Carl Kadie Responds 51
Carl Kadie has returned his responses to our interview questions. He covers a wide array of topics regarding computers and academic freedom - my guess is that this interview will answer about 5% of all questions submitted to Ask Slashdot. :)
With Power comes responsibility... (Score:5, Interesting)
by Zachary DeAquila on 02-14-01 02:41 PM EST (#28)
What responsibilities do universiies incur when they have such overbroad AUPs and reserve such powers for themselves? What if, in their browsing through my data, they delete or destroy important information (thesis data or papers or somesuch)? Are they liable for it? What if they 'leak' damaging data either unknowingly or through misunderstanding? Can they be held responsible?
I'm afraid that I know the answers to all these questions and am even more afraid of those answers. So what can be done about it beyond the standard SSH and PGP rhetoric ? Is there a way to make them take responsibility for these actions, preferably a heavy enough responsibility to discourage them from wanting to take these actions in the first place?
Let me start with disclaimers. I'm not a lawyer. The legal matters I discuss are merely my understanding of the law, not real legal advice. Also, I speak for myself, not for the Electronic Frontier Foundation or my employer. For more on these issues look at the Computers and Academic Freedom Archive.
As a practical matter, no rule, regulation, or liability could ever compensate you for something like lost thesis data. Hopefully, the terror you feel just thinking about losing something irreplaceable will motivate you to make multiple backups.
For privacy, however, federal law does offer some protections. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act applies to any U.S. school, even high schools, both public and private, that accepts federal money. This is the law that stops schools from announcing your social security number and grades to the world. Schools that disclose personally identifiable information, beyond directory information, can lose their federal funding. Schools generally take this law very seriously. The only common problem is school staff who need to be educated about the law.
Another useful law is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. This is the law that stops AOL from disclosing your grandma's email. It can also be reasonably interpreted as stopping universities from disclosing student email. It may also protect staff email.
Finally, public universities have obligations beyond federal law. As a government institution, they are bound by the federal constitution and their state constitution. A U.S. government task force says that [Email] monitoring [of government employees] of actual communications and communicators may impinge on the Constitutional rights of freedom of speech (1st Amendment), against unreasonable search and seizure (4th Amendment), and against self-incrimination (5th amendment), as well as on the right to privacy, specifically as set forth in both the Privacy Act and the ECPA. Students are presumably protected at least as much.
University policy (Score:5, Interesting)
by Pacer on 02-14-01 02:43 PM EST (#31)
I lived for two years in University residence and, frankly, my college didn't seem to have much respect for the privacy of students in any regard: all mail came through University-owned mailboxes, and packages had to be picked up at the dormitory desk, staffed by hall RAs -- students with a significant disciplinary function. All telephone service went through the university switchboard. Your room could be searched, by university staff or by police, without your permission and without any sort of warrant. Most tenant rights were violated (for instance, eviction with two weeks' notice any time of year), and now the university informs students' parents of on-campus alcohol or disciplinary violations (these are adults whose academic transcripts cannot be released to parents without a signed waiver).
It is not any surprise to me that fascist user agreements are in place concerning electronic media in light of the general control-oriented attitude of many universities towards their on-campus student populations. Perhaps the problem runs deeper than simple technophobia?
I'm optimistic about the trend. I once looked up the student regulations for my school from 1904 to present. (I've since graduated). Students were once literally treated as children. Now the policies generally respect students as scholars with academic freedom. Academic freedom (which includes freedom of expression, privacy, and due process) for students is guaranteed in the student code of many schools. It is advocated by dozen of important academic organizations. I believe academic freedom principles can be straight forwardly applied to computers and networks. For example, here is what our Draft Statement on Computers and Academic Freedom says about privacy:
So, all is wonderful everywhere except for a few aberrations that your free ACLU lawyer can quickly take care of, right? Sadly, no. The struggle for civil liberties and academic freedom never ends. As you suggest, some in authority will always try to assert more and more control. They may never have heard the idea that students should have academic freedom. They may not realize public universities in the U.S. are constrained by the U.S. constitution. They may erroneously believe that federal law doesn't apply if you make students sign a waiver."Privacy Principle: Personal files on university's computers (for example, files in a user's home directory) should have the same privacy protection as personal files in university-assigned space in an office, lab, or dormitory (for example, files in a graduate student's desk). Private communications via computer should have the same protections as private communications via telephone."
So what can you do? Organize and fight! It won't be easy. You'll never win completely. But, you'll likely find friends and allies everywhere from student to faculty to staff. You may find your most important allies among the computer services staff. Many computer staff folks see themselves as true professionals with a professional responsibility to what's morally and legally right, not just what the boss thinks is expedient.
If you are in high school looking at colleges, please read their student code and computer rules before you decide. This will be part of your contract with the university. If you decide not to attend a school because of bad policies, tell them and tell the world.
Linux acceptability (Score:5, Interesting)
by dwbryson on 02-14-01 02:45 PM EST (#42)
Carl- I have fought a battle at my college over Linux being on the network. I told the UTS( Univeristy Technology Services ) that I was a big advocate of Linux and was starting up a Linux User Group on campus. But first I wanted their approval. They swiftly told me that, "You can absolutly not encourage the use of Linux on OUR network, and you should be lucky that we don't ban it on campus." I was completely uphauled by this, and so promptly turned around and tried to get as many people interested as I could in Linux. And eventually started my own LUG. Do they have a right to tell me what OS I can use on their network? They of course support windows, and allow Mac's, but flat out tell me I can't have linux on their network. Do you have any suggestions on what rights I as a user have?
Let me break this into two questions. First, can a university department ban clubs or speech because it doesn't like what they advocate? Generally not. At most schools, the student code protects freedom of speech. At public universities, student speech is also protected by the 1st amendment. To take one example, the U. of Illinois has student organizations ranging from the International Socialists to the College Republicans. Linux really shouldn't be a problem.
Second, can a University Technology Services group ban a program/OS from the Network? The difficulty is that while it might be legitimate to ban, say, a packet sniffer, it shouldn't be legitimate to stop Scientology students who want to filter their own Internet access on their own PC. How do we distinguish these cases? Legally, at state schools you could try to make a 1st amendment argument. You could also use freedom of information requests (if applicable) to see if a rule was made for legitimate reasons. These legal battles, however, would be expensive and uncertain.
More effective than a legal approach is a good policy approach. How is good policy made? By getting everyone (students, faculty, and staff) involved in making decisions. And, if that doesn't work, by protesting and publicizing bad decisions. Here is what the Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students says about students and policy making:
"As constituents of the academic community, students should be free, individually and collectively, to express their views on issues of institutional policy and on matters of general interest to the student body. The student body should have clearly defined means to participate in the formulation and application of institutional policy affecting academic and student affairs. The role of the student government and both its general and specific responsibilities should be made explicit, and the actions of the student government within the areas of its jurisdiction should be reviewed only through orderly and prescribed procedures."
Legal Recourse? (Score:5, Interesting)
by CU-Ballistic (rogersj@SPAMSUCKSclemson.edu) on 02-14-01 02:46 PM EST (#45)
I attend a rather well-known University in the South. Of course, they have the requisite "we own you and your data" policy. They state in very explicit terms that they have the right, at any time, to search and confiscate my computer, hard drives, and other media. They say that they also have the right to monitor network traffic, and disable any account which is exhibiting "unusual or excessive" activity. This all seems incredibly arbitrary to me, and worries me very much. My question to you is: Do I have any legal recourse? My main quarrel is that as a first-year student, I am forced to live on campus, and many classes require work to be submitted electronically. Since I am unable to "opt-out" of their heavy-handed policy, do I have any legal recourse if I were to encounter a search-and-seizure situation with the Administration here?
I think I found policy in question. It has both good points and bad points. The good is that it provides for due process via the university's regular channels. Also, it lays out proscribed behavior pretty clearly. Now, to the bad:
- It doesn't say how the policy was formulated and under what authority. Were students involved? Did the university senate give approval? Was there a committee? As far as we can tell from the policy itself, it could be the work of one person without any input from the university community.
- The policy contradicts itself on privacy. It tries to use magic words to make federal law and constitutional requirements disappear. It says: "Students have no expectation of privacy when utilizing university computing resources, even if the use is for personal purposes." The policy for staff says the same thing: "Employees have no expectation of privacy ..." but a few lines before that it correctly acknowledges that "[...] Federal and State statutes protect the privacy of much of the information available on University computer systems." As a general rules, a policy should not contradict itself. (I wonder if researchers are really prohibited from storing human subject and other sensitive data on these computers?) [Editorial note: Federal laws concerning research on human subjects requires that data about such studies be stored securely, with a number of explicit security requirements. If Clemson faculty have no expectation of privacy when using Clemson computers, Clemson is breaking those laws if it conducts any research on human subjects (which it does) and stores the data on Clemson machines.]
- Finally, the policy conflates invading-policy-because-of-an-emergency and
invading-it-to-gather-evidence-of-wrong-doing. Any public university and any
university that respects academic freedom should distinguish these cases.
Here is how the Joint
Statement puts it:
"Except under extreme emergency circumstances, premises occupied by students and the personal possessions of students should not be searched unless appropriate authorization has been obtained. For premises such as residence halls controlled by the institution, an appropriate and responsible authority should be designated to whom application should be made before a search is conducted. The application should specify the reasons for he search and the objects or information sought. The student should be present, if possible, during the search. For premises not controlled by the institution, the ordinary requirements for lawful search should be followed."
Finding Balance? (Score:5, Informative)
by PapaZit on 02-14-01 03:59 PM EST (#161)
Here's a shot from "the other side."
I work in Computing Services for a tech-oriented private university. Our usage policies aren't as bad as some, but they definitely give us broad priviledges. We've been through many, many proposed revisions that keep being killed by some combination of faculty, staff or lawyers. The basic problems:
There doesn't seem to be a concise legal way to say "Don't be an asshole and don't break the law," which is all we really want.
It's occasionally necessary for staff to look at private information for technical reasons (reconstructing mail spool after disk crashed, making sure the nifty new backup program actually worked, etc.). We have a huge infrastructure, and if we had to stop and check every time we might accidentally see something, we'd never get anything done unless we made our staff size much larger. We don't have the budget to do that.
Occasionally, the sysadmins will find something really bad during the course of routine work. "Spending a long time in federal prison" kind of bad. We try to keep these sort of events quiet to avoid publicity for the user in case it's not their fault (someone cracked their account, etc). We don't want our users on the evening news, but this'll happen with most "notify lots of people before doing anything" plans.
There are two opposing viewpoints that are both vocal in our community. One says "privacy over all" while the other says "learning and sharing over all". We have quite a few people who make their home directories publicly readable as a sort of protest against the "privacy freaks" (their words). Finding a policy that makes both happy is very difficult.
In light of these constraints (financial and social), how do we give more rights to our users without seriously impeding our ability to do our jobs?
First, I commend you for taking your professional responsibilities seriously. As you know, incidental and emergency exposure of information is a fact of life. Your computers likely contain everything from medical information, to love letters, to evidence of criminal activity. After much debate at the U. of Illinois, with input from all of campus, the University adopted a policy that says in part:
Other schools also respect the privacy of email and files. You can see examples here. For some general tips on making good policy, look here."Network and system administrators are expected to treat the contents of electronic files as private and confidential. Any inspection of electronic files, and any action based upon such inspection, will be governed by all applicable U. S. and Illinois laws and by University policies."
I am violating my school's policy by posting this. (Score:4, Interesting)
by SkyIce (dangelo(a)ntplx.net) on 02-14-01 03:47 PM EST (#144)
Take a look at my school's AUP at http://www.exeter.edu/publications/ebook/datavoice video.html . Some interesting quotes:
"No pseudonymous or anonymous messages may be sent. Students should be careful not to give out personal information over the Internet."
"Accessing the accounts and files of others is prohibited."
"Students may be held accountable for their actions while off-campus and thus for messages posted from off-campus accounts."
Academy network resources, including all telephone and data lines, are the property of the Academy. The Academy will, to the extent possible, respect privacy of all account holders on the network. However, the Academy is responsible for investigating possible violations of and enforcing all Academy rules governing the network. Academy network users should, therefore, keep in mind that the Academy reserves the right to access any information stored or transmitted over the network.
But nowhere in it does it mention the search of a personal computer. Somehow, last week, on mere suspicion, my and three other kids' computers were seized and held for a few days while the network administrator attempted to track down the source of network troubles. He ultimately failed, but in the process noticed that I was using a different IP address and hostname other than the one I had been assigned. The case was sent to the discipline committee under "Theft of IP address" and I am now on probation for eight weeks. My dorm room's port was activated "with restrictions" yesterday, and they now want me to e-mail them a list of every program I want to download so that they can verify it. Was this even legal? What can I do to stop something like this from happening in the future?
As a student in a private high school that likely doesn't take any government money, you have few legal protections. As long as they follow their own rules, they can do almost anything they want. Sorry.
Again, I strongly encourage you to read the student code and computer policies of any colleges you are looking at. You'll find critiques of several dozen policies Computers and Academic Freedom Policy Archive. (Hopefully, most of the bad policies in the archive have since been improved.)
Colleges vs Corporations (Score:3, Interesting)
by Chris Brewer (chrisbrewer@paradise.net.nzSPAMBEGONE(TM)) on 02-14-01 02:44 PM EST (#39)
In your opinion, is there any difference between what a student does on the campus network using college owned computers and an employee using the corporate network using the company's computers with regard to who owns the data?
In the U.S., there is a world of difference between employees and students. (I don't know about the law in New Zealand). The work employees do on company equipment generally belongs to the company. Moreover, at work Americans have little privacy protection. (The ACLU has a project on workplace civil liberties.)
Students, on the other hand, are customers of the university, not its agents or employees. Although your grandmother might store a document on AOL's computers, that does not give AOL ownership of the document's copyright. Likewise, while you might research a paper in the University library and store it on a University computer, they gain no ownership rights.
WPI's Acceptible Use Policy (Score:3, Interesting)
by Saint Nobody on 02-14-01 02:50 PM EST (#55)
Personally, i think that WPI has a pretty good AUP, (which is not to say i haven't had problems with netops regarding a few violations, only one of which i was actually responsible for.) it doesn't say that they can read our email personal files and other miscellany, and it requires us not to go poking around.
However, it doesn't say that they can't.
how do you feel about policies like that? It doesn't guarantee our privacy, but it doesn't infringe on it either. Is lack of a guarantee an implicit infringement?
The Joint Statement says that academic freedom "requires" policies that clearly define possible offenses and that are enforced though fair due-process procedures. As you point out, WPI, a private technical institute, leaves a lot unsaid in its computer policy especially about policy enforcement. Are such vague policies OK because we can trust the wisdom of the university staff to do what's right? As much as I respect the professionalism of many computer staff folks, we can't know that the good ones will always be there. To be safe, we must capture some wisdom in policy.
So, what could go wrong? Imagine this nightmare: The WPI computer organization decides to ignore the Institute's regular judicial system with its system of check and balances. The computer org decides to impose punishments on students itself. It guarantees no notice of charges, no hearing, and no appeal procedure.
How likely is this nightmare? IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED!
Read another WPI policy, the Residential AUP Policy. This policy reminds me of a line from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland: "No, no," said the Queen: "The sentence first -- the verdict afterwards." Except they don't even bother with the verdict.
Is it because of lawyers? (Score:3, Interesting)
by Wariac on 02-14-01 03:06 PM EST (#83)
Do you think that Schools do this in practice, or is this just a CYA (cover your ass) scenario in case a student does something stupid/illegal. It seems to me in this lawsuit-happy world full of sleazy lawyers that this could be the only way that Schools (or anyone) can avoid being sued into bankruptcy.
In a nutshell, Do the schools implement these policies on thier own accord, or are they usualy done at the request of thier insurer?
Because students are customers of a school and not employees/agents schools generally aren't responsible for their actions. So, if it's not insurers who ask for bad policies where to they come from? It often works like this:
- A student does something obnoxious, but not against any written rules.
- The student is investigated and punished.
- The department that punished the student creates very broad and very vague rules to justify, after the fact, the procedure and punishment already imposed. (For example, see the case of the NCSA.)
- The new policy is run by University legal counsel. Legal counsel checks that it doesn't make any promises or guarantees to students. Counsel doesn't think to check for consistency with other policies or Constitutional requirements.
- Some students, faculty, or staff members finally get to read the policy. Using email, web sites, netnews, newspaper stories, and sometimes even demonstrations on on the Quad/Green, they educate themselves and the University community about legal and academic standards. Everyone starts to see the problems in the first policy.
- A committee is formed of students, faculty, staff, and librarians. They work for a while and create a much better policy.
- The new policy is adopted by the University and replaces the old. (For example, the UIUC privacy policy that grew out of the NCSA policy.)
- Everyone lives happily ever after. (Until the next time a student does something obnoxious but not against any written rules.)
How do you handle bandwidth issues? (Score:2, Interesting)
by Shook (shook@iname.com) on 02-14-01 10:34 PM EST (#261)
I go to a fairly devout Christian U., that has very aggressive censor ware against sex, porn, illegal activities, but that isn't the focus of my question. Unlike many schools, my U. did nothing to block Napster use, and I always found this a little surprising.
When we came back from X-Mas break, Napster was blocked. People moaned and groaned, but it turns out it wasn't even our school's call (though they might have had a say in it) Our school gets its access from a state-wide government-run ISP for educational institutions, and the ISP decided to block Napster, Gnutella, and probably others.
Rather than copyright issues, they cited bandwidth problems. Although, I miss my Napster, I find this hard to argue with. (Theoretically) the network is for educaitonal purposes, and my average dorm-connection speed has doubled since Napster was blocked. But this could easily become a slippery slope, what is to keep them from blocking things like FTP, or Real Audio, both of which I have used for research, but can present bandwidth problems.
How would you suggest balancing to need to reserve bandwidth for serious school-related purposes, and still provide a useful Internet service?
Ten years ago, some schools thought it necessary to ban all games from their computers and networks. (Here is a critique of one such policy.) Now the computer game industry is as big as the movie industry. And, just as you can take film classes in college, so you can take computer game classes. This illustrates the wisdom of a tenet of academic freedom: no authority knows everything that will be important in the future. Therefore, every professor and every student should be free to examine and discuss all questions of interest to them. Schools should do their best to accommodate these explorations. Peer-to-peer systems could be the next big thing. It sounds like the students and professors in your state won't be part of it.
Could there ever be a legitimate reason to ban ALL recreational use of the network? Sure, just as I can imagine a college so resource-poor that it banned all recreational reading in the library, I can imagine a college so resource-poor that it banned all recreational network use. But I won't want to attend such a school.
But, how should needs be balanced when resources require it? I advocate following the model of librarians. They are experts at selecting books based on professional standards and respect for intellectual freedom.
In closing, let me list some resources and ask for some possible help:
- American Civil Liberties Union
- Electronic Frontier Foundation, civil liberties group which works to protect privacy, free expression, and access to new media sources.
- The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit educational foundation devoted to free speech, individual liberty, religious freedom, the rights of conscience, legal equality, due process, and academic freedom on our nation's campuses.
- Peacefire, a nonprofit organization representing the interests of people under 18 in the debate over freedom of speech on the Internet. Peacefire focuses mostly on censorware (Internet content filtering software) in libraries and schools.
- Student Press Law Center, a nonprofit organization provides legal advice to media students and educators on issues related to freedom of the press. Includes advice and news.
- American Association of University Professors, focuses on issues of academic freedom and tenure and campus governance by faculty. Details its programs and policies.
- American Library Association - Office for Intellectual Freedom
Finally, if you go to the Computers and Academic Freedom Archive, my web site, you'll notice it has not been updated for a while. With a job, a family, and new interests, I haven't given the site and issue the attention it deserves. I'd love to get ideas and/or proposals from folks on how to get the Computers and Academic Freedom Project restarted. Thanks.
Carl Kadie
kadie@eff.org
p.s. I'll be on vacation from the 4th to the 11th.
Re:Paranoia and threat-containment (Score:1)
Perhaps, but students have always been aggressive and rebellious. Since Universities were started, some 800 or so years ago, students have always tried to get around the rules. There are records of riots and lynches of not only other students, but also on faculty and the campus itself. I don't have a link, but Oxford was half torched in one incedent.
This is nothing new. And it won't stop. Not as long as Universities exist in the current format that they do. What people forget, is that the world isn't getting worse, it is just getting 'smaller' with faster means of travel and communication. These universities will lessen restrictions down the road when the next 'internet' comes along and 'threatens' the status quo.
Re:What does "school" mean in America? (Score:1)
Download madness. (Score:3)
Get everyone you know to send you a list of files/urls they want, and make you the download king. make sure these are all not well known, or are from secondary sources and archives. Make the list really long, and in random order. For example, program downloads not in archive format, but exploded in some directory someplace, and undocumented.
Then explain it as Research.
Re:This is crap (Score:1)
I still remember our teacher telling us that, and a fellow student in front of me slapping his forehead almost immediately. I don't think our network admins ever figured out what a firewall is for...
Re:In Loco Parentis (Score:2)
I'm often a little bemused when 19 year old Americans come over here (europe) and generally act like 14-year old kids having their first experiences with alcohol, but, unfortunately, without the presence of a responsible adult to teach them moderation.
In lots of europe, the norm is that children are introduced to wine and beer much earlier, having a glass with their sunday lunch and so on - that way they learn to handle their drink, and gain the most benefit from it, learning to have a drink to aid relaxed conversation, rather than to dribnk until they fall over and can't remember who they did last night...
Re:This is crap (Score:1)
Later they gave out RedHat CDs...Apparently they finally decided to give it a fair shot.
The really funny thing is that someone running Windows (the Linux CDs weren't a mandatory install) got hit by the "I Love You" virus, and it sent itself to several large mailing lists in his address book. <sarcasm>Convincing proof that Linux is a big security hole.</sarcasm>
________________________________________________
Dangerous to get too fancy with editorial notes (Score:1)
Well, not quite, actually. Clemson would be breaking those laws if it's demanding to have write access to the clinical data or actively circumventing the security and tampering with data. The leaps in logic you'd have to make here to break the law -- from "no expectation of privacy" to "university must be sniffing passwords" to "clinical computer systems therefore aren't secure" to "fraudulent data!" -- are pretty tenuous. Just saying there's no expectation of privacy doesn't equal a law violation here. Also, it's not likely that a lot of raw electronic data on human subjects actually is captured and stored on Clemson machines under the rules spelled out by the federal regulations, even if trials are being conducted there. Data being stored securely at a research site usually just means that the case report forms (paper) are kept in a locked cabinet by the principal investigators office. Electronic data in clinical trials is a huge world of pain, extremely expensive because you have to be compliant with 21 CFR Part 11 [fda.gov]. So usually the data, in the form of a lot of paper, is sent to either the big pharma companies or specialists called CROs (contract research organizations), to be made electronic and locked.
about Linux acceptability (Score:1)
--
Re:Abuse Creates Policies and Laws! (Score:3)
I will think again, for about three seconds. This is the amount of time it takes me to wish there was a way to catch all the bad guys without infringing rights. Then I'll go back to being glad that police search requires a warrant. The fact that an action can sometimes prevent violence or death is not sufficient justification for performing that action.
What does "school" mean in America? (Score:1)
Can someone explain all these terms flying around to me? I get the feeling that some of them mean different things in American and British English. Specifically these ones: University, College, School, High School, State School, Undergraduate University.
In the UK, "School" is a place that teaches people below 16/18, "University" is a place that can grant degrees (and teaches people mostly above 18), and "College" is less well-defined, but often a place that teaches over-16's but is not a University.
Thanks very much!
Re:WPI's Residential AUP (Score:1)
At no time did I hear about something the CCC had done to punish somebody and think that it was too extreme. I'll admit that this is only my viewpoint, and other people might disagree, but I was watching the functioning of the AUP from the point of view of someone who had to help enforce it and was also subject to its rules.
As an aside, I've never seen them use it, but the Network Operations (NetOps) group has received permission to directly punish students found trying to crack into the campus routers. The punishment, in this case, is immediate expulsion from WPI, with all of your transcripts withheld. Yes, NetOps can do this directly... I've never heard of them using this power even once, but they have been granted permission to do so by the WPI administration.
The CCC has taken very extreme measures in certain other instances, though. The ones I know of were related to offenses like online bank fraud, distributing child pornography, or things on that level.
For just about every other "mundane" problem, the students generally had their computer access turned off, and would have it reactivated after they went to the CCC to discuss it with the admins face to face. If you ignored their advice, you would generally lose your access for the rest of the year, but they wouldn't confiscate the machine or turn off your other accounts and access.
For day-to-day problems, the punishment was generally just an email warning the first few times, and then it was treated as a serious "mundane" problem as above if it kept happening.
Of course, the continued functioning of this system depends on how responsibly the CCC staff behaves. From my experience, they have always been willing to talk about why they're punishing you, and what you can do to remedy the situation without penalty. But what's to keep the staff from becoming BOFHs and laying the student population to waste?
The AUP doesn't mention it, but WPI's campus administration has a general appeals process. If a student feels unfairly punished by the sysadmins and can't solve it by talking to the CCC, they can go through that route. As much free run as the campus admins give the CCC, they have reigned them in on a few occassions.
So, to put it simply, the AUP sucks. It puts way too much power in the hands of the CCC admins, but they are (thankfully) all intelligent and well behaved people. But since the CCC has to report back to the campus administration, there is at least one (unstated) route for appealing the CCC's decisions.
Of course, you're not a "real" computer geek at WPI until you've received some kind of warning email from AEJ... :) (Hi, AEJ, if you're reading this!)
AUPs and admins (was Re:WPI's Residential AUP) (Score:1)
>I second that one. Tactful, he ain't.
I'll take the opportunity to also be non-tactful and say: Suck it down, boy. aej's been the head honcho of the Unix systems on campus for longer than most Slashdotters have been alive. He's been around long enough to have seen *all* the shit that students past and present have available to pull, and pulled no small amount of it himself back in his student days. He knows what you've done, 'cause you're not the first, and you damn well won't be the last. There's little, if any, place for tact in the face of that. Hell, the word I hear is that he's actually somewhat mellowed these days, compared to past decades.
I was a student at WPI for three years. Dropped out and got a job for a couple of years. Left that and started as a Unix sysadmin at WPI CCC at the beginning of this past August. The first time I ever met aej was for my job interview, 'cause I'd already been sufficiently informed of what an unholy terror it was to have to face aej for being naughty with the systems that I worked to keep out of his crosshairs. Even after working for the man for 7 months, I still fear him a bit occasionally.
Here are a few things that need to be considered, and thanks to gmonkey and Roxton for pointing some of this out already. The base AUP is sort of a reflection of the fact that this is not only academia, but an engineering/tech college to boot. Basically, we in the Unix admin group work to make sure that as many folks as possible are able to get their work and other studies done. We can typically be fairly accommodating, as long as you're not doing something that deprives other students of the ability to get their own stuff done and as long as you're not otherwise doing something stupid that drops a load of cops and/or lawyers on your (and possibly our) head.
Keep crashing the system, and we'll want to have a chat with you. Same if you're shelling out MP3z or Photoshop or something out of your Web server space. Do we actively scan for this shit? No, don't be silly. But if it's in the top 10 Web bandwidth usage for the day, or someone informs us of something, or whatever that it's brought to our notice, then we'll do something about it. Typically, we suspend the account, so the student has to come to us and discuss the issue before he/she gets it back. While I can't speak much to the Residential AUP and NetOps' vaunted and rumored unilateral ass-booting capabilities (no, I don't know if they have the uber-expel power someone else here mentioned), I can say that for the most part, we don't keep a student's account suspended once they've talked with us, unless it's something sufficiently egregious that it probably merits expulsion or the like anyway. But we can't just expel someone out of hand; we take them to Campus Hearing Board, which typically means it's not just an AUP violation, but most likely a violation of school policy, and probably breaking the law as well. NetOps' supposed power of expulsion is likely that they're extra-likely to go to the Board, and will be more likely to get their way.
But ultimately, there are appeals processes and checks to keep us from truly going over the BOFHly edge. If we attempted to go above that as Mr. Kadie raises the bogeyman of us doing, we would probably very quickly be some very unemployed sysadmins.
We have a lot more to deal with in our day than cleaning up after naughty students, faculty, and staff on our systems and networks, or to snoop on their activities. We work to bring up other services, and to keep the ones in place running and up to date. Our AUP, as currently written, is meant to show that we trust the WPI community to at least some degree to be reasonable about what they do, and not to set down too much about what is and is not OK, 'cause you can never catch all of that, especially in a community that can itself devise the most interesting things on its own, and it's better to take each thing as it comes and handle it accordingly. It's an attempt to balance freedom with keeping things reasonable.
We're not going to turn into crazed account-deleting maniacs. The other possibility for a change in how the CCC cracks down on the populace would involve a complete change in who's here, and in that case, you've bigger problems, like losing a man with decades of experience. A more solid policy means squat, as with reasonable personnel involved in utilizing it, it's not needed, and with unreasonable personnel, they'll ignore it until they get fired for it. The AUP does not require aej or any of us to be tactful in telling you to stop IRCing from the dialups or whatever, and I don't see that they ever should.
Chris "Slarti" Pinard
UNIX Systems Administrator, WPI CCC
--
Chris Pinard: Just zis guy, ya know?
Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?
Sys admins can terminate your education?? (Score:2)
I know there are plenty of smart and morally upstanding citizens who work as sysadmins, but I have also seen a scary percentage of assholes and morons in that profession.
That these people can terminate peoples education at will is truly scary. That the WPI students posting here choose to do so as Anonymous Cowards in not surprising at all.
one of the BEST writings I have yet to read (Score:1)
I have to make a statement, and i hope I don't insult anybody.
I think that most students have little or no access to lawyers, I think that's a shame. I can truely tell you that I've been dealing with lawyers on a regular basis since I was 14. If it was not for them, I would not have been as successful as I am now.
Lawyers are your employees. They know how to handle contracts, review argeements and everything else. Your best lawyer is the person that will sit with you and interview you to make sure that your getting everything that you want.
As an employer, I find that my best canadates to invest in are the ones that read my contracts and request a legal review prior to signing ( maybe because I open minded ), I understand that their are employers that don't like that but In your heart, do you realy want to work for a guy that say's sign this, don't debate this/ just do it?
Also lawyers are not as bad as you think and will be in the future, be your best freind.
ONEPOINT
spambait e-mail
my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop news
please help me make it better
Re:Laissez-Faire under Benevolent Dictatorship (Score:1)
You'd better be referring to Crossfire [wpi.edu], and I use the same nick in relation to that as I do on /., but without the underscores...
If you aren't referring to Crossfire, you should be!
I should probably point out that I've never run into problems with the CCC (and I'd like to keep it that way) but I still don't like the power that they've taken for themselves in that AUP. It's overly broad.
Re:Uphauled? (Score:3)
Right, you were just mizzen the point.
--
Re:What does "school" mean in America? (Score:1)
here, high school is the same as the states... ages 13-17, approximately. some people also call it secondary school (earlier years being taught at elementary/primary school)
universities are degree-granting institutions (i.e. bachelors, masters, Ph.D.)
as far as I know (I don't speak for everyone...), most people in canada think of colleges as non-degree granting post-secondary institutions. I think they're typically called community colleges in the states. people usually go there to learn a trade (i.e. electrician, millwright, welder, etc.) or skill of some kind (network admin, dental assistant, firefighter).
-school is just a general term for anywhere people go to be educated
Most likely *not* from Ohio State (Score:2)
I worked for Ohio State's Resnet for a year, and Linux was on the supported list, and we actually had some student tech support that was versed in the various alternative operating systems (Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS, etc).
Additionally, OSU had an Open Source club when I left, so a LUG wouldn't have been unacceptable by any means.
Re:What does "school" mean in America? (Score:1)
This always sound funny to British English speakers, as we use school for what you do between 5/6 and 16.
Of course its better than several other terms such as "fanny" and "rubber" which are open confusion and general hilarity on both sides of the pond.
As they say two countries divided by a common language.
Phil
don't steal (Score:2)
Somehow, last week, on mere suspicion, my and three other kids' computers were seized and held for a few days while the network administrator attempted to track down the source of network troubles. He ultimately failed, but in the process noticed that I was using a different IP address and hostname other than the one I had been assigned. The case was sent to the discipline committee under "Theft of IP address" and I am now on probation for eight weeks.
Don't steal IP addresses. That may very well have been the cause of the network troubles. If you had a legitimate educational purpose for additional IP address, I'm sure you could have gotten them. Probably not directly from your network administrator, but through one of your professors, under a research project. Welcome to adulthood. You are now in control of your life, and if you don't like the policies, you have three choices: find another school, follow the rules, or break the rules and potentially face the consequences.
As for them taking your computer without a search warrant, one of two things happened. They broke the law, and you should sue them, or you signed an agreement you shouldn't have. Again, you should consider the agreements you're forced to sign when you come to a school. If this is something that's important to you, don't go there.
Laissez-Faire under Benevolent Dictatorship (Score:1)
I am actually a student at WPI doing one of my three major academic projects, the IQP [wpi.edu], as a study of network use policy in competitive-level engineering and liberal arts schools.
After interviewing the senior system administrators at WPI, I have come to the conclusion that WPI operates as a laissez-faire environment emulated under a benevolent dictatorship. If memory serves, the network administrator used to work under a similar position under a defense contract firm, and has systems in place that could easily enable the staff to lock down practically every action that occurs on the WPI network.
But even though locking the network down could make his life a lot easier, he doesn't. He usually only puts his foot down in the path of anything that directly impedes academic activity. In the vast majority of cases, this means excessive bandwidth consumption. That, in it of itself, is good policy.
The problem is that this good system sits entirely on top of the staff's good will. Under the present AUP [wpi.edu], the staff could radically change the system environment without violating a single rule, and as far as I can tell, the WPI administrative faculty wouldn't give a damn.
Still, you're going to find an interesting dichotomy among these schools. While my team is still researching this premise, it seems a very clear possibility that those schools with the heavier-handed policies offer their students the most protections. If some third party company or individual comes to WPI complaining about activity, even illegal activity from the campus network, the sysadmin staff will not reveal the perpetrator's information unless presented with a subpoena. When sent threatening correspondence from the RIAA, WPI hardly flinched.
A more liberal school which allows virtually any activity, claiming, for all intents and purposes, a common carrier status may be far more likely to reveal information to third parties, making the student directly responsible for any activity.
I'm not one to say which is better. I know I feel very comfortable using WPI's top-notch network [wpi.edu]. Where else can a club make money using WPI resources to host an FPS shooter tournament[If you're in the Boston or Greater Worcester area, drop me an e-mail for details]?
-Adam "Roxton" Augusta
Lord Captain of the Queen's Armies
Re:WPI's Residential AUP [Somewhat OT] (Score:1)
Re:Sys admins can terminate your education?? (Score:2)
What it sounded like was that the Director of Network Operations can act like judge, jury and executioner on any trumped up charge against someone he's taken a dislike to. Maybe the student did try to destroy the campus. Or maybe the Director doesn't like how he looks at his girlfriend. We'll never know.
The original post pointed out, probably correctly, that the current crop of admins are using their powers in a sensible and decent way. But those people will get replaced or may change their behaviour, drunk by the power over students lives vested in them.
Paranoia and threat-containment (Score:2)
While this is perhaps true, I do not think it tells the whole story regarding the ways school interest over students has changed.
In 1904, no one was concerned about a student walking into class one day and gunning down a dozen of his fellow students. Neither was anyone concerned about being held legally labial for a student's actions by a litigation-happy society.
Admittedly, violence among students has not increased substantially, but the perception of violence has. Because of this, students are seen as a potential threat that must be dealt with. This intuition directly conflicts with one that states students should have freedom and rights just as any other citizen. This conflict is what lies behind much of the confusion and arbitrariness of school regulations.
Further, organizations, and indeed that administrators of organizations themselves, must constantly worry about being held liable for the actions of people under their supervision. Many school administrators lack the courage and fiber to stand up to these threats, and instead find it easier to implement strict regulations to relieve themselves of legal responsibility.
Neither of these trends are irreversible, though. Education and sober consideration will reveal the relative safety of today's classroom. In addition, greater control and restraints by the courts would cut back much of the fear and paranoia toward litigation. While neither may presently look optimistic, the future is unclear.
Re:This is crap (Score:2)
Well, it's always good to hear that the people don't pay for the government. So, when did they stop paying taxes in America?
Re:This is crap (Score:1)
Regarding who owns the network, the postal system owns the postal network, do they read my mail or open my parcels (unless their ticking) ? Just a thought.
Re:This is crap (Score:2)
Public funding is a two-edged sword.
That's the longest list (Score:1)
I'm surprised it didn't cause a buffer overrun or something
Don Negro
Re:In Loco Parentis (Score:2)
"We got notebooks, what good are notebooks, they won't help me survive."
Ha! Good point. That's why I know how to shoot and fix a truck. I like to prepare for multiple contingencies. Just in case it gets crazy Road Warrior-style.
But think about it the other way... what good are bombs if there's nanotech that will tear your attack apart in mid-air? Interesting times we live in, no telling what the future might hold.
-carl (unfrozen caveman anarcho-syndicalist)
Re:WPI's Residential AUP (Score:2)
1904 (Score:1)
WPI's Residential AUP (Score:4)
Examples of each level of offense are given. Certainly, this list cannot completely list all violations; it can only show the areas into which violations might fall and attempts to offer guidelines about which action might fit into the area. CCC is the arbiter of the severity of the violation.
...
Minor offense:
...
Storage of copyright materials, only if it appears to have been possible that someone else might have stored the materials on the system (e.g. due to careless security of the system).
...
Major offense:
...
Storage of copyright materials, where it appears that the individual stored the material by their own hand. The materials might not have been absolutely known to have been copyright violations.
...
Termination offense:
...
Storage of copyright materials, where it appears that the individual stored the material by their own hand, where the copyright was obvious. Software packages are obvious violations, since anyone who ever saw a software distribution would be aware that the materials were not to be distributed.
...
Pictures or sounds would only fall under major offenses, since they are not usually so definitively labeled. If we can determine that the picture came from a magazine or the sounds came from a CD, that would be a termination offense, since those media would be labelled as copyrighted sources.
The result will be termination of connectivity; note that networking fees are not refundable. An application for connectivity will not be accepted within a calendar year of the termination.
You are not allowed to exercise fair use rights to copyrighted material, exercising these rights is a termination offense! If you rip a CD that you own willfully to your own computer you are violating the WPI terms! Notice it never says the files have to be publically accessable, just that the files are stored on your computer! It also never states that you may store copyrighted files that you are legally entitled to - any copyrighted file counts!
Storing copyrighted files period is a major offense?!? Damnit, I suppose I'll have to delete my Windows install, my Linux install, my Office install, my Netscape install, ... all copyrighted, all legally installed! Not to mention the many .c and .pl files that I've written that are Copyrighted - by me. In fact, if any copyrighted file shows up on your machine, you can be disconnected - for the entire year - without hope of arbitration, and without getting the $250/$500 (10Mb/s or 100Mb/s connection) fee back. This would seem to give them way over-reaching power to disconnect anyone, since most systems don't like running without the copyrighted BIOS software... (Since it never specifies persistant storage, it would appear playing a DVD or a CD via computer also counts!)
If that weren't enough, the prefix says that this list does not list all violation! Not only that, but they are sole judge and jury as to the severity of the offense. I better not piss off anyone in the CCC!
What's even more annoying is that the residential policy is not mentioned on the network signup form or any of the ResNet pages [wpi.edu]!
Re:What does "school" mean in America? (Score:1)
High School- Teaches 9th through 12 grades, ages approximately 14-18.
University- usually a 4 (or more) year institution offering both undergraduate and graduate degrees (bachelors, masters, and doctorate).
College- usually the same as a University, but there can be Junior Colleges, which offer 2 year associate's degrees.
School- A general term meaning any of the above.
State School- a state-funded university or college, as opposed to a privately-funded one.
Hope this helps.
Uphauled? (Score:1)
I was completely uphauled by this, and so promptly turned around and tried to get as many people interested as I could in Linux.
I guess I've been reading too many Aubrey/Maturin [io.com] novels lately but I pondered that for a couple of minutes before realizing it wasn't meant to be a nautical metaphor...
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Re:Abuse Creates Policies and Laws! (Score:2)
then we let them make random and unanounced searches of our homes.
trust me you will thank god when they catch that maniac living next door who is planning to make a derogitory speech about the government.
trust me.
----------
Re:Ownership of Programs submitted for a class? (Score:1)
If you submitted the code without protest then you have lost it. Now if your willing to stick you neck out a bit. Submit you code UNDER protest of xyz policy and copyright your work. if you realy want to stick out your neck then have your teacher sign a reciept for it, with the outlines above. If your teacher refuses reciept then you might have the "right" to bring up a formal school hearing on the subject.
Again I will state "it all depend on how far your willing to fight for what your going to believe in".
NEVER give up your right to be listen to, you just might change the viewpoints. I would like to think that your right to be listen to, is part of the USA foundation.
GIVE THEM HELL and then give them one for me also.
ONEPOINT
spambait e-mail
my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop news
please help me make it better
A different universe (Score:1)
Or perhaps these people are citing situations where the student is using university *property*, such as university dormitories and university networks. This would be a vastly different scenario. If you want to do whatever you want, then move off campus and get your own internet connection.
Re:A different universe (Score:1)
Re:Paranoia and threat-containment (Score:1)
Re:Abuse Creates Policies and Laws! (Score:1)
Selfishness? (Score:1)
What is the EFF again? What do they do? What are they doing today?
I find is a bit strange that, given this opportunity to question this fellow (whoever he is) that the /. community chose to use the opertunity as a free legal consultation. It seems mightily selfish.
Thank you, Mr. Kadie, for your efforts and your time.
Re:In Loco Parentis (Score:2)
The sole good theing about in loco parentis is that it tends to insulate students from legal and binding repercussions. In Texas I am informed that being convicted of posessing alcohol while underage will prevent a legal career. By comparison a university sentence is a mere slap on the wrist.
Of course, it would be better to get rid of stupid laws, as well as to show some more intelligence. But that will enver happen, not in this society.
Re:i hear a foghorn... (Score:1)
Re:A different universe (Score:1)
In Loco Parentis (Score:4)
In Loco Parentis - the University/College sees itself as the local guardian of the student, physically, spiritually, and intellectually. While certainly outdated, this still holds true in an alarming number of academic institutions.
Once you're in grad school, the line blurs a little, but as long as this stance is maintained by institutions there will be no freedom.
People have been fighting this battle for years, fromt he Port Huron Statement to the Free Speech Movement to the teach-ins in the 60s. They made inroads, but basically makes their money from keeping students out of trouble and off the job markets for four or five years. The paternalistic attitude is not shocking.
-carl
Re:This is crap (Score:2)
State owned schools are paid for by the people. So the people of the state own the school. If you're going to that school you're a resident and have a say as a resident what goes on with the school.
--
Re:In Loco Parentis (Score:1)
"We got notebooks, what good are notebooks, they won't help me survive."
In otherwords, all this schooling and student rights don't mean anything when you got bombs flying at you...
--
Abuse Creates Policies and Laws! (Score:1)
Laws and policies have to be lowest common denominator to cover everyone. You may think it is infringing on your rights to be able to read email and search rooms, but when the guy with 20 tons of fertilizer is arrested next door, you will think again. When the girl next door is arrested because she sent email to her friends saying how they are going to kill you because you are (insert difference here), that's when laws and policies are good. I don't need a law against murder, rape or theft, but somewhere, someone does and I'll give up some of my rights for the security that laws/policies give me.
The fact is that you choose where you go to school, where you work and what your life is going to be. So don't spend your life complaining that your 1 out of countless schools is not letting you share your collection of Gummi Bear [newgumbrea.com] episodes.
=-=-=-=-=
Re:In Loco Parentis (Score:1)
Ownership of Programs submitted for a class? (Score:1)
My university (years ago I was there) had a policy that any project submitted became the property of the University AND the Rights to the code came with it.
I wrote a really nice program that has been requested to be posted elsewhere during that time. It was my understanding that I no longer had ownership of that.
Is this still legal?
Re:In Loco Parentis (Score:1)
The notion that it's dangerous to be away from your parents for the first time applies equally to moving away from home under any scenario, not just going away to college.