
MIT faulted over its support for students - support_ribbons
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/02/14/mit/9VBBq9pBQ1z9rsR9o9e9sI/story.html
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suprgeek
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.

~~~
tzs
> 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

Swartz was, if he rejected the plea bargain that would have given him a few
months at most and went to trial and lost on all charges, looking at around 7
years at the extreme outside, tops, not 30. If you would like the detail on
why this is so, take a look at any of the dozens of prior discussion of the
Swartz case here, since this has been explained in great detail in nearly
every one of them.

~~~
omegaworks
The feds tore apart his life. They forced his girlfriend to speak out against
him. He couldn't trust anyone, his coworkers, the school. They were out for
blood, his blood. You want a felony on your record? Say goodbye to financial
aid, and look forward to explaining it to everyone that runs a background
check on you - if you even get the chance to explain.

~~~
res0nat0r
Maybe he shouldn't have repeatedly broken the law if he didn't want to deal
with the consequences?

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res0nat0r
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.

~~~
yourcelf
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...](http://www.openmediaboston.org/content/mbta-suit-against-
mit-charlie-card-hackers-may-perpetuate-vulnerabilities)

\- Star Simpson, 2007:
[http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2...](http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_student_arr.html)

\- Ryan McKinley's "Government Information Awareness", 2003:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Information_Awarene...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Information_Awareness)

\- 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
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
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)

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sadfaceunread
Really out of date.
[http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html](http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N7/tidbit.html)

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danso
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
An MIT lawyer is prohibited from representing the best interests of the
students. He is required to put the interests of MIT first.

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

~~~
angersock
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_
Having issues with the government / laws does not mean that people get to just
toss them out the window.

~~~
angersock
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.

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undoware
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!....

