And

1014
01:00:58,040 --> 01:01:00,560
Speaker 1: the man who was put in charge of this review

1015
01:01:00,600 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 1: panel is how Abelson, who again was one of those

1016
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:06,720
Speaker 1: two men, the other being Tim berners Lee back when

1017
01:01:06,720 --> 01:01:09,800
Speaker 1: he was thirteen he got to meet and also a

1018
01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:12,200
Speaker 1: man who worked with him on the Creative Commons projects.

1019
01:01:12,200 --> 01:01:18,040
Speaker 1: So Abelson definitely has um firsthand knowledge of sports and

1020
01:01:18,040 --> 01:01:23,560
Speaker 1: and his contributions to the world. And so uh he

1021
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:26,680
Speaker 1: wrote a very eloquent letter to M I T and said,

1022
01:01:26,800 --> 01:01:28,720
Speaker 1: you know, what his intentions were as part of this

1023
01:01:28,800 --> 01:01:31,320
Speaker 1: review process and say that he wants to take a

1024
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:33,520
Speaker 1: very honest look. He does not want it to become

1025
01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:35,880
Speaker 1: a witch hunt. At the same time, he does not

1026
01:01:36,080 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 1: want to just cover up anything that might be an

1027
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:41,480
Speaker 1: ugly source spot for m I T. He wants the

1028
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 1: truth and he says that, you know, really, that's the

1029
01:01:44,040 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 1: only thing that will serve in this situation, and it's

1030
01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:52,360
Speaker 1: the only thing that that is appropriate considering the circumstances. Um.

1031
01:01:52,440 --> 01:01:56,800
Speaker 1: So yeah, and uh, and it's while we don't know

1032
01:01:56,880 --> 01:01:59,880
Speaker 1: all the details about what led sports to make this decision,

1033
01:01:59,880 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 1: we do know that he had battled depression. He had

1034
01:02:04,080 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 1: a history of it, you know, and it's a it's

1035
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:10,160
Speaker 1: kind of a lifelong, lifelong issue. Um yeah, yeah without

1036
01:02:10,520 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 1: Jonathan and I wanted to stay without making this too

1037
01:02:12,720 --> 01:02:14,520
Speaker 1: much of an after school special. You know, it's it's

1038
01:02:14,520 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 1: depression is something that both of us have dealt with

1039
01:02:16,600 --> 01:02:20,160
Speaker 1: in our lives. And uh, you know, it's it's it's

1040
01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:23,960
Speaker 1: rough and it's terrible. But um but to borrow a phrase,

1041
01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:27,200
Speaker 1: it gets better, and you know so, and and there's

1042
01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:28,880
Speaker 1: help out there. There is help out there if you

1043
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:31,960
Speaker 1: are ever feeling overwhelmed. Please please talk to someone. There

1044
01:02:31,960 --> 01:02:34,400
Speaker 1: are people who care about you. We care about you.

1045
01:02:34,400 --> 01:02:35,960
Speaker 1: You probably shouldn't talk to us because we are not

1046
01:02:36,000 --> 01:02:41,080
Speaker 1: mental health professionals. Honestly, googling suicide prevention is the best

1047
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:42,760
Speaker 1: way to find help in your area. But if you're

1048
01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:46,040
Speaker 1: in the US, you can also call one two seven, three,

1049
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:49,880
Speaker 1: eight to five. It's it's free and confidential and they

1050
01:02:49,880 --> 01:02:52,480
Speaker 1: will absolutely hook you up with helps. So yeah, it's

1051
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:55,720
Speaker 1: it's definitely something that you know, we want to leave

1052
01:02:55,760 --> 01:02:58,480
Speaker 1: you guys with, because, like Lauren said, this is not

1053
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:00,920
Speaker 1: this is not an unfamil. Are your subject to us.

1054
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:04,000
Speaker 1: I hope you guys got something out of this episode.

1055
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:09,560
Speaker 1: It's important to remember Aaron and his contributions and who

1056
01:03:09,640 --> 01:03:12,800
Speaker 1: he was and what he believed in. I don't want

1057
01:03:13,080 --> 01:03:15,600
Speaker 1: the memory of him to just fade away. So I

1058
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:18,440
Speaker 1: hope you got something from this. If you have suggestions

1059
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:22,360
Speaker 1: about future episode topics for tech Stuff, feel free to

1060
01:03:22,440 --> 01:03:25,280
Speaker 1: get in touch with me. The email addresses tech Stuff

1061
01:03:25,360 --> 01:03:27,600
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or you can drop

1062
01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:31,560
Speaker 1: a line on Facebook or Twitter. Both of those handles

1063
01:03:31,560 --> 01:03:35,120
Speaker 1: would be text stuff h SW. You can also go

1064
01:03:35,160 --> 01:03:38,400
Speaker 1: to our website that's tech Stuff Podcast. Dot com. I've

1065
01:03:38,640 --> 01:03:41,280
Speaker 1: got a weird accent going on now. That's what happens

1066
01:03:41,280 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 1: when I record. For a very long time, tech Stuff

1067
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:46,360
Speaker 1: podcast dot com is what I was trying to say people,

1068
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Speaker 1: because that's where we have the archive of every episode

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Speaker 1: we've ever recorded. It's also where we have a link

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Speaker 1: to our online store where you can go and buy

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Speaker 1: up all the tech Stuff merchandise there is. Please, I

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Speaker 1: need coffee and it's my coffee fund. Seriously, every purchasing

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Speaker 1: make goes to help the show. We greatly appreciate it,

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Speaker 1: and I will talk to you again really soon. Y

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Speaker 1: text Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit

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Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.