Tech

Aaron Swartz

Co-authored RSS at 14; prosecuted over academic-paper downloads, he died at 26.

Born: 1986 · Chicago, Illinois, US
Roots: Jewish American
Family: Affluent; His father founded a software firm in the comfortable suburb of Highland Park; the internet arrived at home early.
Education: Stanford (left after one year)
Started with: An RSS mailing list; Joined the web's standards discussions as a schoolboy; co-authored the RSS 1.0 spec at 14.
Affiliations & societies: None documented.; Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

2001 · age 14
RSS 1.0
The youngest member of the working group; W3C meetings between classes.
2005 · age 19
Reddit, via mergerReddit sale
His Infogami folds into the young site at Y Combinator; Condé Nast buys it a year later, and he is fired soon after.
2008 · age 22
PACER
Liberates millions of public court records from a paywalled system; the FBI investigates and drops it.
2011 · age 24
The JSTOR case
Charged with 13 felonies for bulk-downloading academic articles at MIT; prosecutors' exposure estimates reach 35 years.
2012 · age 25
SOPA falls
His Demand Progress is central to the largest online protest yet against a US bill.
2013 · age 26
Dies by suicide
Weeks before trial; 'Aaron's Law' reform is proposed and the Internet Hall of Fame inducts him that year.

Sources

Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.