Internet activist Aaron Swartz was found dead in his apartment on Friday. A friend discovered that Aaron had hanged himself in his apartment. Aaron Swartz was a brilliant programmer and will be remembered for all of his work. Most notably Aaron helped create RSS, a content syndication technology and he co-founded Demand Progress, a group that creates campaigns to combat issues of civil liberties, civil rights, and government reform. He played a key role in the creation of Reddit, an online news sharing site. He also fought hard against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).
Recently Aaron had worked his way into computer networks at MIT and he stole millions of articles and documents from the subscription-based service called JSTOR or Journal Storage.
He intended to make the documents, which normally require a fee, available for free. If he would have been convicted he could have spent decades in jail and would have been hit with major fines.
Aaron will be remembered for his achievements and his cause. Even though he is no longer with us, he will continue to inspire.