Biography
Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer, and internet activist. A prodigious technologist, he helped develop the RSS web-feed format as a teenager, contributed to the technical architecture of Creative Commons, helped define the syntax of the Markdown markup language, and built the Python web framework web.py. According to his Wikipedia biography and contemporaneous reporting, his connection to Reddit began in late 2005, when Y Combinator's Paul Graham arranged for his startup Infogami to merge with the young company; he is described as a co-owner who contributed to Reddit's development until he left in 2007 following the Condé Nast acquisition.
Swartz became known for digital-rights activism, including a leading role in the 2012 campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). His legal troubles stemmed from a 2010–2011 effort to bulk-download academic articles from the JSTOR database. On January 6, 2011, MIT police arrested him on state breaking-and-entering charges after he connected a laptop to MIT's network in a wiring closet and configured it to download articles from JSTOR using a guest account.
Federal prosecutors led by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz subsequently charged Swartz with wire fraud and multiple violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. According to court records and news reports, the charges carried a theoretical cumulative maximum of decades in prison and large fines, though such maximums rarely reflect actual sentences. JSTOR declined to pursue civil litigation and reportedly did not support prosecution. Swartz, according to reporting, declined a plea bargain that would have involved a short prison term.
Swartz died by suicide on January 11, 2013, at age 26, found in his Brooklyn apartment; federal prosecutors dropped the charges after his death. His death prompted widespread debate about prosecutorial overreach and the breadth of computer-crime law, and led to legislative proposals to reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He was inducted posthumously into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013. (If you or someone you know is struggling, support is available; in the U.S. you can dial or text 988.)