India Ink: Image of the Day: Jan. 15

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Bits Blog: Security Firm Discovers Cyber-Spy Campaign

SAN FRANCISCO — A Russian cybersecurity company issued a report on Monday saying that it had identified a sophisticated cyberespionage campaign that has been in operation since 2007. The spy campaign targeted a range of government and diplomatic organizations, mostly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but also in Western Europe and North America.

Kaspersky Lab, the firm behind the discovery, said that digital clues suggested that the perpetrators were Russian-speaking, but that the campaign did not appear to be the work of a nation state. However, as with a number of other alarming recent reports on computer spying, Kasperky’s report offered few details that would allow for independent verification and did not specifically call out the names of the organizations affected.

In an interview, Kurt Baumgartner, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said that among the “several hundreds” of victim organizations were “embassies, consulates and trade centers.” The vast majority of infected machines were based in Russia — where Kaspersky identified 38 infected machines — followed by Kazakhstan, where 16 infected machines were identified. Six infected machines were found in the United States.

Mr. Baumgartner described the campaign as a “sophisticated and very patient multiyear effort” to extract geopolitical and confidential intelligence from computers, network devices like routers and switches, and smartphones. The malware was designed to extract files, e-mails and passwords from PCs, record keystrokes and take screenshots, and steal a user’s Web browsing history on Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera browsers. It could also pilfer contacts, call histories, calendars, text messages and browsing histories from smartphones, including iPhones, Windows, Nokia, Sony, and HTC phones. And it collected information about installed software, including Oracle’s database software, remote administration software and instant messaging software, like that made by Mail.Ru, a Russian e-mail and instant messaging service.

But Kaspersky said what set the campaign apart was the fact that the attackers engineered their malware to steal files that have been encrypted with a classified software, called Acid Cryptofiler, that is used by several countries in the European Union and NATO to encrypt classified information.

Researchers discovered several Russian words embedded in the malware’s code, suggesting the attackers are of Russian-speaking origin. For instance, the word “Zakladka” appears in the malware, which, in Russian and Polish, can mean “bookmark.” It is also a Russian slang term meaning “undeclared functionality” in computer software or hardware. Intriguingly, Kaspersky’s researchers said that, in Russian, it also refers to a “microphone embedded in a brick of the embassy building.” (The United States and Russia have a history of bugging each other’s embassies.)

But as sophisticated as the malware was, Kaspersky said the methods attackers used to infect systems were not. The researchers infected machines with a basic “spearphishing” attack, in which they sent malicious e-mails to people within targeted organizations that contained malicious Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word documents. Once opened, attackers were given full access to victims’ machines through well-known security exploits that were previously used in campaigns by Chinese hackers to spy on Tibetan activists and military and energy sector targets in Asia.

Mr. Baumgartner said the attackers either used well-known exploits out of “laziness or as a clever way to hide their tracks.”

The firm said attackers created more than 60 domain names and used several server locations, mainly in Germany and Russia, to manage the network of infected machines. But it said those servers were “proxies” designed to hide the true “mother ship” command and control server.

Asked why Kaspersky decided not to identify the targets of the attack by name, Mr. Baumgartner said that Kaspersky’s investigation was still in place. 

Cybersecurity has become a significant and growing concern globally, with hackers gaining access to private corporate and military secrets, and intellectual property. Last year, Kaspersky Lab discovered several state-sponsored computer viruses including Flame, a sophisticated computer virus that spied on computers in Iran, and Gauss, a separate virus that targeted Lebanese banks. The firm said it believed both viruses were sponsored by the same nation states that created Stuxnet, a sophisticated computer virus that The New York Times has reported was a joint effort by the United States and Israel.

But Kaspersky has been less forthcoming on viruses originating in its own back yard, in Russia and neighboring states, where Russian-speaking criminal syndicates control a third of the estimated $12 billion global cybercrime market, according to the Russian security firm Group-IB.

But Kaspersky’s latest discovery could signal a turning point. The firm nicknamed the campaign by Russian speakers “Operation Red October” — Rocra for short — because it was first tipped off to the campaign in October, after one of its partners passed Kaspersky a sample of the malware used. Since then, the firm has discovered over 1,000 “modules” or components of the malware, with the earliest crafted in 2007 and the most recent component having been built as recently as last week.

“The attackers managed to stay in the game for over five years and evade detection of most antivirus products while continuing to exfiltrate what must be hundreds of terabytes by now,” Kaspersky said in its report.

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Recipes for Health: Skillet Beet and Farro Salad

“Comforting” isn’t a word I usually associate with salads, but this week I put together five grain salads that fit that bill. Over the years I have developed a number of delicious whole grain salads that combine various grains with vegetables, herbs and often nuts, tossed in a tangy dressing. I have also married many a grain and vegetable in a pilaf. I decided to bring both concepts together in hearty salads that I’m calling “skillet salads;” each one is heated through in a skillet just before serving.

You can get ahead on all of these by cooking the grains or noodles ahead. Whole grains freeze well and keep in the refrigerator for three days. Then it’s just a question of preparing vegetables, herbs and dressing. Even if you don’t cook the grains ahead you can prepare the other ingredients while they’re simmering.

I make a meal of these at lunch, and serve smaller portions as sides or starters for dinner. If you want to serve the warm, tangy grains on a bed of salad greens I recommend spinach or sturdy greens like frisée or dandelion greens that will stand up to the heat of the salad and won’t wilt beyond recognition when topped with something warm.

Skillet Beet and Farro Salad

This hearty winter salad can be a meal or a side dish, and warming it in the skillet makes it particularly comforting. Cook your farro until you see that the grains have begun to splay so they won’t be too chewy and can absorb the dressing properly.

For the Salad:

2 medium or 3 small beets, roasted

1 cup farro, soaked for 1 hour in 1 quart water

Salt to taste

1 ounce lightly toasted pistachios (scant 1/4 cup)

1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley, tarragon, marjoram, chives, mint

Freshly ground pepper

For the Dressing:

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Salt to taste

1 small garlic clove, minced or pureéd

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons walnut oil

Crumbled feta for garnish (optional)

1. Roast the beets and meanwhile cook the farro. Place in a medium saucepan with the soaking water and bring to a boil. Add salt to taste, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 45 minutes to an hour, until the grains have begun to splay. Turn off the heat and allow to sit for 15 minutes or longer in the water. Drain through a strainer set over a bowl.

2. While the farro is cooking, make the vinaigrette. Whisk together the vinegars, salt, garlic, and mustard. Whisk in the oils. Pour into a wide frying pan or saucepan and add to the farro, along with a couple of tablespoons of the farro cooking water. Peel and dice the beets and add, along with the herbs and pistachios. Stir over medium heat until heated through and serve, with a little feta sprinkled over the top if you wish.

Yield: Serves 6

Advance preparation: The cooked farro and the roasted beats will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 304 calories; 19 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 5 grams polyunsaturated fat; 11 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 27 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 61 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 6 grams protein

Note: If you want to reduce the fat and calories in this dish, substitute buttermilk for some of the oil. Be careful not to allow the dressing to come to a boil when you heat it in the pan or the buttermilk will curdle.

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Recipes for Health: Skillet Beet and Farro Salad

“Comforting” isn’t a word I usually associate with salads, but this week I put together five grain salads that fit that bill. Over the years I have developed a number of delicious whole grain salads that combine various grains with vegetables, herbs and often nuts, tossed in a tangy dressing. I have also married many a grain and vegetable in a pilaf. I decided to bring both concepts together in hearty salads that I’m calling “skillet salads;” each one is heated through in a skillet just before serving.

You can get ahead on all of these by cooking the grains or noodles ahead. Whole grains freeze well and keep in the refrigerator for three days. Then it’s just a question of preparing vegetables, herbs and dressing. Even if you don’t cook the grains ahead you can prepare the other ingredients while they’re simmering.

I make a meal of these at lunch, and serve smaller portions as sides or starters for dinner. If you want to serve the warm, tangy grains on a bed of salad greens I recommend spinach or sturdy greens like frisée or dandelion greens that will stand up to the heat of the salad and won’t wilt beyond recognition when topped with something warm.

Skillet Beet and Farro Salad

This hearty winter salad can be a meal or a side dish, and warming it in the skillet makes it particularly comforting. Cook your farro until you see that the grains have begun to splay so they won’t be too chewy and can absorb the dressing properly.

For the Salad:

2 medium or 3 small beets, roasted

1 cup farro, soaked for 1 hour in 1 quart water

Salt to taste

1 ounce lightly toasted pistachios (scant 1/4 cup)

1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley, tarragon, marjoram, chives, mint

Freshly ground pepper

For the Dressing:

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Salt to taste

1 small garlic clove, minced or pureéd

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons walnut oil

Crumbled feta for garnish (optional)

1. Roast the beets and meanwhile cook the farro. Place in a medium saucepan with the soaking water and bring to a boil. Add salt to taste, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 45 minutes to an hour, until the grains have begun to splay. Turn off the heat and allow to sit for 15 minutes or longer in the water. Drain through a strainer set over a bowl.

2. While the farro is cooking, make the vinaigrette. Whisk together the vinegars, salt, garlic, and mustard. Whisk in the oils. Pour into a wide frying pan or saucepan and add to the farro, along with a couple of tablespoons of the farro cooking water. Peel and dice the beets and add, along with the herbs and pistachios. Stir over medium heat until heated through and serve, with a little feta sprinkled over the top if you wish.

Yield: Serves 6

Advance preparation: The cooked farro and the roasted beats will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 304 calories; 19 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 5 grams polyunsaturated fat; 11 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 27 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 61 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 6 grams protein

Note: If you want to reduce the fat and calories in this dish, substitute buttermilk for some of the oil. Be careful not to allow the dressing to come to a boil when you heat it in the pan or the buttermilk will curdle.

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Bits Blog: Security Firm Discovers Cyber-Spy Campaign

SAN FRANCISCO — A Russian cybersecurity company issued a report on Monday saying that it had identified a sophisticated cyberespionage campaign that has been in operation since 2007. The spy campaign targeted a range of government and diplomatic organizations, mostly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but also in Western Europe and North America.

Kaspersky Lab, the firm behind the discovery, said that digital clues suggested that the perpetrators were Russian-speaking, but that the campaign did not appear to be the work of a nation state. However, as with a number of other alarming recent reports on computer spying, Kasperky’s report offered few details that would allow for independent verification and did not specifically call out the names of the organizations affected.

In an interview, Kurt Baumgartner, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said that among the “several hundreds” of victim organizations were “embassies, consulates and trade centers.” The vast majority of infected machines were based in Russia — where Kaspersky identified 38 infected machines — followed by Kazakhstan, where 16 infected machines were identified. Six infected machines were found in the United States.

Mr. Baumgartner described the campaign as a “sophisticated and very patient multiyear effort” to extract geopolitical and confidential intelligence from computers, network devices like routers and switches, and smartphones. The malware was designed to extract files, e-mails and passwords from PCs, record keystrokes and take screenshots, and steal a user’s Web browsing history on Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera browsers. It could also pilfer contacts, call histories, calendars, text messages and browsing histories from smartphones, including iPhones, Windows, Nokia, Sony, and HTC phones. And it collected information about installed software, including Oracle’s database software, remote administration software and instant messaging software, like that made by Mail.Ru, a Russian e-mail and instant messaging service.

But Kaspersky said what set the campaign apart was the fact that the attackers engineered their malware to steal files that have been encrypted with a classified software, called Acid Cryptofiler, that is used by several countries in the European Union and NATO to encrypt classified information.

Researchers discovered several Russian words embedded in the malware’s code, suggesting the attackers are of Russian-speaking origin. For instance, the word “Zakladka” appears in the malware, which, in Russian and Polish, can mean “bookmark.” It is also a Russian slang term meaning “undeclared functionality” in computer software or hardware. Intriguingly, Kaspersky’s researchers said that, in Russian, it also refers to a “microphone embedded in a brick of the embassy building.” (The United States and Russia have a history of bugging each other’s embassies.)

But as sophisticated as the malware was, Kaspersky said the methods attackers used to infect systems were not. The researchers infected machines with a basic “spearphishing” attack, in which they sent malicious e-mails to people within targeted organizations that contained malicious Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word documents. Once opened, attackers were given full access to victims’ machines through well-known security exploits that were previously used in campaigns by Chinese hackers to spy on Tibetan activists and military and energy sector targets in Asia.

Mr. Baumgartner said the attackers either used well-known exploits out of “laziness or as a clever way to hide their tracks.”

The firm said attackers created more than 60 domain names and used several server locations, mainly in Germany and Russia, to manage the network of infected machines. But it said those servers were “proxies” designed to hide the true “mother ship” command and control server.

Asked why Kaspersky decided not to identify the targets of the attack by name, Mr. Baumgartner said that Kaspersky’s investigation was still in place. 

Cybersecurity has become a significant and growing concern globally, with hackers gaining access to private corporate and military secrets, and intellectual property. Last year, Kaspersky Lab discovered several state-sponsored computer viruses including Flame, a sophisticated computer virus that spied on computers in Iran, and Gauss, a separate virus that targeted Lebanese banks. The firm said it believed both viruses were sponsored by the same nation states that created Stuxnet, a sophisticated computer virus that The New York Times has reported was a joint effort by the United States and Israel.

But Kaspersky has been less forthcoming on viruses originating in its own back yard, in Russia and neighboring states, where Russian-speaking criminal syndicates control a third of the estimated $12 billion global cybercrime market, according to the Russian security firm Group-IB.

But Kaspersky’s latest discovery could signal a turning point. The firm nicknamed the campaign by Russian speakers “Operation Red October” — Rocra for short — because it was first tipped off to the campaign in October, after one of its partners passed Kaspersky a sample of the malware used. Since then, the firm has discovered over 1,000 “modules” or components of the malware, with the earliest crafted in 2007 and the most recent component having been built as recently as last week.

“The attackers managed to stay in the game for over five years and evade detection of most antivirus products while continuing to exfiltrate what must be hundreds of terabytes by now,” Kaspersky said in its report.

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Jan.14

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Treasury Will Not Mint $1 Trillion Coin to Raise Debt Ceiling

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said Saturday that it will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to head off an imminent battle with Congress over raising the government’s borrowing limit.

“Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” Anthony Coley, a Treasury spokesman, said in a written statement.

The Obama administration has indicated that the only way for the country to avoid a cash-management crisis as soon as next month is for Congress to raise the “debt ceiling,” which is the statutory limit on government borrowing. The cap is $16.4 trillion.

“There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills, or it can fail to act and put the nation into default,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “Congress needs to do its job.”

In recent weeks, some Republicans have indicated that they would not agree to raise the debt limit unless Democrats agreed to make cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security.

The White House has said it would not negotiate spending cuts in exchange for Congressional authority to borrow more, and it has insisted that Congress raise the ceiling as a matter of course, to cover expenses already authorized by Congress. In broader fiscal negotiations, it has said it would not agree to spending cuts without commensurate tax increases.

The idea of minting a trillion-dollar coin drew wide if puzzling attention recently after some bloggers and economic commentators had suggested it as an alternative to involving Congress.

By virtue of an obscure law meant to apply to commemorative coins, the Treasury secretary could order the production of a high-denomination platinum coin and deposit it at the Federal Reserve, where it would count as a government asset and give the country more breathing room under its debt ceiling. Once Congress raised the debt ceiling, the Treasury secretary could then order the coin destroyed.

Mr. Carney, the press secretary, fielded questions about the theoretical tactic at a news conference last week. But the idea is now formally off the table.

The White House has also rejected the idea that it could mount a challenge to the debt ceiling itself, on the strength of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which holds that the “validity of the public debt” of the United States “shall not be questioned.”

The Washington Post earlier published a report that the Obama administration had rejected the platinum-coin idea.

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City Room: Cuomo Declares Public Health Emergency Over Flu Outbreak

With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.

There have been nearly 20,000 cases of flu reported across the state so far this season, officials said. Last season, 4,400 positive laboratory tests were reported.

“We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York State is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.

Under the order, pharmacists will be allowed to administer flu vaccinations to patients between 6 months and 18 years old, temporarily suspending a state law that prohibits pharmacists from administering immunizations to children.

While children and older people tend to be the most likely to become seriously ill from the flu, Mr. Cuomo urged all New Yorkers to get vaccinated.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that deaths from the flu had reached epidemic levels, with at least 20 children having died nationwide. Officials cautioned that deaths from pneumonia and the flu typically reach epidemic levels for a week or two every year. The severity of the outbreak will be determined by how long the death toll remains high or if it climbs higher.

There was some evidence that caseloads may be peaking, federal officials said on Friday.

In New York City, public health officials announced on Thursday that flu-related illnesses had reached epidemic levels, and they joined the chorus of authorities urging people to get vaccinated.

“It’s a bad year,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve got lots of flu, it’s mainly type AH3N2, which tends to be a little more severe. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu. Our message for any people who are listening to this is it’s still not too late to get your flu shot.”

There has been a spike in the number of people going to emergency rooms over the past two weeks with flulike symptoms – including fever, fatigue and coughing – Dr. Farley said.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo made a public display of getting shots this past week.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday, officials from the C.D.C. said that this year’s vaccine was effective in 62 percent of cases.

As officials have stepped up their efforts encouraging vaccinations, there have been scattered reports of shortages. But officials said plenty of the vaccine was available.

According to the C.D.C., makers of the flu vaccine produced about 135 million doses for this year. As of early this month, 128 million doses had been distributed. While that would not be enough for every American, only 37 percent of the population get a flu shot each year.

Federal health officials said they would be happy if that number rose to 50 percent, which would mean that there would be more than enough vaccine for anyone who wanted to be immunized.

Two other diseases – norovirus and whooping cough – are also widespread this winter and are contributing to the number of people getting sick.

The flu can resemble a cold, though the symptoms come on more rapidly and are more severe.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/13/2013, on page A21 of the NewYork edition with the headline: New York Declares Health Emergency.

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City Room: Cuomo Declares Public Health Emergency Over Flu Outbreak

With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.

There have been nearly 20,000 cases of flu reported across the state so far this season, officials said. Last season, 4,400 positive laboratory tests were reported.

“We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York State is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.

Under the order, pharmacists will be allowed to administer flu vaccinations to patients between 6 months and 18 years old, temporarily suspending a state law that prohibits pharmacists from administering immunizations to children.

While children and older people tend to be the most likely to become seriously ill from the flu, Mr. Cuomo urged all New Yorkers to get vaccinated.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that deaths from the flu had reached epidemic levels, with at least 20 children having died nationwide. Officials cautioned that deaths from pneumonia and the flu typically reach epidemic levels for a week or two every year. The severity of the outbreak will be determined by how long the death toll remains high or if it climbs higher.

There was some evidence that caseloads may be peaking, federal officials said on Friday.

In New York City, public health officials announced on Thursday that flu-related illnesses had reached epidemic levels, and they joined the chorus of authorities urging people to get vaccinated.

“It’s a bad year,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve got lots of flu, it’s mainly type AH3N2, which tends to be a little more severe. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu. Our message for any people who are listening to this is it’s still not too late to get your flu shot.”

There has been a spike in the number of people going to emergency rooms over the past two weeks with flulike symptoms – including fever, fatigue and coughing – Dr. Farley said.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo made a public display of getting shots this past week.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday, officials from the C.D.C. said that this year’s vaccine was effective in 62 percent of cases.

As officials have stepped up their efforts encouraging vaccinations, there have been scattered reports of shortages. But officials said plenty of the vaccine was available.

According to the C.D.C., makers of the flu vaccine produced about 135 million doses for this year. As of early this month, 128 million doses had been distributed. While that would not be enough for every American, only 37 percent of the population get a flu shot each year.

Federal health officials said they would be happy if that number rose to 50 percent, which would mean that there would be more than enough vaccine for anyone who wanted to be immunized.

Two other diseases – norovirus and whooping cough – are also widespread this winter and are contributing to the number of people getting sick.

The flu can resemble a cold, though the symptoms come on more rapidly and are more severe.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/13/2013, on page A21 of the NewYork edition with the headline: New York Declares Health Emergency.

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Aaron Swartz, Internet Activist, Dies at 26

Aaron Swartz, a wizardly programmer who as a teenager helped develop code that delivered ever-changing Web content to users and who later became a steadfast crusader to make that information freely available, was found dead on Friday in his New York apartment.

An uncle, Michael Wolf, said that Mr. Swartz, 26, had apparently hanged himself, and that a friend of Mr. Swartz’s had discovered the body.

At 14, Mr. Swartz helped create RSS, the nearly ubiquitous tool that allows users to subscribe to online information. He later became an Internet folk hero, pushing to make many Web files free and open to the public. But in July 2011, he was indicted on federal charges of gaining illegal access to JSTOR, a subscription-only service for distributing scientific and literary journals, and downloading 4.8 million articles and documents, nearly the entire library.

Charges in the case, including wire fraud and computer fraud, were pending at the time of Mr. Swartz’s death, carrying potential penalties of up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.

“Aaron built surprising new things that changed the flow of information around the world,” said Susan Crawford, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York who served in the Obama administration as a technology adviser. She called Mr. Swartz “a complicated prodigy” and said “graybeards approached him with awe.”

Mr. Wolf said he would remember his nephew, who had written in the past about battling depression and suicidal thoughts, as a young man who “looked at the world, and had a certain logic in his brain, and the world didn’t necessarily fit in with that logic, and that was sometimes difficult.”

The Tech, a newspaper of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reported Mr. Swartz’s death early Saturday.

Mr. Swartz led an often itinerant life that included dropping out of Stanford, forming companies and organizations, and becoming a fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.

He formed a company that merged with Reddit, the popular news and information site. He also co-founded Demand Progress, a group that promotes online campaigns on social justice issues — including a successful effort, with other groups, to oppose a Hollywood-backed Internet piracy bill.

But he also found trouble when he took part in efforts to release information to the public that he felt should be freely available. In 2008, he took on PACER, or Public Access to Court Electronic Records, the repository for federal judicial documents.

The database charges 10 cents a page for documents; activists like Carl Malamud, the founder of public.resource.org, have long argued that such documents should be free because they are produced at public expense. Joining Mr. Malamud’s efforts to make the documents public by posting legally obtained files to the Internet for free access, Mr. Swartz wrote an elegant little program to download 20 million pages of documents from free library accounts, or roughly 20 percent of the enormous database.

The government shut down the free library program, and Mr. Malamud feared that legal trouble might follow even though he felt they had violated no laws. As he recalled in a newspaper account, “I immediately saw the potential for overreaction by the courts.” He recalled telling Mr. Swartz: “You need to talk to a lawyer. I need to talk to a lawyer.”

Mr. Swartz recalled in a 2009 interview, “I had this vision of the feds crashing down the door, taking everything away.” He said he locked the deadbolt on his door, lay down on the bed for a while and then called his mother.

The federal government investigated but did not prosecute.

In 2011, however, Mr. Swartz went beyond that, according to a federal indictment. In an effort to provide free public access to JSTOR, he broke into computer networks at M.I.T. by means that included gaining entry to a utility closet on campus and leaving a laptop that signed into the university network under a false account, federal officials said.

Mr. Swartz turned over his hard drives with 4.8 million documents, and JSTOR declined to pursue the case. But Carmen M. Ortiz, a United States attorney, pressed on, saying that “stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars.”

Founded in 1995, JSTOR, or Journal Storage, is nonprofit, but institutions can pay tens of thousands of dollars for a subscription that bundles scholarly publications online. JSTOR says it needs the money to collect and to distribute the material and, in some cases, subsidize institutions that cannot afford it. On Wednesday, JSTOR announced that it would open its archives for 1,200 journals to free reading by the public on a limited basis.

Mr. Malamud said that while he did not approve of Mr. Swartz’s actions at M.I.T., “access to knowledge and access to justice have become all about access to money, and Aaron tried to change that. That should never have been considered a criminal activity.”

Mr. Swartz did not talk much about his impending trial, Quinn Norton, a close friend, said on Saturday, but when he did, it was clear that “it pushed him to exhaustion. It pushed him beyond.”

Recent years had been hard for Mr. Swartz, Ms. Norton said, and she characterized him “in turns tough and delicate.” He had “struggled with chronic, painful illness as well as depression,” she said, without specifying the illness, but he was still hopeful “at least about the world.”

Cory Doctorow, a science fiction author and online activist, posted a tribute to Mr. Swartz on BoingBoing.net, a blog he co-edits. In an e-mail, he called Mr. Swartz “uncompromising, principled, smart, flawed, loving, caring, and brilliant.”

 “The world was a better place with him in it,” he said.

Mr. Swartz, he noted, had a habit of turning on those closest to him: “Aaron held the world, his friends, and his mentors to an impossibly high standard — the same standard he set for himself.” Mr. Doctorow added, however, “It’s a testament to his friendship that no one ever seemed to hold it against him (except, maybe, himself).”

In a talk in 2007, Mr. Swartz described having had suicidal thoughts during a low period in his career. He also wrote about his struggle with depression, distinguishing it from sadness.

“Go outside and get some fresh air or cuddle with a loved one and you don’t feel any better, only more upset at being unable to feel the joy that everyone else seems to feel. Everything gets colored by the sadness.”

When the condition gets worse, he wrote, “you feel as if streaks of pain are running through your head, you thrash your body, you search for some escape but find none. And this is one of the more moderate forms.”

Ravi Somaiya contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the police who arrested Mr. Swartz, and when they did so. The police were from Cambridge, Mass., not the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus force, and the arrest occurred two years before Mr. Swartz’s suicide, but not two years to the day.

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