Beware The Campus Police

geisler writes: "According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, a professor at Virginia Tech had her computer seized so that university police could try to track down someone who emailed her. She was denied the chance to backup before the computer was taken, and there seems to be some differences in stories between her and the authorities."

Comments

Beware campus police

[rjamestaylor]

You have no idea. In the mid 80's I attended University of North Texas and enjoyed the BBS one of our esteemed student VAX system admins hacked up (very nice, actually). We allowed anyone to access the system but with their real names, or some close approximation. One freshman was, well, a real butthole - a troll in modern parlance. He was banned from the BBS eventually but would still enter the BBS via fake names (a TOS violation, you might say).

Think Signal 11 towards the end...

Anyway, this guy was a pest and one night, as the sys admins and I were chatting via talk, he logged into the VAX and then the BBS as, I'll never forget this, "Carl Marks". So, he's not well read, either. We decided to tell him to cut it out once and for all. Looking at the port he logged into we traced his incoming session to an on-campus extension (if only he had come from outside the campus network by dialing out to one of the external phone numbers for community use, we never could have identified him) and dialed his room number -- busy. We got him.

What to do? We called the residence hall manager and asked if so-and-so roomed in the room we traced the call to. Sure enough, it was our little troll. We then asked the manager to tell the student to stop using the campus system under an assumed name.

The main sys admin, knowing the manager was on his way up to the room, initiated a talk session with "Carl Marks" and told him the gig was up, we knew who he was and where he roomed, and we were having the authorities come and shut him down. Carl didn't believe us. He talked trash to the sys admin (I can't recall his name) -- this was before "suxors" talk -- and said, "Ha ha, find me."

Here's where things went awry. The residence hall manager, not understanding what we were talking about, decided we were reporting someone hacking into the schools computers. He called the campus police. They came with guns drawn.

The type-fest continnued. "Carl" said, where are you? Taunting us for saying someone was on the way. Basically, the cops were clearing the floor in case of gun fire and were thusly delayed. Suddenly, "Carl" said, "Shit. Someone's at the door. They say they're the police." Sure enough, the campus police, with guns drawn, were banging on the door. When the manager opened the door, they shouted, "Put your hands up and step away fromthe computer." The kid peed in his pants.

After a few minutes "Carl's" talk session started again: "Thank you we have apprehended the suspect" - typed by one of the officers. The manager called the main sys admin and filled in the details above. The kid was arrested and brought to the station. His computer was confiscated. Eventually, Carl dropped out of UNT do to the stress caused by this event.

Our intention was to scare him, but not with the campus police. We explained that he wasn't hacking, but merely using the system's services inappropriately after ample warning. The Dean of Students talked with him - I don't know how that went. The manager went overboard, and the police overreacted.

But we had one heck of a good laugh.

Differnt perspective

[The Donald]

At my college, computer policy is defined a little more cut and dry. Pretty much anything on the unviersity systems has to be logged for the Freedom of Information Act, as we are a state (run by the state of Connecticut) school. Because the school, and hence the network, is owned by the state; pretty much everything that is owned by the state may be logged for FOI requests.

It pretty much lays down the law: that the college can pretty much read anything that is on their computer, or their servers. Since I think that VT is public (owned by Virginia), they have to follow the same general ideas with their guidelines.

Since they were forced to comply with FOI, the professor had no real expectation of privacy, as she knew that someone may eventually read her files, or anything on the server, at any time to comply with Freedom of Information requests.

Now, if this is a private college, we have something else on our hands.

Reply to Almost Every Comment

[bmasel]

VA Tech is a State School. Unlike the security department of a private employer, it's Police are State actors. As such, they are indeed constrained by the 4th Amendment, and any parallel language in the State Constitution.

Justice Scalia, in Krillo, the heat imaging case a year ago, still cites Katz (any relation?) favorably "As Justice Harlans oft-quoted concurrence described it, a Fourth Amendment search occurs when the government violates a subjective expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable."

Widely accepted professional doctrines of Acedemic Freedom, as benchmarks of social expectations, can thus trump the University's Acceptable Use Policies.