According to what I’ve read, Swartz circumvented multiple times, in an excalatory manner, the attempts of MIT sysadmins to block him. At some point JSTOR disabled access from all the MIT network for several days. If his attempt at “liberating” the JSTOR database were successful, it could have permanently harmed not only JSTOR, but also MIT, as other publishers would have become reclutant to give MIT subscriptions unless it revised its open-access network policies. Publishers could have started to require individual accounts, or pay-per-download, or other forms of strict access control that would have negatively impacted legitimate users.
Swartz also knew that what he was doing was most likely illegal.
I’m sorry for his tragedy, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that he couldn’t foresee the consequences of what he did.
According to what I’ve read, Swartz circumvented multiple times, in an excalatory manner, the attempts of MIT sysadmins to block him. At some point JSTOR disabled access from all the MIT network for several days. If his attempt at “liberating” the JSTOR database were successful, it could have permanently harmed not only JSTOR, but also MIT, as other publishers would have become reclutant to give MIT subscriptions unless it revised its open-access network policies. Publishers could have started to require individual accounts, or pay-per-download, or other forms of strict access control that would have negatively impacted legitimate users.
Swartz also knew that what he was doing was most likely illegal.
I’m sorry for his tragedy, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that he couldn’t foresee the consequences of what he did.