Jan 13th 2013, 19:35 by G.F. | SEATTLE AND M.G. | SAN FRANCISCO
TO CALL Aaron Swartz gifted would be to miss the point. As far as the internet was concerned, he was the gift. In 2001, aged just 14, he helped develop a new version of RSS feeds, which enable blog posts, articles and videos to be distributed easily across the web. A year later he was working with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, and others on enhancing the internet through the Semantic Web, in which web-page contents would be structured so that the underlying data could be shared and reused across different online applications and endeavours. At the same time he was part of a team, composed of programmers like himself (albeit none quite as youthful), lawyers and policy wonks, that launched Creative Commons, a project that simplified information-sharing through free, easy-to-use copyright licences.
你可以说艾伦·施瓦茨的才华是“上天的礼物”,但这并非重点。因为对于互联网而言,他本身就是“上天的礼物”。早在2001年,年仅14岁的施瓦茨就协助创建了RSS源的新规则,从而方便了博客、文章和视频在网上的传播。一年之后,他又与万维网之父蒂姆·伯纳斯·李爵士等人一道,用语义网对互联网进行完善(在语义网中,网页内容的结构方式可以令底层数据在不同的网络应用和项目中,得以共享并重复使用)。同时,他还是发起“知识共享”项目的团队一员。“知识共享”通过免费易用的版权许可,简化信息共享;其幕后团队除了有律师和政策专家,还有和施瓦茨一样的程序员(不过谁也不如他年轻)。
Most of this he did for little or no compensation. One exception was Reddit, though he later sounded almost contrite about the riches showered on him and his colleagues by Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue and over a dozen other prominent lifestyle magazines, which bought the popular social news site in 2006. In any case, he wasn't a good fit for corporate life, he said, and left a few months later—or, depending on whom you talk to, was asked to leave. But the cash did let him focus on his relentless struggle to liberate data for online masses to enjoy for free.
他的这些工作大多是无偿奉献,或者报酬极低。Reddit是个例外:2006年,这家红极一时的社交新闻网站被康泰纳仕集团收购(后者是《Vogue》等十多家著名生活时尚杂志的出版商),施瓦茨和他的同事从中获利颇丰。然而,他事后谈及这笔财富的语气几近悔恨。他表示,自己和公司生活根本格格不入,几个月后就辞职了(也有人说他是被劝退的,当然这得看你问的是谁)。不过这笔现金的确让他可以完全投入到自己的不懈斗争:让广大网民可以免费享受数据的自由之战。
For although programming was his first love, campaigning was his true vocation. He co-founded Demand Progress, a group that rails against internet censorship and which played a prominent role in the online campaign last year that helped to scupper proposed anti-piracy legislation supported by Hollywood film studios and other content owners. His Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto of 2008 presaged—and perhaps inspired—recent threats by academics to shun journals that charge readers for access.
因为虽说编程是他的至爱,但自由之战才是他真正的天职。他是“求进同盟”的创始人之一,这一团体不仅谴责网络审查,而且还协助挫败了去年的反盗版立法议案:它是网上抵制运动的中流砥柱,而此役对于最终胜利功不可没(支持该法案的是好莱坞制片商等内容所有者)。近期,学界人士发出威胁,将会抵制向读者收费的期刊;此举在施瓦茨2008年的《开放存取的游击宣言》中便早有预言,又或者此举正是受其启发。
Around 2006 he obtained—though he would not say how—the complete bibliographic data for books held by the Library of Congress. He thought it unfair that the Library's catalogue division charged hefty fees to provide this information, which, being the work of the government, had no copyright protection within the United States. So he posted it in the Open Library, which aims to provide an entry for every book in existence as part of Internet Archive, a project founded by the internet entrepreneur Brewster Kahle to store a copy of every web page of every website ever to go online.
2006年左右,施瓦茨拿到了国会图书馆藏书的全部书目数据(不过对于获取途径,他却不愿提及)。在他看来,该目录为美国政府所著,在国内不受版权法的保护,因此该馆编目部门对此收取高额费用,实为不公。于是,他把信息放入“公共图书馆”(作为“互联网档案馆”的一部分,“公共图书馆”旨在将所有现存书籍全部入册;而该“档案馆”是由互联网企业家布鲁斯特·卡勒创建,旨在为所有网站的页面一一备份。)
Aghast at how federal court documents were available only for a price from the inappositely named Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system, in 2009 he used the free access temporarily granted to public libraries to retrieve 18m pages of PACER's 500m documents before he was cut off. They ended up on public.resource.org, founded by Carl Malamud, a veteran advocate of open access, also known as the internet's public librarian. The FBI investigated but did not pursue charges.
还有一件事让施瓦茨忿忿不平。那就是联邦法庭记录必须付费方可查阅,而且这一查阅系统名为“公众获取电子版法庭记录的途径”,但却名不符实。于是2009年时,他利用公共图书馆获得的临时免费权限,从该系统的5亿份记录中获取了1800万页的信息,直至这一权限被废止。这些信息最后被放到了public.resource.org上(该网站的创始人是倡导开放存取的老将、被誉为“互联网图书馆馆长”的卡尔·马拉默德)。联邦调查局对此立案调查,但并未提起诉讼。
The authorities weren't always so lenient. In 2011 he was arrested for allegedly retrieving 4.8m documents from JSTOR, a fee-based repository of articles from scholarly journals. Prosecutors claimed that Mr Swartz, a fellow at Harvard at the time, installed a laptop in a wiring closet at the nearby Massachussetts Institute of Technology and used a pseudonym to gain access, which is free to staff and students at subscribing institutions. If convicted, he would have faced up to 35 years in prison and a $1m fine.
然而当局并非总是这么心慈手软。2011年,施瓦茨因涉嫌从JSTOR系统获取480万份文档而被捕(JSTOR是基于收费模式的学术期刊存储系统)。检方称,施瓦茨犯案时还是哈佛大学的研究员,由于JSTOR系统对付费院校的教员和学生免费开放,他便在对门麻省理工大学的配线室中安装了一部手提电脑,并用假名进入该系统。如果获罪,他可能面临最高35年的牢狱和100万美元的罚金。
JSTOR settled its civil issues with him, and considered the matter closed. Indeed, soon after the prosecutors pounced with criminal charges, it opened up all public-domain articles in its trove. And, two days before Mr Swartz's premature death on January 11th, apparently by suicide in his New York apartment, it expanded a test programme to enable limited reading of about 4.5m articles to those who register for a free account.
JSTOR与施瓦茨达成民事和解,并认为此事已经了结。事实上,在检方提起刑事诉讼后不久,JSTOR就开放了系统中所有公共领域的文章。今年1月9日,也即施瓦茨去世的两天前,JSTOR扩大了一项测试方案,让注册免费账户的读者可以在一定限度内阅读大约450万篇文章。1月11日,施瓦茨死于纽约的公寓内,很显然是自杀身亡。
The prospect of prison may or may not have been what pushed the 26-year-old, long struggling with bouts of depression, over the edge. Opinions varied as to whether prosecutors could secure a conviction. They certainly believed they had enough to put him away. Lawrence Lessig, a well-known web theorist and academic, as well as Mr Swartz's friend and mentor, thought that the evidence was enough to demonstrate that his protegé's act was wrong, morally if not legally, but deserved only minor punishment. Alex Stamos, who was to testify as an expert witness for the defence, described it as "inconsiderate", not criminal.
26岁的施瓦茨长期患有抑郁症。让他走上绝路的可能是牢狱之灾,也可能不是。对于检方能否让其获罪,人们看法不一。检方当然相信,自己有足够的证据让他坐牢。著名网络理论家、学者劳伦斯·莱斯格是施瓦茨的导师和朋友,他认为,证据足以证明自己的门生有过错,即使他没触犯法律,也有违道德,但只应稍事惩罚。亚历克斯·史塔摩斯原本要以专家证人的身份为被告作证,在他看来,施瓦茨的行为只是“不替他人着想”,并未触犯刑法。
On hearing of his death Babbage (G.F.) reviewed a number of e-mails he exchanged with Mr Swartz in 2000-01. The boy was in his mid-teens but his prose, taut and to the point, was as mature as his precocious mind. He wanted to know where your correspondent obtained book data for a price-comparison site. He even suggested a collaboration, regretfully unconsummated, that later became the nucleus of the Open Library.
得知他的死讯后,本栏目作者G.F.回顾了2000至2001年间,自己与施瓦茨的电邮往来。那时的施瓦茨不过是个十四五岁的少年,但他的文风简洁明了、一针见血,和他的思想一样老成。他询问笔者获取图书信息的途径,以便用于一个价格比较的网站。甚至他还提出了一份合作建议,而这后来成了“公共图书馆”的核心理念;遗憾的是,笔者与他的合作并未实现。
With typical foresight, a decade ago Mr Swartz put up a web page that appoints a virtual executor and instructs him to make the contents of his hard drives public, one last gift to the online commons. But meagre compensation for the loss of that most uncommon of online commoners. As Sir Tim put it, in fewer than 140 characters, "Aaron dead. World wanderers, we have lost a wise elder. Hackers for right, we are one down. Parents all, we have lost a child. Let us weep." And the web wept.
早在十年前,施瓦茨就以他特有的远见,在网上为自己的虚拟遗嘱指定了执行者,并将自己硬盘中的内容交由后者公开,作为留给网络大众的最后一份礼物。但这远远无法弥补他的离世带来的损失,因为我们失去的是网络大众中最不同寻常的人物。正如蒂姆爵士在一篇推文中所说:“艾伦已逝。我们迷途世间,却痛失一位睿智的长者;我们以黑客身份为公义而战,却痛失一位战友;我们为人父母,却痛失一位共同的孩子。让我们寄以哀思。”于是,哀思便在网络蔓延。作者: showcraft 时间: 2013-1-18 20:48
STATEMENT OF UNITED STATES ATTORNEY CARMEN M. ORTIZ REGARDING THE DEATH OF AARON SWARTZ
As a parent and a sister, I can only imagine the pain felt by the family and friends of Aaron Swartz, and I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy to everyone who knew and loved this young man. I know that there is little I can say to abate the anger felt by those who believe that this office’s prosecution of Mr. Swartz was unwarranted and somehow led to the tragic result of him taking his own life.
I must, however, make clear that this office’s conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case. The career prosecutors handling this matter took on the difficult task of enforcing a law they had taken an oath to uphold, and did so reasonably. The prosecutors recognized that there was no evidence against Mr. Swartz indicating that he committed his acts for personal financial gain, and they recognized that his conduct - while a violation of the law - did not warrant the severe punishments authorized by Congress and called for by the Sentencing Guidelines in appropriate cases. That is why in the discussions with his counsel about a resolution of the case this office sought an appropriate sentence that matched the alleged conduct - a sentence that we would recommend to the judge of six months in a low security setting. While at the same time, his defense counsel would have been free to recommend a sentence of probation. Ultimately, any sentence imposed would have been up to the judge. At no time did this office ever seek - or ever tell Mr. Swartz’s attorneys that it intended to seek - maximum penalties under the law.
As federal prosecutors, our mission includes protecting the use of computers and the Internet by enforcing the law as fairly and responsibly as possible. We strive to do our best to fulfill this mission every day.
“这正是我的新书探讨的话题。这本书叫做《权力的命运和尊严的未来》(The Fate of Power and the Future of Dignity),这本书更多地关注金融世界——但是它要告诉大家的是,音乐文件分享服务和对冲基金从本质上来说是一回事。两者都蕴含了同样的一种思想,那就是拥有最强大计算机的人可以为了自己的利益分析其他所有人,并且凝聚财富和权利。(与此同时),这种行为缩减了经济总量。我认为这是一个时代的错误。”
我们这个时代的错误?这是个大胆的断言。“网络的兴起恰好伴随着中产阶级的衰落,而不是预期中总体福祉的增加,我想这就是原因所在。但是如果你嘴上说着我们在创造信息经济,却让信息免费,那么我们说的其实是我们要毁掉经济。”
Aaron Swartz, computer programmer and activist, committed suicide on January 11th, aged 26
阿隆•斯沃茨,电脑程序员,积极行动主义者,2013年1月11日自杀,年仅26岁。
Jan 19th 2013 |From the print edition
SMALL, dark, cluttered places were important in the life of Aaron Swartz. His days were spent hunched in his bedroom over his MacBook Pro, his short-sighted eyes nearly grazing the screen (why, he asked himself, weren’t laptop screens at eye level?), in a litter of snaking cables and hard drives. In the heady days of 2005 when he was developing Reddit, now the web’s most popular bulletin board, he and his three co-founders shared a house in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he slept in a cupboard. And it was in a cupboard—an unlocked wiring cupboard, where a homeless man kept stuff—that in November 2010 he surreptitiously placed a laptop, hidden under a box, and plugged it directly into the computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His aim was to download as many pages as possible from an archive of academic journals called JSTOR, which was available by paid subscription only to libraries and institutions. That was morally wrong, he thought; the knowledge contained in it (often obtained with public funding, after all) had to be made available, free, to everyone. And it was absurdly simple to do that. He already had access to the library network; no need to hack into the system. He just ran a script, called keepgrabbing.py, which liberated 4.8m articles at almost dangerous speed. MIT tried to block him, but time after time he outwitted them; and then, as a last resort, he plugged in the laptop in the cupboard.
He had form on this; lots of form. In 2006 he got hold of the book cataloguing data kept by the Library of Congress, usually steeply charged for, and posted them free in the Open Library. In 2009 he wormed his way into a free-access trial of the PACER system, which contains all electronic federal court records, in certain public libraries; he downloaded 19.9m pages of it, then uploaded them to the cloud, before anyone could stop him. Again, it was easy: using a small, elegant language called perl, the documents fell into his hands.
He seemed to have been doing this for ever, writing programs to liberate information. At 12 or 13—a plump, bookish boy with a computer-company executive for a father and a very early Mac in the den—he set up theinfo.org, a sort of Wikipedia before the fact, which was going to contain all the world’s knowledge on one website. A mere year or so later he was working with Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, to launch the Semantic Web to improve data-sharing, and developing RSS 1.0 to distribute videos and news stories. He helped set up Creative Commons, too, which made copyright licensing simpler (as, for example, to get this photo of him).
All this could have made him a fortune, but he had no interest in that. He wanted a world that was better, freer and more progressive. He dropped out of high school, then out of Stanford, educating himself instead by reading prodigious numbers of books, mostly philosophy. He made friends and fell loudly out with them because they couldn’t be as perfectionist as he was. At gatherings he would turn up messy-haired and half-shaven, the shy nerd’s look, but with the intense dark gaze and sudden, confident grin of a young man out to turn society on its head.
A lot of money came his way when Reddit was sold to Condé Nast in 2006, but relocation to an office made him miserable. Google offered him jobs, but he turned them down as unexciting. Political campaigning became his passion. He wanted to see everything available online, free, with nothing held back by elites or big money, and nothing censored. Information was power, as he proclaimed in his Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto of 2008, and war was needed “by stealth”, “in the dark”, “underground”, for the freedom to connect. In 2011 there was no fiercer voice against the Stop Online Piracy Act, and in 2012 no one prouder to proclaim it dead.
The JSTOR business, however, got him into deep trouble. When he went back to the cupboard for his laptop, police arrested him. He was charged on 13 counts, including wire fraud and theft of information, and was to go on trial in the spring, facing up to 35 years of jail. The charges, brought by a federal prosecutor, were hugely disproportionate to what he had done; MIT and JSTOR had both settled with him, and JSTOR, as if chastened by him, had even opened some of its public-domain archive. But theft was theft, said the prosecution.
All this added to a weight that had oppressed him for many years. “Look up, not down,” he urged readers of his weblog; “Embrace your failings.” “Lean into the pain.” It was hard to take that advice himself. He kept getting ill, several illnesses at once. Migraines sliced into his scalp; his body burned. And he was sad most of the time, a sadness like streaks of pain running through him. Books, friends, philosophy, even blogs didn’t help. He just wanted to lie in bed and keep the lights off.
In 2002 he posted instructions for after his death (though I’m not dead yet! he added). To be in a grave would be all right, as long as he had access to oxygen and no dirt on top of him; and as long as all the contents of his hard drives were made publicly available, nothing deleted, nothing withheld, nothing secret, nothing charged for; all information out in the light of day, as everything should be.