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> This "I will ban you and revert all your stuff" retaliation seems emotional overaction. Fool me once. Why should they waste their time with extra scrutiny ne

> This "I will ban you and revert all your stuff" retaliation seems emotional overaction. Fool me once. Why should they waste their time with extra scrutiny next time? Somebody deliberately misled them, so that's it, banned from the playground. It's just a no-nonsense attitude, without which you'd get nothing done. If you had a party in your house and some guest you don't know and whom you invited in assuming good faith, turned out to deliberately poop on the rug in your spare guest room while nobody was looking .. next time you have a party, what do you do? Let them in but keep an eye on them? Ask your friends to never let this guest alone? Or just simply to deny entrance, so that you can focus on having fun with people you trust and newcomers who have not shown any malicious intent? I know what I'd do. Life is too short for BS.

girvo 6y ago
You’re completely right, except in this case it’s banning anyone who happened to live in the same house as the offender, at any point in time...
- slenk 6y ago
  No, it's not. It's banning anyone who hides behind their UMN email address. Because its been proving now the UMN.edu commits have bad actors.
- hanselot 6y ago
  Sounds more or less like the way punishment is handled in modern society.
- deegles 6y ago
  To continue the analogy, it would be like finding out that the offender’s friends knew they were going to do that and were planning on recording the results. Banning all involved parties is reasonable.
  - drdavid 6y ago
    I'd amend to: "... planning on recording the event to show it on YouTube for ad revenue and Internet fame." In this case, the offender's friends are benefiting from the research. I think that needs to be made important. The university benefits from this paper being published, or at least expected to. That should not be overlooked.
- MaulingMonkey 6y ago
  IP bans often result in banning an entire house. "It was my brother on my unsecured computer" is an excuse I've heard a few times by people trying to shirk responsibility for their ban-worthy actions. Geographic proximity to bad actors is sometimes enough to get caught in the crossfire. While it might be unfair, it might also be seen as holding a community and it's leadership responsible for failing to hold members of their community responsible and in check with their actions. And, fair or not, it might also be seen as a pragmatic option in the face of limited moderation tools and time. If you have a magic wand to ban only the bad-faith contributions by the students influenced by the professor in question, I imagine the kernel devs will be more than happy to put it to use. Is it really just the one professor, though?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ravel-bar-foo 6y ago
  By keeping the paper, UMN is benefiting (in citations and research result count). Universities are supposed to have processes for punishing unethical research. Unless the University retracts the paper and fires the researcher involved, they have not made amends.
d110af5ccf 6y ago
> Why should they waste their time with extra scrutiny next time? Because well funded malicious actors (government agencies, large corporations, etc) exist and aren't so polite as to use email addresses that conveniently link different individuals from the group together. Such actors don't publicize their results, aren't subject to IRB approval, and their exploits likely don't have such benign end goals. As far as I'm concerned the University of Minnesota did a public service here by facilitating a mildly sophisticated and ultimately benign attack against the process surrounding an absolutely critical piece of software. We ought to have more such unannounced penetration tests.
- nsonha 6y ago
  we don't have the full communication and I understand that the intention is to be stealthy (why use an university email that can be linked to the previous research then?). However the researcher's response seems to be disingenuous: > I sent patches on the hopes to get feedback. We are not experts in the Linux kernel and repeatedly making these statements is disgusting to hear. this is after they're caught, why continue lying instead of apologizing and explain? Is the lying also part of the experiments? On top of that, they played cards, you can see why people would be triggered by this level of dishonesty: > I will not be sending any more patches due to the attitude that is not only unwelcome but also intimidating to newbies
  - d110af5ccf 6y ago
    From reading other comments about the context surrounding these events, it sounds to me like this probably was an actual newbie who made an honest (if lazy) mistake and was then caught up in the controversy surrounding his advisor's past research. Or perhaps it really is a second attempt by his advisor at an evil plot to sneak more buggy patches into the kernel for research purposes? Either way, the response by the maintainers seems rather disproportionate to me. And either way, I'm ultimately grateful for the (apparently unwanted?) attention being drawn to the (apparent lack of) security surrounding the Linux kernel patch review process.
    - 5y ago

girvo 6y ago

You’re completely right, except in this case it’s banning anyone who happened to live in the same house as the offender, at any point in time...

slenk 6y ago
No, it's not. It's banning anyone who hides behind their UMN email address. Because its been proving now the UMN.edu commits have bad actors.
hanselot 6y ago
Sounds more or less like the way punishment is handled in modern society.
deegles 6y ago
To continue the analogy, it would be like finding out that the offender’s friends knew they were going to do that and were planning on recording the results. Banning all involved parties is reasonable.
- drdavid 6y ago
  I'd amend to: "... planning on recording the event to show it on YouTube for ad revenue and Internet fame." In this case, the offender's friends are benefiting from the research. I think that needs to be made important. The university benefits from this paper being published, or at least expected to. That should not be overlooked.
MaulingMonkey 6y ago
IP bans often result in banning an entire house. "It was my brother on my unsecured computer" is an excuse I've heard a few times by people trying to shirk responsibility for their ban-worthy actions. Geographic proximity to bad actors is sometimes enough to get caught in the crossfire. While it might be unfair, it might also be seen as holding a community and it's leadership responsible for failing to hold members of their community responsible and in check with their actions. And, fair or not, it might also be seen as a pragmatic option in the face of limited moderation tools and time. If you have a magic wand to ban only the bad-faith contributions by the students influenced by the professor in question, I imagine the kernel devs will be more than happy to put it to use. Is it really just the one professor, though?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ravel-bar-foo 6y ago
By keeping the paper, UMN is benefiting (in citations and research result count). Universities are supposed to have processes for punishing unethical research. Unless the University retracts the paper and fires the researcher involved, they have not made amends.

d110af5ccf 6y ago

> Why should they waste their time with extra scrutiny next time? Because well funded malicious actors (government agencies, large corporations, etc) exist and aren't so polite as to use email addresses that conveniently link different individuals from the group together. Such actors don't publicize their results, aren't subject to IRB approval, and their exploits likely don't have such benign end goals. As far as I'm concerned the University of Minnesota did a public service here by facilitating a mildly sophisticated and ultimately benign attack against the process surrounding an absolutely critical piece of software. We ought to have more such unannounced penetration tests.

nsonha 6y ago
we don't have the full communication and I understand that the intention is to be stealthy (why use an university email that can be linked to the previous research then?). However the researcher's response seems to be disingenuous: > I sent patches on the hopes to get feedback. We are not experts in the Linux kernel and repeatedly making these statements is disgusting to hear. this is after they're caught, why continue lying instead of apologizing and explain? Is the lying also part of the experiments? On top of that, they played cards, you can see why people would be triggered by this level of dishonesty: > I will not be sending any more patches due to the attitude that is not only unwelcome but also intimidating to newbies
- d110af5ccf 6y ago
  From reading other comments about the context surrounding these events, it sounds to me like this probably was an actual newbie who made an honest (if lazy) mistake and was then caught up in the controversy surrounding his advisor's past research. Or perhaps it really is a second attempt by his advisor at an evil plot to sneak more buggy patches into the kernel for research purposes? Either way, the response by the maintainers seems rather disproportionate to me. And either way, I'm ultimately grateful for the (apparently unwanted?) attention being drawn to the (apparent lack of) security surrounding the Linux kernel patch review process.
  - 5y ago