6 ms·

MIT faulted over its support for students

res0nat0r 13y ago
Headline: MIT faulted over its support for students Caption under picture: Critics say MIT also should have intervened in the case of Aaron Swartz. Swartz was never a student at MIT.
- wolfgke 13y ago
  > Swartz was never a student at MIT. But he represented values for which the MIT stands in its self-characterisation.
- yourcelf 13y ago
  If you'd like MIT students who were impacted by the administration's callous lack of support, consider: - the MBTA "hackers", 2008: http://www.openmediaboston.org/content/mbta-suit-against-mit-charlie-card-hackers-may-perpetuate-vulnerabilities http://www.openmediaboston.org/content/mbta-suit-against-mit... - Star Simpson, 2007: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_student_arr.html http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2... - Ryan McKinley's "Government Information Awareness", 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Information_Awareness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Information_Awarene... - Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, 2002, XBox hacker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Huang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Huang - Ladyada, 2002: http://www.ladyada.net/pub/research.html http://www.ladyada.net/pub/research.html - David LaMacchia, 1994: http://cd.textfiles.com/group42/WAREZ/LAMACCHI.HTM http://cd.textfiles.com/group42/WAREZ/LAMACCHI.HTM And these are only a few cases that made headlines; there are many additional controversies handled more quietly. The point remains that the MIT General Counsel's office exists to protect the institute, not the students, even while MIT's culture rewards innovative, boundary-pushing work. The point at issue here is that MIT needs a legal support structure for such students commensurate with its encouragement of the work.
  - dobbsbob 13y ago
    I don't know of any university that would stand up for their students. My old school doesn't even do tenure anymore so they can muzzle the staff, and is run by successive former political hacks who all chaired some partisan fundraising society and were parachuted into the dean's office through cronyism. The associate and vice presidents are real estate speculators and lobbyists or did party fundraising who've been busy building large private condos on endowment land to sell to foreign investors in order to personally profit. Defending a student from feds means risking their careers since they only got these positions through political connections. All of them go on to the Dept of Foreign Affairs or some other government appointed position. This is just a stepping stone for them, who cares about students.
  - goldbeck 13y ago
    Definitely! What's pretty cool is that this is exactly the response of MIT administration as well http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Your parents point is not that MIT has done no wrong, but that Swartz is not the right example.
- IvyMike 13y ago
  Isn't that why they used the word "also"?
danso 13y ago
So this story is from February 14, 2014, and contains a bit of "he said, MIT said"...there must be an update by now? > “Students are being threatened with legal action for doing exactly what we encourage them to do: explore and create innovative new technologies,” wrote Hal Abelson, a computer science professor; Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT; and Media Lab graduate student Nathan Matias. The school says it's a misunderstanding: > MIT provost Martin A. Schmidt said Thursday evening that there had been a misunderstanding. MIT advised the students to get their own lawyer who would be solely focused on their best interest, he said. “It was never our intent to say we can’t support you,” he said in an interview. “Now that they have that counsel, the Institute stands by its students and we are prepared to support them and their counsel in whatever way we can to help them in this defense.”
- danielweber 13y ago
  An MIT lawyer is prohibited from representing the best interests of the students. He is required to put the interests of MIT first.
suprgeek 13y ago
This has been long time coming. These days if a student or young person does what Steve Jobs (phone device) or Bill Gates (exploiting bugs for more Computer time) did and got away with, they face lawsuits and decades in Jail. It is up to Universities like MIT to aggressively intervene in these cases and ensure that young people are free to (some extent) break systems and exploit system weaknesses in the interest of learning. MIT did the opposite in the Aaron Shwartz case, their conduct was in large part responsible for Ortiz & Heyman getting Aaron over a barrel of 30 years in the pokey. They miserably failed in their moral obligations in that case - and the time is long past for changes to this policy.
- rayiner 13y ago
  The world in which Jobs and Gates grew up was very different, one in which computers didn't play as vital a role in everyday life, and compromising a computer system could cause less in the way of damage, simply because people did not rely on them as heavily. In our modern world, saying that young people should be free to break and exploit systems has very different implications. We do not tolerate young people "learning" how to pick locks by breaking into peoples' homes, and we certainly don't argue that universities have a moral obligation to support such "learning." So why should it be different in the digital world? There was a time maybe when we tolerated that because you could do a lot less damage breaking into a computer than breaking into a house, but that time is long gone.
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    Be careful what you wish for. History has shown that countries which are free to think will eventually outthink those that aren't. And what you're arguing for is restriction of thought.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      You're free to think whatever you want. This is about interfering with other peoples' property. Personally, I think people over-romanticize hacker culture in saying it's a key part of technological progress. Scientific advancement is a process that overwhelmingly happens purposefully, not through tinkering. It's DARPA funding defense contractors to invent TCP/IP, not some kids "learning" by breaking into other peoples' property. The stuff Bill and Steve did--they did it because they were smart kids and could get away with it. But saying it was a necessary component of their future success is just romanticization.
undoware 13y ago
There are any number of alternative headlines for this story that would not only be less misleading, but also more succinct. It doesn't surprise me that the Boston Globe would want to stay on good terms with a major local power, but there are limits. Consider instead: MIT Faulted for Lack of Support; Student Support Faulted at MIT; Students to MIT: Support Please!....
goldbeck 13y ago
Old news. MIT administration has responded in a pretty reasonable manner. http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html
sadfaceunread 13y ago
Really out of date. http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html
tsotha 13y ago
Grow up, kids. The law applies to you too.
- angersock 13y ago
  The laws are obviously not worth the paper they're printed on--they are neither wholly reformative nor punitive in nature, and their administration could best be described as whimsical if not outright malicious. So, no, why should we assume our kids should follow that bollocks?
  - akerl_ 13y ago
    Having issues with the government / laws does not mean that people get to just toss them out the window.
    - angersock 13y ago
      What is the point of following the laws if they are increasingly just used to justify somebody else's paycheck? Think very hard about your statement: if there is no practical way of reforming a system, disobedience becomes the only viable alternative.
  - tsotha 13y ago
    Because if they don't they'll go to jail.
    - asdfologist 13y ago
      Two hundred years ago, the law allowed slavery. So that made it ok?
      - tsotha 13y ago
        That made it legal.
- alexnking 13y ago

Headline: MIT faulted over its support for students Caption under picture: Critics say MIT also should have intervened in the case of Aaron Swartz. Swartz was never a student at MIT.

wolfgke 13y ago
> Swartz was never a student at MIT. But he represented values for which the MIT stands in its self-characterisation.
yourcelf 13y ago
If you'd like MIT students who were impacted by the administration's callous lack of support, consider: - the MBTA "hackers", 2008: http://www.openmediaboston.org/content/mbta-suit-against-mit-charlie-card-hackers-may-perpetuate-vulnerabilities http://www.openmediaboston.org/content/mbta-suit-against-mit... - Star Simpson, 2007: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_student_arr.html http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2... - Ryan McKinley's "Government Information Awareness", 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Information_Awareness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Information_Awarene... - Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, 2002, XBox hacker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Huang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Huang - Ladyada, 2002: http://www.ladyada.net/pub/research.html http://www.ladyada.net/pub/research.html - David LaMacchia, 1994: http://cd.textfiles.com/group42/WAREZ/LAMACCHI.HTM http://cd.textfiles.com/group42/WAREZ/LAMACCHI.HTM And these are only a few cases that made headlines; there are many additional controversies handled more quietly. The point remains that the MIT General Counsel's office exists to protect the institute, not the students, even while MIT's culture rewards innovative, boundary-pushing work. The point at issue here is that MIT needs a legal support structure for such students commensurate with its encouragement of the work.
- dobbsbob 13y ago
  I don't know of any university that would stand up for their students. My old school doesn't even do tenure anymore so they can muzzle the staff, and is run by successive former political hacks who all chaired some partisan fundraising society and were parachuted into the dean's office through cronyism. The associate and vice presidents are real estate speculators and lobbyists or did party fundraising who've been busy building large private condos on endowment land to sell to foreign investors in order to personally profit. Defending a student from feds means risking their careers since they only got these positions through political connections. All of them go on to the Dept of Foreign Affairs or some other government appointed position. This is just a stepping stone for them, who cares about students.
- goldbeck 13y ago
  Definitely! What's pretty cool is that this is exactly the response of MIT administration as well http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Your parents point is not that MIT has done no wrong, but that Swartz is not the right example.
IvyMike 13y ago
Isn't that why they used the word "also"?

danso 13y ago

So this story is from February 14, 2014, and contains a bit of "he said, MIT said"...there must be an update by now? > “Students are being threatened with legal action for doing exactly what we encourage them to do: explore and create innovative new technologies,” wrote Hal Abelson, a computer science professor; Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT; and Media Lab graduate student Nathan Matias. The school says it's a misunderstanding: > MIT provost Martin A. Schmidt said Thursday evening that there had been a misunderstanding. MIT advised the students to get their own lawyer who would be solely focused on their best interest, he said. “It was never our intent to say we can’t support you,” he said in an interview. “Now that they have that counsel, the Institute stands by its students and we are prepared to support them and their counsel in whatever way we can to help them in this defense.”

danielweber 13y ago
An MIT lawyer is prohibited from representing the best interests of the students. He is required to put the interests of MIT first.

suprgeek 13y ago

This has been long time coming. These days if a student or young person does what Steve Jobs (phone device) or Bill Gates (exploiting bugs for more Computer time) did and got away with, they face lawsuits and decades in Jail. It is up to Universities like MIT to aggressively intervene in these cases and ensure that young people are free to (some extent) break systems and exploit system weaknesses in the interest of learning. MIT did the opposite in the Aaron Shwartz case, their conduct was in large part responsible for Ortiz & Heyman getting Aaron over a barrel of 30 years in the pokey. They miserably failed in their moral obligations in that case - and the time is long past for changes to this policy.

rayiner 13y ago
The world in which Jobs and Gates grew up was very different, one in which computers didn't play as vital a role in everyday life, and compromising a computer system could cause less in the way of damage, simply because people did not rely on them as heavily. In our modern world, saying that young people should be free to break and exploit systems has very different implications. We do not tolerate young people "learning" how to pick locks by breaking into peoples' homes, and we certainly don't argue that universities have a moral obligation to support such "learning." So why should it be different in the digital world? There was a time maybe when we tolerated that because you could do a lot less damage breaking into a computer than breaking into a house, but that time is long gone.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Be careful what you wish for. History has shown that countries which are free to think will eventually outthink those that aren't. And what you're arguing for is restriction of thought.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    You're free to think whatever you want. This is about interfering with other peoples' property. Personally, I think people over-romanticize hacker culture in saying it's a key part of technological progress. Scientific advancement is a process that overwhelmingly happens purposefully, not through tinkering. It's DARPA funding defense contractors to invent TCP/IP, not some kids "learning" by breaking into other peoples' property. The stuff Bill and Steve did--they did it because they were smart kids and could get away with it. But saying it was a necessary component of their future success is just romanticization.

undoware 13y ago

There are any number of alternative headlines for this story that would not only be less misleading, but also more succinct. It doesn't surprise me that the Boston Globe would want to stay on good terms with a major local power, but there are limits. Consider instead: MIT Faulted for Lack of Support; Student Support Faulted at MIT; Students to MIT: Support Please!....

goldbeck 13y ago

Old news. MIT administration has responded in a pretty reasonable manner. http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html

sadfaceunread 13y ago

Really out of date. http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html

tsotha 13y ago

Grow up, kids. The law applies to you too.

angersock 13y ago
The laws are obviously not worth the paper they're printed on--they are neither wholly reformative nor punitive in nature, and their administration could best be described as whimsical if not outright malicious. So, no, why should we assume our kids should follow that bollocks?
- akerl_ 13y ago
  Having issues with the government / laws does not mean that people get to just toss them out the window.
  - angersock 13y ago
    What is the point of following the laws if they are increasingly just used to justify somebody else's paycheck? Think very hard about your statement: if there is no practical way of reforming a system, disobedience becomes the only viable alternative.
- tsotha 13y ago
  Because if they don't they'll go to jail.
  - asdfologist 13y ago
    Two hundred years ago, the law allowed slavery. So that made it ok?
    - tsotha 13y ago
      That made it legal.
alexnking 13y ago