Aaron Swartz: A Revolutionary Programmer And His Impact On Digital Rights

Woe to the once-hallowed trickster. In ancient mythologies, the riddler-thief and agent of change held a position of prestige. Now, we don Take Aaron Swartz, the wunderkind programmer who helped lead the successful challenge to the overreaching Stop Online Piracy Act. In 2011, Mr. Swartz was accused of breaking into computer networks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and downloading files from the academic journal hub Jstor. He was arrested on federal charges related to hacking, and was facing up to $1 million in fines and 35 years in prison when he committed suicide at the age of 26.

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