There are only three hints of anything unusual about this nondescript utility closet in the tunnels underneath MIT building 16. (1) If you look carefully at the hallway ceiling, you will see that a camera in the ductwork above it is always on, pointed very conspicuously at the door. (2) It is locked, and a placard makes it clear that you are not allowed inside this closet unless you work for MIT facilities. (3) The rooms in building 16 have not been renumbered for a decade at least, so the nameplate confirms that this is 004t: the closet where Aaron Swartz left the laptop.
I honestly think I have never heard anyone defend the existence of large academic publishing houses. It seems like thereās almost universal opposition to the practice of keeping research behind paywalls. Even people Iāve talked to who work for those companies are, at best, apologetic about the system.
Now people like Alexandra Elbakyan and LibGen have made real progress on the problem. But when they were just getting started, closet 16-004t was the site of one of the most brazen direct actions in the modern movement for free information.Ā And the kid who did it couldnāt change jstor any more than he changed this closet. Some automated script recognition software here, an always-on camera and an intimidating placard there, and the whole system chugs on. Exactly as it was that day in January 2011 when he fled for his life down Cambridge Street on a bicycle
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