ShortHand: Aaron Swartz
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Would you rather rot in federal prison or plead guilty to something you didn’t even believe was a crime? That was the choice facing Aaron Swartz when he tragically took his own life on the 11th of January 2013.
Three years previously the Reddit millionaire, hacktivist and coding prodigy had downloaded several million files from MIT’s open network. To most people, he was just using his library – but to US officials, it was a crime worth thirteen different federal offences, fifty years in prison, and a fine of a million dollars.
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