Boston Blog

Activists and renegade MIT hacker indicted for electronic B&E

My local paper has the scoop on Aaron Swartz.

A Cambridge man has been indicted on charges of breaking and entering, larceny of electronic data, and unauthorized access to a computer network in connection with the illicit downloading of millions of academic articles, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone informed the public today.

Aaron Swartz, 25, of Cambridge, was indicted today on charges of Breaking and Entering with Intent to Commit a Felony, Larceny over $250, and Unauthorized Access to a Computer Network by a Middlesex Superior Grand Jury.

He will be arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court on November 30 at 9am in courtroom 440.

“The defendant violated the trust of a not-for-profit organization by taking advantage of his contrived electronic anonymity and stealing an astounding amount of academic journals over several months, going so far as to physically break into a MIT server room in order to continue his theft undisturbed,” District Attorney Leone said. “The defendant caused an entire academic community to be cut off from the information it utilizes for several days, and the steps he took to accomplish his thievery were criminal.”

More on the case from:

The Chronical of HIgher Ed

MIT Tech

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