Aaron Swartz, 26, was found hanging in his apartment on Friday Jan. 11, according to a new report.

At 14-years-old, the internet guru helped create RSS, the software that is used universally to allow people to subscribe to information from the Internet. In recent years, Aaron became somewhat of an activist for free online access to all kinds of Internet files.

Due to this, Aaron had federal charges filed against him in 2011. The charges claimed that he’d downloaded 4.8 million articles and other documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the intention of posting them to a file-sharing site.

Although he pleaded not guilty, the prospect of the trial was too much for him, his family said.

“Aaron’s insatiable curiosity, creativity, and brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable — these gifts made the world, and our lives, far brighter,” the family’s statement in part read, according to Chicago Tribune.

“I had this vision of the feds crashing down the door, taking everything away,” Aaron said of his arrest two years ago. He said he locked the door, lay down on his bed and called his mom.

Our thoughts are with Aaron’s friends and family at this difficult time.

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— Chris Rogers

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