Hacktivist organization, Anonymous, appears to have hacked MIT’s website and left a tribute message to the late Internet activist, Aaron Swartz, according to TechCrunch.
“We tender apologies to the administrators at MIT for this temporary use of their websites,” writes a postscript to a memorial note posted by Anonymous, on a subdomain of the official MIT.edu website. “We do not consign blame or responsibility upon MIT for what has happened, but call for all those feel heavy-hearted in their proximity to this awful loss to acknowledge instead the responsibility they have – that we all have – to build and safeguard a future that would make Aaron proud”.
Earlier, MIT’s network went offline and there was notable evidence that Anonymous had caused the outage, TechCrunch says.
Swartz was set to stand trial next month for releasing millions of pay-walled academic papers from the popular JSTOR database. The case has set off a firestorm of online protest related to overzealous litigation and copyright policy and the President of MIT has called for a formal investigation of the accusations.
The hacked page calls for an investigation into the Swartz case, the reformation of copyright policy, and greater protections for a free Internet. The page also posted an open information manifesto Swartz composed, “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto”.
