Attendance at this event is restricted to undergraduate students enrolled in the Electrical & Computer Engineering department. 

"The Ethics of Hacking and Slacking"

Statements on the ethics of hacking are almost as old as computing itself, and somewhat surprising in their permissiveness. Unauthorized access to computing systems has received an ethics "pass" by some, as long as the hacker might improve system security, learn something, or even entertain others. Slacking--or insufficient care by system administrators and responsible others to system security--does not usually receive a pass. In fact, though slacking isn't a proper cause of cybersecurity breaches, it is often seen as a culprit, or a kind of co-conspirator. In this talk I'll discuss this rather surprising difference in attitudes towards hacking and slacking and see where they might lead.

Dr. Tom Powers is Associate Professor in Philosophy and in the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration, and the founding director of the Center for Science, Ethics, and Public Policy. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, the Data Science Institute, the Sociotechnical Systems Center, the Center of AI Excellence, and the Center for Autonomous and Robotics Systems, all at the University of Delaware. His research focuses on ethics in information technology, including the ethics of AI.

Please come out for a great discussion and lunch!

• 12:30 - Lunch is served
• 12:45 - Speaker