On Saturday, January 11, the homepage of sub-domain of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was hacked by the Anonymous group. The hackers left a message "The day we fight back" on MIT's SSL-enabled Cogeneration Project page to commemorate the first death anniversary of Internet crusader Aaron Swartz. At the time of writing, the sub-domain was still down.
The words on the sub-domain were "Remember The Day We Fight Back. Remember We Never Forget, We Never Surrender, Expect Us. #OPLASTRESORT".
Swartz was an American computer programmer, writer and Internet activist. From an early age, Swartz was involved with the development of RSS, Reditt and Creative Commons. He also founded the online group Demand Progress, which is known for its campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act.
On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by MIT police and a U.S. Secret Service agent on charges of breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony. The hacking charges arose from download of millions of documents from the online research group JSTOR.
On July 11, 2011, a federal grand jury indicted Swartz on charges of computer fraud, wire fraud, unlawfully gaining information from a protected computer and damaging a protected computer.
Federal prosecutors charged Swartz with two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which carried a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release.
On January 11, 2013, Swartz was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment. Reports suggest that he hanged himself but no suicide note was found. Swartz's family accused MIT and government prosecutors of being responsible for his death. After Swartz's death, federal prosecutors dropped the charges against him.
The latest hacking incident on the MIT website is not the first instance. The Anonymous group and its Operation Last resort had previously hacked MIT on a few occasions. The hackers had breached MIT's website twice in January 2013, shortly after Swartz's death.
