American Internet activist Aaron Schwartz: biography, achievements and interesting facts. Life and death of Aaron Schwartz

Genius people at all times often were not understood by contemporaries and literally broken by the dominant power. The history remembers a lot of such examples, one of which is the American Internet activist Aaron Schwartz. He fought for free access to information, he wanted to change the world for the better in the scientific sense. However, fate gave him too little time and too many obstacles along the way ...

Biography

The story of Aaron Schwartz begins November 8, 1986 in Chicago. He was born and brought up in the family of the founder of a computer company - Robert Schwartz. Besides him, the family had two more children: his brothers Ben and Noah. But only Aaron from an early age showed increased interest in everything new. Already in three years he learned to read, a little later mastered computer and programming. According to the memoirs of his relatives, in order to master any subject, it was enough for the boy to read several books, and he was already ready to independently teach theoretical bases to others. It can not be said that the young prodigy was arrogant, but his intellectual abilities amazed and forced his teachers to be embarrassed.

Education

Of course, by the age of 7, Aaron Schwartz already had a considerable amount of knowledge (in particular, in computer science), so it was difficult for him to be among peers in a regular educational school. For several years he attended a private school in his state of Illinois, in the village of Winnetka. However, he was not satisfied with the educational process. He believed that homework is meaningless and only takes time, distracting from something more important to him. At the age of 14, Schwarz Aaron officially graduated from school and immersed himself in the world of the Internet and cyberculture.

He enrolled at Stanford University, but a year later he left it. For several months of his stay there, he introduced many changes in the modernization of electronic systems: from the library cataloger to the mechanical access of students to the premises.

One of the reasons why Aaron left the university was "digital inequality". He was an excellent theorist and practitioner of self-education, and therefore considered it unfair to restrict access to scientific knowledge that exists in the world. It is precisely this that encourages young people to enter universities, in order to have the right to appeal to specialized electronic archives. Aaron Schwartz saw this as an economic motive, so he set out to change the system.

Professional activity

Leaving Stanford, the 16-year-old programmer removes the apartment and begins developing his own project - an information portal, called Infogami. Funding was provided by the Summer Founders program, which was offered by the venture company Y Combinator.

Later, with the financial support of the same investment fund, Aaron Schwartz created a platform for Infogami, which became the basis for web.ru and Open Library. This project was quite ambitious, for its implementation Schwartz needed an assistant, partner. Therefore, in 2005, it was decided to connect Infogami with the social news site Reddit. At that time, the young Internet genius turned 19 years old. He was officially accepted into the working team of professional programmers. But Schwartz did not like office work. He wrote about this in his personal blog. "Gray walls, gray tables and gray noise" literally drove him crazy. And then he decided on a bold step.

Co-founder of Reddit Aaron Schwartz demonstratively did not go to work and sent his colleagues a photo in a T-shirt with the inscription "Fired" (Fired). After that, he sold his share in the company to the publishing house Condé Nast, and the profit was invested in the development of another service - Watchdog. The new project became a repository of data on American policies, which were collected from available sources. However, today this site does not function.

Activism

In 2010, Aaron Schwartz founded the human rights group Demand Progress. Its main goal was to combat Internet censorship, with the infringement of Internet freedoms. The group openly called on people on the Web to influence the Congress and political leaders, collected petitions, sought leverage over power and disseminated information about government reforms. From this time, the political activism of the programmer begins.

Victory over SOPA

The top of such activities of Schwartz was the campaign against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). In Congress, the question arose about the adoption of a new bill on cyber-piracy. Of course, its provisions significantly limited the Internet user freedom. The public reacted quite sharply to this news. And all thanks to the efforts of Schwartz and his associates in the group. On the streets were thousands of people demanding to abandon the new bill. Lists of congressmen who voted "for" were quickly disseminated and subsequently played a negative role in the career of politicians. The matter ended in the victory of Schwartz.

A court case

Such an active activity did not please the US government, so the FBI installed a surveillance programmer. And in 2011 they managed to catch it on downloading files through the network of the Massachusetts University library from the closed service of scientific publications of JSTOR. In fact, his deed was not a serious offense. To access the articles, the user had to pay for the subscription. Aaron Schwartz went to circumvent the rules and hacked the server. What he was going to do with the publications is unknown. Most likely, put them in open access. But since a court case was initiated against him, all the materials had to be returned to the original source. And although JSTOR had no claims to the programmer, he was still charged and arrested. However, he was soon released on bail of 100 thousand dollars.

But this incident did not stop Schwartz, and soon he began work on a new service Dead Drop. It was a protected information channel for journalists who want to oppose legislative initiatives, but at the same time to be anonymous.

In September 2012, Aaron Schwartz found out that the lawsuit against him is not closed. Moreover, several other items have been added to the previously listed violations (in particular, fraud with the use of mail and phone and damage to the protected computer). Now he was facing 35 years of imprisonment and a million-dollar fine.

Death

In mid-January 2013, the trial of the Schwartz case was due. His parents, friends and his lawyer were sure that they would win and would not be punished, since the situation itself caused a strong public outcry. And many influential people stood up for the protection of an Internet activist. However, the very idea of a possible restriction of freedom was suppressed by Schwartz.

On January 11, 2013, he was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment. The suicide of computer genius (Aaron Schwartz hanged himself on a belt from jeans) was a shock to the whole world. And although in his personal blog he often touched upon this topic, the desire to change the world and the thirst for information freedom seemed higher and stronger. However, this is how Aaron Schwartz cut scores with his life. The cause of death shocked everyone who knew genius. The closest, of course, accuse the US authorities of its desperate deed. The pressure on their part, apparently, was too strong.

Opinion of contemporaries

A year after the tragedy, a documentary film was produced called "Internet boy. The story of Aaron Schwartz. " In it the native and close programmers who openly spoke about the Internet genius and the reasons of its destruction acted in film. According to one opinion, Schwarz Aaron was a victim of the US political system, which used it as a precedent to assert its authority. In fact, he did not commit anything illegal. After downloading the documents from JSTOR, the programmer did not do any harm to anyone and did not gain any material benefit. But the US government, this case, apparently played into the hands, in order to consolidate its dominance in the Internet space.

As it turned out after Schwartz's death, the maximum that he could get for his actions is 6 months in a penal colony. But the very psychological pressure, surveillance of the FBI and the restriction of freedom for the young programmer were more significant.

The treachery of the administration of the Massachusetts Institute (MIT) was also painful, which was indifferent to the Schwartz case. Perhaps, it was also pressured by the authorities.

The film "Child of the Internet. The story of Aaron Schwartz (another name) was shown at the festival in Canada and in the US (Austin, Texas) and received a positive evaluation of the audience.

Achievements

At the age of 13, Aaron won the competition for young programmers ArsDigita Prize for creating educational non-commercial web pages. As a prize, he received the right to travel to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he met with prominent Internet figures, in particular, Tim Berners-Lee (founder of the World Wide Web) and Lawrence Lessing (professor at Harvard University). Subsequently, he collaborated with them, taking part in the development of programs and ideological concepts.

Personal life

Little is known about the personal life of Schwartz. According to the official version, his first serious hobby was journalist Quinn Norton (Wrided magazine). They met when she was still married. A spiritual connection was established between them immediately. Her marriage was unsuccessful, so soon after meeting with Aaron, Quinn moved to him with her daughter. The reason for the separation is unknown, but the young programmer and journalist have kept a warm friendship to the end.

Aaron Schwartz's second serious relationship with Taren Steinbrikner-Kaufman, executive director of the Internet movement Sum Of Us. They met a few months before the tragedy.

Interesting Facts

• At the age of 13, Aaron Schwartz was a member of a working team to create an RSS news feed. When colleagues found out his real age, they were stunned and immediately organized a meeting with a young genius.
• Relations with the girl Taran Schwartz took quite deeply and seriously, so a few months before the trial and the tragedy, he proposed to her. He dreamed of a modest and sudden wedding, in order to avoid unnecessary sentiment and noise. However, the girl refused, referring to the upcoming court.
• Aaron was a very modest and secretive person. Once a colleague at work Wickler invited him to a family dinner. But Schwartz did not bother the owners, he did not say that he suffers from ulcerative colitis, and therefore adheres to a special menu. As a result, the young Internet genius had to eat only bread.
• The Internet activist has a namesake Aaron Schwartz - an actor known for the TV series "Gossip Girl" and "Ancient".
• Two weeks after the death of Schwartz, activists of the Internet movement "Anonymus" broke into the closed service of the US Commission on the Execution of Punishments, established control over it, and on the main page a message was posted that the US authorities "crossed the line" and the threat of publishing classified information . It was a kind of revenge for the Internet genius and activist.
• After the tragic incident in the House of Representatives, several congressmen proposed amending the law of the prosecution.

PS

Today, the life and death of Aaron Schwartz is a vivid example of a fighter for freedom from total Internet control and espionage by the government. Since childhood, he has followed his own path of development, questioned social and political rules and laws, and therefore generated unique ideas and tried to transfer them into reality. But Schwartz was not immediately understood by contemporaries, and political power used it as an example of a tough fight against hackers and fraud. Although his story with JSTOR did not cause any material harm. Aaron Schwartz wanted to change the world, and he partly succeeded. His activism brought about a significant shift in public consciousness.