
Tufts expelled a student for grade hacking. She claims innocence - campuscodi
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/08/tufts-grade-hacking/
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mooman219
"The bulk of the evidence came from Tufts’ IT department, which said each
incident was “well supported” from log files and database records. The
evidence pointed to her computer over a period of several months, the
department told the committee."

[Anecdote]

I was in a lab one evening doing homework when out of the blue, I started
receiving dozens of emails with variations of the subject [0]. I was getting
DMCA notices with thousands of dollars of fines for each one. They were
accusing me of pirating music on the school's network, and the IT department
forwarded them to the party that best matched the description in the DMCA.
Some of the details in it included [1].

The problem with all of this was I never torrented on the school's network and
the times the infringement took place were times I wasn't on campus since I
lived off campus. When I brought this up with the IT department, they
disregarded my complaint and said my laptop was identified as the source. When
prodded for more information on which APs the device was connected to at that
time, they refused to check.

The university has free legal council for students so I booked an appointment,
explained my situation, and had proof myself and my laptop were not on campus
during the time the infringement took place. They talked to the IT department
and I was sent a short email saying the violations were routed to me by
mistake and they were dropped from my record. The university dynamically
allocates IPs to devices for blocks of time, and the infringing IP was
allocated to me earlier in the day, but not during the offense. When they
forwarded the emails, they only checked who had the IP first during the day.

I can't imagine how many other students might have been falsely accused of
this over the years because of bad practices by the IT department.

[0]: 'Unauthorized Use of Copyrights RE: TC-
be738249-d341-4a1d-ac11-9e66d285dfca ISSUE=23120 PROJ=7'

[1]: "Infringement Source: Torrent, Timestamp: 2015-09-15 03:01:00.0 GMT,
Infringers IP Address: 129.21.89.206, Infringers Port: 18359"

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neilv
I'm glad the student legal clinic worked for you.

In this post's case, if the student is innocent, I think they need a high-
powered lawyer who will take the case on contingency. Which I think probably
means not just reinstatement, and extra help in getting student's career back
on track, but big enough damages/fees to make it worth the lawyer's while.

Winning legal action that hurt would also help protect other students.
Universities understand money and reputation. Individuals within universities
understand their own careers. Everything else varies by individual and
faculty.

(Though I should add that I only recall hearing positive things about the
university in this post, and I think of the broad space of medical/health
practitioners as highly ethical and thoughtful. I'd be very disappointed if it
turned out that the university made a big mistake.)

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raincom
I won't trust the evidence provided by the IT department of Tufts. At least,
that should be backed up by some third party.

The other issue is about the student. Why she needs to increase her grades for
DVM? Is there a benefit to it? (CGPA from JD matters if you are trying to get
a clerkship with top judges/justices.) What is in it for her?

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hooloovoo_zoo
It's hard to decide based on the article whether she's guilty or not, but I
wonder if the school will be required to furnish strong evidence if it hopes
to collect on the loans.

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djakjxnanjak
Something is rotten when it’s easier to get a journalist to write an article
than it is to get access for an investigator not affiliated with the
University to reanalyze the IT department’s evidence. Hope she is able to get
a fair hearing, via legal action if necessary.

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Fjolsvith
I quickly learned how to game my high school math teacher's grading system. I
was a genius at math and could do 1 or two new problems and completely
understand how to solve that type of problem.

My teacher scored a homework assignment for 3 points of the final total of
points. A quiz was 10 points. A test was 100 points.

Since I could ace the quizzes and tests with every answer correct, I figured
out I only had to do enough of the homework to make sure I knew the problems.
I would get one point for the assignment. Whenever she gave extra credit
assignment, I did that.

It always burned her butt that I would come out with a low B for the final
grade.

