MIT site hacked over Swartz suicide

Hacktivist group Anonymous has attacked the Massachusetts Institute of Technology websites and posted a memorial to Aaron Swartz, following accusations the college had contributed to the free information activist’s suicide.

Hacktivist group Anonymous has attacked the Massachusetts Institute of Technology websites and posted a memorial to Aaron Swartz, following accusations the college had contributed to the free information activist’s suicide.

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Swartz, 26, who helped create Reddit, had been facing trial over allegations of breaking into MIT’s computer system to access academic articles from the JSTOR digital library to make them freely available.

His family has accused prosecutors and MIT officials of being complicit in his death.

On Sunday, a memorial to Swartz and a message calling for an overhaul of US computer crime laws appeared on MIT websites. The message, in red type, said it did not hold MIT responsible, and apologised to the institution for the “temporary use of their websites”, but described Swartz’s prosecution as a “miscarriage of justice”.

It said: “The government’s prosecution was a perverse shadow of the justice that Aaron died fighting for.”