Hero or Hacker? An open discussion of Aaron Swartz and the issues surrounding his life, arrest and death.

Discussion Led by Jim Hendler (Head, Computer Science Department, RPI)

Tuesday, February 5th, 6:00 PM
DCC 330
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

On behalf of the new RPI Computer Club, we invite you to attend an event discussing the events surrounding the death of Aaron Swartz, the "hacktivist" who committed suicide on January 11th. The goal is to raise questions and discuss the issues with respect to openness and transparency, government laws on computer hacking, online privacy, open code, online "piracy" and other aspects of ethics, law and technology that surrounded Aaron's life and death.

Jim Hendler is the Head of the Computer Science Department at RPI. He and Swartz co-authored a paper in 2001 (when Swartz was 14) and worked together on projects involving the Semantic Web, Open Data, and activism against the SOPA legislation.