(Image source: Flickr)

BY: STEVEN HSIEH

An Internet activist is charged with stealing millions of academic articles from a database service at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

24-year-old Aaron Swartz is the founder of Demand Progress – a tech activism site – and co-founder of popular social news site Reddit.   

The former Harvard ethics fellow allegedly used a guest account at MIT to access the database and download 4 million articles.  When his laptop was repeatedly blocked from the network-- IT World reports -- he resorted to other means.

“After being chased around the wireless networks for weeks, he eventually, allegedly, broke into a wiring closet to get a physical connection that gave his computers more reliable access but made the whole process more risky for him.”

JSTOR – the not-for-profit academic article archive Swartz allegedly stole from – charges universities as much as $50,000 a year for access to its database.  

JSTOR settled with Swartz, and confirmed the content he downloaded would not be redistributed.  But that didn’t stop the Feds from charging the hacker.  Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison and a million dollar fine.  Demand Progress responded with this statement:

“It makes no sense.  It’s like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library… It’s even more strange because JSTOR has settled any claims against Aaron…”

A writer for Ars Technica points out -- Swartz is a big advocate for creative commons and the free flow of information.

“Open access to information has long been a passion for Swartz, and he has a history of using unorthodox and controversial means to pursue it. In 2008, he used an automated script to download more than 2 million documents from PACER, the website the federal judiciary uses to distribute court documents.”

Finally, a Gawker writer – who calls Swartz’s alleged crime quote-- “the nerdiest theft ever” – suggests locking up the programmer would be a waste of a gift.

“That’s a new one, a learning junkie breaking into JSTOR for another hit of that sweet, sweet knowledge. Forget prison: We need to keep Swartz out on the streets, peddling his learning to disaffected high school kids on street corners Win-win!”

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Transcript by Newsy.