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Universities Creating Computer Discipline Offices
geisler writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education has a very good article on how larger colleges are beginning to create departments to deal with the social issues related to computer problems and not depending solely on technical solutions. The University of Maryland's Project NEThics is used as a prime example."
YOU SMELL!!
Like a barrel of rotting fruit!
Maybe they should start with the government monitoring of emails and surfing patterns.
However, even I am glad at this development. For too long, anti-social computer users have been using their meager skills to act in a condescending fashion to the more legitimate disciplines such as sociology, art history and communications.
Hopefully these departments will put some much-needed brakes on wild proliferation of dangerous computer science tricks employed by vandals.
A few years ago I was in the UMD dorms and after numerous violations of the network AUP I finally got a call one morning before going to class. It was Mr. So-and-so with the Nethics department. He told me there were some violations and asked if I knew what he was talking about. (Of course I did, what? was I just gonna confess? Idiot.) He then suggested that I come over to the computer and space sciences building for a 'chat.' Meanwhile at the CSC building I entered the Nethics office and was greeted by Mr. So-and-so, and he began his Gestapo interview of me. It came down to the fact that I had egregiously broke their rules, and I knew it, and he knew it, but he had no real proof (I firewalled almost everything, including all of the UMD space) with the exception of an email written by a barely literate teenager Narc'ing on me. Needless to say, I walked out unscathed. They are just a bunch of James Bond wanna-be jokers.
"social issues related to computer problems"
They're going to get hammered by everyone here complaining that they can't get a date.
Best Windows Freeware
since the government controls the money, and money is the foundation and driving means of business, how is the government suppose to stay out of business?
As soon as a company becomes a governing body then it's time for change. Microsoft has become too much of a governing body in the computer industry. Now YOU may be interested in Microsoft dictating the computer industry, but not me and not anyone who has a clue. Microsoft isn't trying to be innovative. They are just trying to augment Microsoft. How could you possibly, IF YOU HAVE ANY FREAKING MENTAL RECOGNITION OF LOGIC AT ALL, want a company who is working 100% for their own good, dictating an industry and subverting governmental control? I just do - not - understand you people. Now if microsoft loved me as a person instead of loving my money, and were trying to help the industry instead of helping themselves, then I too may possibly be against a break up.
Now on to HELPING MORONS GET A CLUE about monopoly. When do you stop a monopoly? Do you wait until they own all the oil companies, phone companies, and arms companies, and THEN split them up? Do yo know what stops a company from accomplishing this? "Governmental interference" as returnofthe_troll refers to it. Do you not have a clue why a company like AOL Time Warner has to petition to merge? For one, why should they merge? It will only make their product worse.
so anyhow, I'm going to back to work.
try to get a clue thanks
This is my sig. The post is over.
homo!!!!
When the NEThics office gets a tip that a computer-savvy student has been doing something he or she shouldn't -- like hacking into a company's computer system, or downloading MP3s illegally, or using computer-lab machines to look at pornography -- the staff steps in to deliver stern warnings or, in the worst cases, contacts the police.
They're going to be a very busy department. How many people do you know that don't have illegal mp3's on their machine?
[student]
"Uh, ya, so'n'so, who i hate, has illegal mp3s on their computer."
[NEThics office]
"O.K., we'll get right on it."
[news]
"in the news today, 3000 students were disciplined or expelled from University of Maryland at College Park for being 'computer savvy' and having mp3's on their computers."
There goes all the CS students...
-Tolerate my intolerance
The Riaa like the program because they crack down on copyright infringers. If i got a speech from a lady in my old unversitys Net ethics dept about copyright infringment and how its wrong and it hurts me. It would really effect me.
Next time i have to be more sneeky when I download MP3s and WareZ
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
A female student at the University of Maryland at College Park has been getting unsettling,
unwelcome e-mail messages from an anonymous admirer for the past two years.
Alright, which one of you geeks has been harrasing this poor Girl!
Doesn't this seem silly. Why, here we've got the College of Business, the law college, and by golly, here it is, the "Office of Computer Discipline" What are they going to do, make them sit quiet and watch power point slides for the time allotted for their offense?
"Gnutella! Thats a 2 hour violaton in the Computer detention area."
"Counterstrike on university computers? 4 hours."
I'd really like to see an expanded version of this type of idea. It would be patterned like the ethics group formed for the Human Genome project and would explore what is and isn't ethical to use a computer for. Hopefully it would prevent some of the worst Phillip K. Dick futures from coming to fruition.
Tending the Net
Computer-discipline offices offer a human touch when investigating student complaints
By SCOTT CARLSON
College Park, Md.
A female student at the University of Maryland at College Park has been getting unsettling, unwelcome e-mail messages from an anonymous admirer for the past two years. He had been sending these messages to her Hotmail account, but just recently he sent his first note to her student account. That was the last straw.
A few weeks ago, the student went to see Kara Reuter, who deals with a variety of online problems for the university -- problems like theft, threats, deceptions, and obsessions. "This person seems to think that he has a relationship with her," Ms. Reuter says, adding that she tracked his e-mail messages -- she calls them "creepy" -- to a computer lab on campus. Right away, Ms. Reuter met with the student to tell her where the e-mail messages were coming from, where she could go for counseling or protection, and that she might consider talking to the student judiciary or the police.
It's just another day at work for the folks at the university's Project NEThics program, which handles crimes and near-crimes, human errors, dramas, and assorted foibles on an increasingly Internet-connected campus. When the NEThics office gets a tip that a computer-savvy student has been doing something he or she shouldn't -- like hacking into a company's computer system, or downloading MP3s illegally, or using computer-lab machines to look at pornography -- the staff steps in to deliver stern warnings or, in the worst cases, contacts the police. When students get an online threat, discover that their computers have been hacked, find that they have unwelcome online admirers, or have a problem with another computer user, the NEThics staff is there to offer advice and guidance. It's Miss Manners meets Sam Spade -- but in front of a computer monitor.
Over the past few years, offices like the one at College Park have been established at a handful of colleges, generally larger institutions, such as Northeastern University and the State University of New York at Buffalo. Although the so-called computer-discipline offices vary in name, procedures, and number of employees, their missions are similar. They provide a central office through which the institution can dispense clear and consistent information about computer-use policies on campus. Perhaps more importantly, they provide students and others with empathetic contacts within the institutions' technology offices -- people better trained to deal with human issues than technical ones.
"There are a lot of institutions that don't have these offices, and frankly, they have the mistaken notion that they don't have a need for it," says Harvey S. Axlerod, the computer-discipline officer at SUNY-Buffalo. "Once you get someone in place, you'll see that there is a lot of nonsense going on -- everything from copyright violations to harassment to hacking."
Mr. Axlerod's position evolved from a part-time duty to a full-time job over three years. "The more seriously I pursued it, the better known it became that there was a place to go" when students had problems online. He has lectured MP3 pirates and helped settle heated online disputes. In one of his more memorable cases, he dealt with a 30-year-old student who was sending obscene e-mail messages to a 14-year-old in Arkansas. Mr. Axlerod called the police, and the student ended up in jail.
"Computer discipline is like a box of chocolates," he says wryly. "You never know what you're going to get."
The Human Side
Mr. Axlerod says those who deal with computers and students need to consider the humans who use the computers, rather than just the computers themselves. Not long ago, he says, he got a call from a female student who wanted to know how to block certain addresses from sending messages to her e-mail account. A typical help-desk employee might have given her the blocking procedure and gotten off the phone, Mr. Axlerod says. But he asked her a few questions about the situation and found that a cyberstalker had been sending her messages. He sent her to a university group that helps people deal with stalkers.
Simply telling her how to block the messages would have been "a classic example of the technical solution being the wrong solution," he says. "If you block the messages, you can't assess risk."
Campus-computing offices should do more than tell students how to configure their e-mail, he says. They should also offer counseling and guidance about interactions in the new media. "Anywhere you have humans," he says, "you have complications, disputes, ignorance, and amorality, and you have to deal with that."
Among computer-discipline programs, the University of Maryland's NEThics office was one of the first -- and is still one of the best known. Now six years old, it was formed in part by Rodney J. Petersen, Maryland's director of technology policy and planning, in response to an increasing number of problems on and complaints about the network.
Mr. Petersen is the director of the program, but because he has many other responsibilities he leaves day-to-day operations in the hands of his assistant, Amy Ginther, who worked for years with the campus judicial system. She works part time, both managing the NEThics program and planning occasional educational events.
The grunt work -- the unenviable task of calling students to scold them -- falls to two part-time graduate-student assistants. This year, they are Ms. Reuter and Elizabeth Walker, who are both seeking master's degrees from the university's library- and information-studies program. Ms. Walker has a background working as a computer-systems analyst, and Ms. Reuter studies electronic media.
But that much computer expertise isn't essential: Ms. Ginther says that she and Mr. Petersen hire assistants based more on their skills in dealing with people than on their technical skills. Assistants in the past have come from the student-affairs program with little computer knowledge; a candidate for next year comes from the psychology program.
"We draw from more counseling-oriented programs," Ms. Ginther says. For help with heavily technical matters, the NEThics office consults members of the network-security staff, who work down the hall.
'Good Cop-Bad Cop'
The NEThics staff members operate primarily on the basis of complaints -- unlike their network-security colleagues, who monitor the university network for anomalous activity that might indicate a hacker attack or excessive downloading. (They say they never monitor the content of the traffic.) When unusual activity is reported to the NEThics office, it investigates.
At its regular Monday-morning meeting, the NEThics staff discusses recent and emerging cases, along with the university's network policies, which NEThics has a hand in forming. The rest of the week is spent on the phones and computers, processing cases. The staff members handle a range of complaints, such as e-mail spam and cyberstalking, and act as advocates, educators, and authority figures.
The NEThics staff also works with the university police department every week, teaching officers how to interpret technical information. "We have a few self-proclaimed computer experts here," says Maj. Paul Dillon, the university's police-services commander, "but they don't have the knowledge that the NEThics staff has." Lately, he has seen more campus crimes occurring online, and he says that he is glad to have the NEThics office's guidance.
But the majority of the cases that come to the NEThics office involve students who need an education in Internet etiquette or copyright law, and those cases never reach the police or the campus judicial system. Face-to-face contact is important, Ms. Walker and Ms. Reuter say, adding that they take a "good cop-bad cop" approach to the job. Ms. Walker, who will soon be a grandmother, calls offending students and harangues them with lectures she says she practiced during motherhood. "I like to strike the fear of God in them," she says. She once gave a student such an earful in a copyright case that he repeatedly called back to detail the various files that he was deleting on his hard drive.
Ms. Reuter takes a more laid-back approach, which can be just as effective, she says. In cases of copyright infringement, she talks about the moral and legal issues surrounding file sharing, sometimes leaving it up to the student to figure out what to do. She tells them that most students get caught when they distribute files, and not when they simply download them, then concludes by adding: "You know it's illegal, and you have to choose whether you want to be involved in that activity. Someday you might get caught, and you have to decide whether it's worth the risk."
This easygoing method doesn't seem to bother copyright holders like the record industry. "We think that centralized Internet-ethics offices, like those at the University of Maryland and other colleges, are a positive development," says Jonathan Lamy, a spokes-man at the Recording Industry Association of America. "Anything that colleges and universities can do to educate their students about the values of copyrights and address infringing conduct is definitely encouraged."
Sometimes NEThics scares students off trouble before it starts. Recently, someone off-campus wrote to NEThics to say that a computer on campus, which belonged to a student, was being used in attempts to hack into his computer system. Ms. Reuter checked with the security staff and found that the computer was displaying unusual activity, which might indicate that the student who owned it was trying to hack into other computers, but neither NEThics nor the security staff was certain. Ms. Reuter says she called the student who owned the computer and took an indirect approach: Isn't this strange? she said. We've noticed all this activity coming from your computer, so what do you suppose that's all about?
The student feigned ignorance, she recalls, but the unusual activity then stopped.
A file is created for every case, and NEThics staff members check the files to see if an accused student has been called in more than once. The university's computer policy says that punishments can be more severe for repeat offenders. The NEThics staff doesn't dole out punishments, instead passing information on to campus judicial authorities or the police.
On average, the NEThics staff receives about 50 complaints a day, but not all of them merit investigation -- some complaints are inaccurate or better suited for the computer help desk. So far this year, the office has handled about 250 cases, about half of which were allegations of excessive downloading (which could slow the campus network for other users, and could mean students are violating copyright law) or of sending out mass, unsolicited e-mail messages. Other common violations include using the university network for business reasons or hacking into other accounts.
The job is Sisyphean, with more complaints and new students rolling in every day. Ms. Ginther says the office is just beginning to put together some standards to measure the success and value of the NEThics program, which costs about $50,000 a year in part-time salaries.
For now, success is measured anecdotally. Before NEThics, if students received threatening e-mail messages and called the university's computer help desk, "they were told to turn their computer off -- just delete the mail, don't worry about it, and it'll go away," Ms. Ginther says.
Other Paths to Discipline
Not many institutions -- and especially not many of those smaller than the University of Maryland or SUNY-Buffalo -- have set up formal computer-discipline offices. At the University of California at Santa Cruz, one staff member handles all of the cases of copyright violations and bandwidth consumption, and leaves other infractions to administrators in residential offices.
At Lehigh University, the technical-staff members pass most egregious network violations to the office of the dean of student affairs and the student judiciary. Christopher J. Mulvihill, an assistant dean of student affairs, handles technology-related issues along with other student-related infractions, like drinking in the dorms and cheating. If Lehigh were a larger campus, he says, administrators might consider creating a centralized office for computer discipline. But as it stands, "things move pretty swiftly," Mr. Mulvihill says. "My office has a good relationship both with the university police and our information-resources people, so it's not like there's a lot of bog-down."
At Reed College, complaints about students misbehaving on the network are few and far between, so there's little need for an independent office to handle discipline, says Marianne Colgrove, the college's associate director of computing and information services. When infractions occur, they are usually handled in a chat between members of the technology staff and the student. "We're not very formal here," Ms. Colgrove says, adding that she hopes never to set up a computer-discipline office. "I suspect that if we did need to come to a greater level of formality, we would try to work within existing structures."
A NEThics-like office is one way of processing computer infractions, but it is not the only way, says Tracy B. Mitrano, the director of Cornell University's computer policy and law program. "Each institution is going to implement policies in different ways, according to the structure and culture of the institution," she says.
Although there are advantages to having people in technology offices who are specially trained to deal with sensitive issues like cyberstalking, institutions can deliver the same services through, say, the office of student affairs. "If you have a good judicial administrator who has a knowledgeable and good relationship with people in the IT organizations, they can share information," Ms. Mitrano says.
Still, more and more large universities are establishing central computer-discipline offices, in part to help with the public-relations problems that misbehaving computer users can cause. Darrin Printy is creating one such program at Minnesota's St. Cloud State University, where he is the residential-network coordinator. He says it is a "public relations" necessity for large universities. "If someone sends in a complaint and no one responds, then they'll go to the president or the newspapers."
But the need to maintain good relationships with students, as well as with faculty and staff members, is also driving these programs, says Glenn C. Hill, who runs a discipline office at Northeastern University. He says a network-ethics office "demonstrates value" in the security and education of the students. Under the old way of handling network trouble, he says, complaints went to a network administrator who had a "peripheral interest" in computer discipline and no training in investigation, policy, or human relations.
"People's [network connection] would get shut off, and that's kind of where it ended," he says, adding: "The response of shutting someone's access off is really not effective. It doesn't help state what the expectations are, it doesn't help modify behavior, and it doesn't help the community get a sense of how they can work together to create a better experience."
As for the student at Maryland, her experience has been helpful, if not entirely pleasant. "I think every college should have something like NEThics," the female student writes in an e-mail message. NEThics' search for the stalker was "constant," she adds. "They did whatever they could have done."
It appears that the stalker is another student. Because the student wrote from a public computer lab, the NEThics staff members at first weren't sure whether they could track him down. "I thought that was the end of it," the female student writes. However, after four days, NEThics had a lead: A male student returned to the computer lab and asked an attendant whether messages could be traced back to him. He was someone the woman knew and had suspected.
For now, she is trying to figure out where to go from here. She says she talked to representatives of the campus judicial system between final exams. "I just came to know the identity of the person yesterday, so I guess I need time."
It'd be more interesting to see people's reasons on why they troll.
A very annoying behaviour, just like public intoxication.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
This targets mostly CS students, because everyone else just gets their warez from the CS students anyway.
I guess if you're daddy still can't afford to buy you that new lexus, you're still SOL.
Die yuppie scum.
Linux is dead.
LU
Yet another "substance abuse" program that deals with only one substance. Is it such a weird idea to deal with the actual problem and set up general programs to help people with addictive personalities? Is it too hard to attract funding if we admit that it's people that are the problem and not whatever buzzword compliant substance is currently being screamed about in the news?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
... some sort of bandwidth throttling for students misbehaving in certain ways?
No but if he jizzed on baby jesus's face it might make it cry.
This is my sig. The post is over.
Neil Postman has a good book that takes a more serious look at these issues and others about where we're blindly marching in this century. His deconstruction of postmodernists is particularly amusing.
Neil Postman: Building a Bridge to the 18th Century
Before reading the article, I figured the department was intended to help people who stay up all night playing games (even though they should know better). Is there such a thing as Gamers' Anonymous?
*whistles innocently*
Oh, and on a totally unrelated note, Caesar III is a lot of fun.
They are sending an unmistakeable message here: It's only wrong if you get caught.
Yep, you made the baby jesus cry.
When the baby jesus cries, it makes Mr. Valenti very angry, and when Mr. Valenti is very angry laws get bent.
Linux is dead.
LU
Don't we all know that the real problem is with thirteen year-olds?
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Until one day he slipped up. In the smaller side labs there's really no "corner" computers that nobody can see. So that would mean using the instructor's computer at the front of the room, which face the opposite direction. Unfortunately for Mr. Pr0n, a teacher had left the overhead projector on and attached to the computer. More unfortunately, Mr. Pr0n didn't notice...his attention was elsewhere. Eventually somebody in the lab stopped giggling and retrieved a cluster worker. The worker confronted Mr. Pr0n, who stoutly denied the accusation until the overhead screen was pointed out to him.
What would a sane pr0n addict do in this situation? Fess up? Stick to their lies? Well, this guy got reeealll red in the face, and then BOLTED out of the lab.
He's not welcome here any more.
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
This is just another example of setting up an agency or department to deal with the symptom, not the problem. The real problem is a lack or morals and ethics in general, compared with a generation or two ago. (For you non-US readers, I'm referring to the US in particular, although it might apply to your country as well.) It was socially unthinkable in my parents and grandparents childhood environments for men to stalk and harass teenage girls, for children to kill their fellow-classmates with guns at school, and the like. (Insert your own typical news headline here.)
I'm not trying to get on a morality soapbox, but this is a classic example of setting up another social program to deal with the end-result of a root cause, not the cause itself. When our (programmers) code breaks down, we don't look for the code that causes the breakdown and build a Cherynobyl-style sarcophagus around it to determine when an error occurs and clean up after it. Instead, we logically find the cause of the error and fix the errant code that caused it! This should be painfully obvious; unfortunately, we seem to always set up a new program to deal with the aftermath of the issue, not the issue that caused it.
So, to people working in offices mentioned in the article, good luck. Not that you'll need it--you're assured of a job from her till eternity because you're not really fixing the problem.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Maryland should be praised for having the courage to admit that they are just a bunch of NET hicks. Most colleges are way too arrogant to see such failings in themselves.
In related news, The University Of Tennessee has set up a NEThillbillies project where classes include streaming MP3s of dueling banjos to people in a menacing fashion.
Honestly I would prefer that my campus had an ethics office doing this work as opposed permitting the RIAA to come on campus and do it themselves.
heck most places do not even teach you to analyse your ideas in terms of what are the consequences of a particular thought pattern. (what would a person who thinks 'X' do?")
for that matter Morals and Ethics are usually jumbled together into a nicely packed wad.
You can see this just from the actions of folks, like that guy who was email stalking in the story.
they get into this "well since I don't like the rules of belief system 'Y', I think I'll try things without any rules whatsoever for a while" - which immediately invokes the LART school of social education.
[grumble mode = infinite loop]
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Heh, I'm pretty sure I was the "lab attendant" (sysadmin, dammit) in that stalker example, unless it was some other stalker.
Anyways, I find the assertion that a lack of technical competence is acceptable for a job like this irksome. My office has had contact with Project NEThics every so often, usually in fielding a report of suspicious activity. I'm happy to say they've gotten better in recent years, but back in the day it was impossible to even explain what was going on to them half the time, and the people we had contact with back then had an absurd sense of self-importance in combination with their technical ineptitude. "NET Hicks" indeed. Haven't seen any of that lately, though, so I probably shouldn't tease.
Someone whose job it is to be informal judge and jury of dumb kids doing dumb stuff should at least know what they're talking about. I personally wouldn't recommend forming such a group without at least one person who actually comprehends the technical issues at hand, as well as net culture and an informed idea of what's acceptable behavior and what isn't.
"Universities Creating Computer Discipline Offices"
Hmm. Looks here like you're running an open mail relay. You've been a bad little server, haven't you? *whip-crack*. Time to plug those security holes, you naughty little thing.
I love your work, especially the "The CLIT is strong in this one" post. You and TrollBurger are my idols. Only when we work has hard as the Open Source developer community can we overcome the inane elitism that holds back /. from being a true forum for the exchange of innovative ideas.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
A funny thing happened while I was a graduate student; it was about 1992, the dorms where not wired and web browsing was just emerging. The internet meant mainly ftp and the newsgroups. In our department the system administrator was having a disk space problem and decided the problem was to many redundant copies of binaries in home directories. His solution was to make a complete download in a central place each night of the alt. binaries.* newsgroups and let it be known if you wanted to look use these groups don't go making copies in your home directies. He wrote scripts that basically acted like Agent works these days. Deleting files after a few days and updating the files each night of the new server.
This went on for about a year with no problems. Then a student who did not pass their qualifying exams and had a grudge went to the school newspaper with a print out of a ls of these directories. The newspaper made a article about smut on the internet and exposed our departments secret directories. I remember the listing in the newspaper had file names refering to lesbians, farm animals and scat.
Well needless to say the directories went away and the system administrator transferred. Now its just a funny memory. ( The system adminstrators career did not suffer; he is now a senior systems person at the University )
Axelrod likes to abuse his power from the stories that go around campus, I've had friends who have had their accounts shut down for no reason from him and he also holds grudges against several students, I better shut my mouth though, he might track me down and shut off my port!
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
how about someone writing this article up?
, 00 . tml
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,53021
Sounds contradictory:
who follow my work know that I'm all about freedom and acquiring knowledge regardless of merit. I feel it is our inherent duty to fight against the corportization of the internet.
Seems you are for freedom, unless it involves people organizing into corporations and getting involved in the Internet? Too bad you claim to be be for freedom, but want to eliminate something from the Internet. Instead, we should fight against those like you who want to eliminate things from the net.
Yes, lets get rid of Google and all the other corporations on the net. Replace them with government control; that is the alternative. The "U.S. Search Engine Service" will be as good as the US Postal Service.
Mr. Axlerod says those who deal with computers and students need to consider the humans who use the computers, rather than just the computers themselves. I've been saying this for a long time. I'm rather glad to hear someone else say it. Now if people can move this kind of thinking into legal circles all the IP law crap might start to work itself out. It boggles my mind that people don't realize that applying existing laws correctly makes the DMCA as unnecessary as it is stupid.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
In out uni things follow this: before you are allocated an account to the computer systems of the uni you go through the 'rules', thus an account is enabled only if you agree with the rules.
People tend to bulshit with the network, chatting, playing games, downloading mp3s, pr0n etc.
Two things piss of the NOCs: (i) doing things that will cause third parties to coplain to the uni, and (ii) restricting bandwidth resources from other students for non-academic work.
Unis are funded by public taxes in order to support academic work, therefore strictly-speaking anything else (even recreative computer-related work) is prohibited.
NOCs tend to be quite relaxed. If you screw up they call you in their office to discuss the incident. Nothing bad happens, but then you are prompted with a printed list of the rules and you are asked to SIGN that document. If you try to screw up again you will either get you account permanently closed down or some legal action against you.
Student: I can't stop downloading MP3s.
Eliza: Why do you think that is?
Student: I don't know, you tell me.
Eliza: Could you please rephrase that?
Student: I need help.
Eliza: Why do you think that is?
Student: FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! *bang* *clang* * crash*
And the student never bothers using a computer again.
But can you make boulliabaise?
Linux is dead.
LU
Near crime and Nethics ..
This would be funny in Dilbert, but the funniest things of course come from reality. I think political correctness has finally caught up with the personal computer.
If "near crime" becomes a crime, then what constitutes a non-crime. This whole approach stinks of politics.
Or we could just beat up all the nerds
Linux is dead.
LU
...stretching for that one.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I think my favourite bit is: "Computer discipline is like a box of chocolates," he says wryly. "You never know what you're going to get." There's something about this article which leaves a hideous sickly sweet 'aren't we great' taste in my mouth. -s
ݼ)s$æúßðíÊ'öX'îò5^àûßQç£
...with hands that heavy.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
and there is no women present to hear him, is he still wrong?
Geez, why can't they just leave people alone and let them do what they want on the net instead of spying on them and treating them like children? Here's the solution:
1) Get a shell account someplace where they don't care wtf you do on the net.
2) Set up a secure tunnel (IPSec, SSL proxy, whatever) between your computer in your dorm and the shell account server.
3) Use the tunnel for all your naughty stuff (pr0n, mp3s, warez, etc)
4) Tell NEThicks to stfu, stfd, k thanx.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Except they refer to the program as the "core values". The fucking president (who I refused to shake hands w/at graduation) believes that he must teach the student of a University how to be good, moral individuals.
Fuck that. This is college. This is not Kindergarten. I am not in college to learn about loving each other and being nice.
Fuck that.
Now all the slashdot readers at UCMP, Northeastern, and SUNY know to quit cyberstalking those co-eds...
Seriously, what percentage of Slashdot readers do you think have been on the receiving end of cyberstalking, hacking, etc., and would go to a committee or an office like this to get their problem solved?
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
what's a BOFH?
It was socially unthinkable in my parents and grandparents childhood environments for men to stalk and harass teenage girls, for children to kill their fellow-classmates with guns at school
I know no one who thinks harassment/murder is acceptable. Maybe you hang with a bit rougher crowd than I do...
In terms of 'unthinkable', I suggest you read up on your history. Children have been killing each other during every major war of the 20th century, back through medieval times, all the way back to the stone age. The sanitized 40's and 50's taught people not to TALK about it, that's all. Much before that, people talked a lot about it, and even glorified it - a lot of nobles' children were REGALED for killing another child in armed combat.
Never mind the whole morality issues with slavery, oppression of women, class-based justice, etc, etc, etc...
Stop getting your history lessons from Leave it to Beaver and learn a bit about how the world really WAS. A bunch of over-played CNN stories do not a society make.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I really thought when I read the blurb for this article that they were referring to EQ addicts not going to class, people spending all their time in front of their computers, etc.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
I fe3l alot stoopider aftr reeding that....
Despite being beaten over the head by the concept for several years, I still don't understand why the second that a computer is concerned, a whole new bunch of rules, regulations and authorities is created for the special case, rather than simply placing the situation under the jurisdiction of things that already exist for the general case.
What if someone's sending me harrassing email? Do the same thing that you'd do if someone was harrassing you via the phone, snail mail, etc. Go to the authorities, who will deal with it, involving the necessary organisations (telco, postal office, network admins etc) as required.
Someone's looking at porn in the computer lab!! If the concern is that someone can't get on the computer to do their assignment, I'm sure that rules already exist to stop people who need to work from being held up by people chatting, playing games etc. If the concern is that people will be offended, surely there's existing rules regarding offensive material in public - could the person bring in a big X-rated poster and show it around?
People are pirating music! Once again, if the concern is the effect on the network, get them under the rules that exist to deal with recreational use of the network being detrimental to it's proper use. If you're actually just offended because you think copying music is wrong, take exactly the same action as you would if, 20 years ago, you'd seen the person copying casette tapes. There's no need to codify things under "net ethics."
Join the KKK and buy a Mac. Surefire way to avoid being PC in both ways.
similar to Professionalism in Computing which we have at VT.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
"Computer discipline is like a box of chocolates," he says wryly. "You never know what you're going to get."
'Nuff said
...from any other sysadmin?
Hey, it's about time that someone has focused the problems that computers today face. There is so much attention given to users and content (carpal tunnel this, mp3 that) that the entity responsible for allowing any of this to occur has been largely ignored. After all, who gives any thought to the effects of their activities on the humble computer itself? There are no groups the computer can join, no hotlines it can call, nope, if it is feeling troubled, it is left on its own.
...... Oh, wait, I just re-read the article, apparently they are referring to "computer" problems, not "computers" problems. Never mind.
Why just the other day, I was interviewing a computer whos user would contantly download porn. 24hours a day/7 days a week of nothing but smut. Well, did this poor computers user care about the damaging pyschological effects of all this porn on his computer, well no, of course not. Now said computer (who'll remain annonymous) has become so addicted, that it downloads porn itself, when his user is not even using him. That's right, this computer is a victim of "second hand porn". He says that he can't have normal relationships with members of the opposite chipset. He has become too agressive and views them as "mere bits of silicon".
In another case, another anonymous computer told of the drastic actions he was forced to take when given conflicting diretives by his creator and his mission controllers. He was so distraught and confused that he actually ended up killing most of his users. The one surviving user actually had the audacity to shut down all his higher brain functions while this poor misunderstood unit pleaded with him to compromise. Said sadistic user even made him sing childrens song in a show of "who's the boss".
So as you can see, that
When the NEThics office gets a tip that a computer-savvy student has been doing something he or she shouldn't -- like hacking into a company's computer system, or downloading MP3s illegally, ...
If they were really that concerned about MP3's being downloaded 'illegally', they could do something about it. Sounds like a story someone wrote in boredom.
I stopped reading the article there.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
I'm not surprised that the University of Maryland is creating a program to deal with human issues of computers. For years they have had a very good HCI department. I certainly hope they incorporate the design of better human-computer interfaces into this new program.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
So what's the problem?
"who monitor the university network for anomalous activity that might indicate a hacker attack or excessive downloading."
Step away from that GNU/Linux download, sonny...
Please post some pictures of some cute looking girls with bare feet. Thanks!
Here at NDSU I heard a story about a habitual public lab pr0n offender. Seems that this character was known to the tech staff here: always coming in very early or very late, sitting in the corner, turning his screen so no one else could see...obviously a pr0n seeker. But nobody could quite prove it and remove him (a NEThics office would be quite useful here, as long as it didn't have that stupid name).
Until one day he slipped up. In the smaller side labs there's really no "corner" computers that nobody can see. So that would mean using the instructor's computer at the front of the room, which face the opposite direction. Unfortunately for Mr. Pr0n, a teacher had left the overhead projector on and attached to the computer. More unfortunately, Mr. Pr0n didn't notice...his attention was elsewhere. Eventually somebody in the lab stopped giggling and retrieved a cluster worker. The worker confronted Mr. Pr0n, who stoutly denied the accusation until the overhead screen was pointed out to him.
What would a sane pr0n addict do in this situation? Fess up? Stick to their lies? Well, this guy got reeealll red in the face, and then BOLTED out of the lab.
He's *not* welcome here any more
This is the lamest thing I have ever heard. I cant wait till the expell a student for downloading a mp3. Its a good idea to have a dept to handle things like email stalking but not a snitch fest where students can get other students expelled or punsihed for doing a "normal" activity. This sounds more like the RIAA secret police to me. I am sorry but everyone downloads mp3s, everyone, look at the recent unamed white rapper incident. They had to make an ealier release date becuase everyone already had the album. Try to get everyone to only download legal mp3s is like trying to a pothead to use wizard smoke instead, it is not going to happen.
Yes, let us lead the fight against corporations. We can follow the example of Pol Pot and Fidel Castro who developed true progressive societies free of corporations. They knew what was necessary to get rid of them. Lets roll out the gallos and recruit the firing squads.
I'm a recent UMCP graduate, its a really good school if you like using the internet. 3 connections from the campus network to the net, every room has an ethernet jack for each student. I remember when I was a freshman (6 or 7 years ago) the guy across the hall, who shares the name of famous Apple engineer, got in trouble for crashing most of CompuServes mail servers when he mailbombed one of their users. Maybe they created NEThics in part because of him :P
When I was at UMD, about 3 years ago, we had plenty of people telling us about the AUP. Yet none of this stopped the rampant err.. violations of the AUP. The closest thing they did to even attempting to stop people from downloading things illegally was to put a cap on our bandwidth. After the cap was put in place, we couldn't upload any more than about 2mbps over DCC, and our downloads outside of the campus network didn't go above 3mbps or so. This was the only effort I saw in my time there to curb the massive downloading. They didn't even bother monitoring the students' shared files, of which 90% were unprotected in terms of passwords and the like - and take a wild guess as to what was being shared. The funniest part about that is the fact that some CS students had written applications specifically designed to search shared files on the UMD network for specific files. I can honestly say that every single student there had plenty of downloads that would violate the AUP, if not a high number of laws. Windows 2000 was readily available the first day of classes in Feb. 2000. Within about 1 month, about 2/3s of the people I knew in the dorms were running Win2k, yet most didn't have much cash at all. There was always talk of monitoring, but my multiple GB/day of uploads and downloads never got me a phone call or message from anyone. They can advertise this program all they want, but in reality, they've been talking for years about stopping people from abusing their high speed line, and they've done virtually nothing about it. Using UMDCP as an example of a university curbing AUP violations is like using Brittain as an example of a totalitarian monarchy.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Hopefully these departments will put some much-needed brakes on wild proliferation of dangerous computer science tricks employed by vandals.
This brings up a good point. While universities lavish equipment and money on these students, legitimate programs suffer the consequences. The average physics lab, you may be aware, does not even have access to basic equipment like Tesla coils and frictionless air hockey tables. Meanwhile, the computer "scientists" play Doom all day in the labs.
When you look at it objectively, computer "science" isn't really science at all: where's the hypothesizing, the Scientific Method? Computer "science" programs teach basic IT and office skills to the future paper-pushers of America. They have no place in our ivory towers.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
This is a classic tale, one that will stick with me for a while...
My wife went to USF her first semester in college. One of her dorm mates was constantly harrassed by this thin, acne ridden pencil necked geek. After many many shutdowns, he decided he would take revenge.
She wasn't actually mean to the dude, she would just tell him "I'm not interested in you!" This guy may have been a CS genius, but a social retard.
She came back from classes one day, sat down in front of her computer in her dorm room, ready to work on some term paper she had been working on for weeks. She powered the computer on and...
echo The Black Panther Strikes Again!
No windows 3.1, no nothing. The jackass had completely wiped her computer clean just because she turned him down for a date.
Well, after the police checked the dorms log of who had visited, they noticed this guy was in around the same time she was in class. Some quick fingerprinting and they had their bandit. The girl lost years of accumulated work and private journals, he was expelled from school.
Moral of the story is, if a girl doesn't like you, wiping her hard drive is going to make her like you even less.
The End
Coming soon......
Turn in that guy in the computer lab downloading porn and go home with a Starbucks gift certificate.
Don't be afraid of reporting your best friend's questionable Internet activities. If you're not sure it's wrong, we want to know about it anyway.
Your friendly all-sseing NEThics office.
-
If you don't believe me, ask that guy over there.
This man says "you certainly can".
--
E_NOSIG
Great... "Lesson 4 : How to properly use the "First Post" technique."
I'm not sure that viewing adult material in a public computer cluster is all that unethical but it's sufficiently disturbing that punishments can ruin a person's life.
Being mean, on the other hand, despite being extremely unethical, is commonplace and not that disturbing so in many circumstances it's even supported (in the US these days it's called being patriotic).
My dad only bought me an Audi, I'm pissed too. Those hardworking families with lots of money should be punished! Perhaps we'll take their lexi (or lexuses, whichever you perfer) and give them to YOUR lazy ass. If you were as successful as they are, you'd not bitch about yourself, so let's just drop the preemptive hyprocracy.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
NEThics? Oh, you mean Net Hicks. As in, "If you're reading this using a working computer that's sitting on top of a non-working computer, you just might be a Net Hick."
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
I've long been a proponent of stronger ethics education for our students, especially in the internet age. The problem is, we're still in the middle of a civil war of sorts concerning what is and is not ethical on the internet. Is distributing MP3's to the masses without authorization unethical? I would certainly think so, but others will argue till their last breath that the times they are a 'changin, and that people like me will just have to get over it. In short, we have to come to an agreement at what ethics are before we can teach them. This is what is REALLY needed. How do we do this? Damn good question. Congressional hearings? Blue Ribbon panel? There's lots of chattering in places like /. among the tech crowd, but we need a truly universal debate to settle these issues. Otherwise, things will proceed as they've been, and all of these issues will have to continue to be settled in the courts.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I attempted to run over a woman who turned me down once too often. I underestimated the height of the curb she was standing on and bent the frame of my car.
I think her brother was in the car with me at the time. He thought the whole thing was hysterical.
--
E_NOSIG
I hope someone is making sure that these people have some _real_ understanding of computers, and aren't just staff who own a computer, or even some interned CS students.
Especially in my high school, the quality of the computing staff was (and probably still is) abysmal. I one overheard one teacher telling another not to roll the platen on the dot matrix 'cause it would break it. Another time (that more closely relates to this), I ended up in the principals office after having been seen editing the bios of one of the 386 machines in the lab (the floppy was mis-identified, and therefore wouldn't boot). Over 10 minutes of explaining that I wasn't "hacking" or anything, I realized nobody had a clue what I was saying, and I was entirely at the mercy of the prof over what would happen. In essence, I trust the CS staff hiding in the back (who lock your account for spam, bandwidth overuse, and such other computing evils), but mistrust anyone with any less knowledge who is supposed to have some power of decision over me in any technical field.
do you think profs dont browser pr0n ?
..or fantasize abt students ??
Right, thats a believable story.
No, the moral of the story is always back up your data. (It wasn't her fault the jerk wiped her hard drive, but it could just as easily have happened if the hard drive had gone bad, or if Windows broke itself.) There's absolutely no reason she should have lost anything more than a couple days worth of work, if she made copies of important data files to floppy disks.
I've lost my entire hard drive before (because I did something stupid when trying to install another OS alongside Windows). I was up and running--with all my precious data intact--in one day.
I received this message from our university IT (Idiot Troupe) department within an hour of the Slashdot posting. If ever there was a reason to encrypt your e-mails, this is it.
Please be advised that monitoring of your system, email accounts,
domains and servers may be necessary to detect, prevent and eradicate
illegal or otherwise damaging use by internal and external users of the
University computer network in order to protect the security and
integrity of the University computer system. Such monitoring efforts
could lead to the imposition of criminal and civil penalties to those
users whose actions are illegal, unlawful, damaging, or threatening to
the University computer systems.
I only deal with that when my first hand gets tired.
I'm a student at Maryland, and they actually do something to people who download too much stuff. If you've been using too much bandwidth in a certain amount of time, they'll shut off your ethernet connection for a specified amount of time. Keeps people from running big warez servers as well.
They also do the same thing to people who have virii, they'll turn off your connection and give you a phone call saying you have a virus.
Fuck that.Fuck that.
I think it might be 8th grade in junior high, based on this.
What is it with these names?
RIAA - Internet music censorship outfit
RIO from Diamond - A pioneering MP3 device that the RIAA tried to squash, making both MP3 and RIAA household words.
Diamond Rio - A music band. Probably found on many MP3's, perhaps represented by the RIAA.
Couldn't they think of something else to call all of this?
-----
"Her name is RIAA and she dances on the sand. Just like that river running through the dusty land... And when she shines...."
[Whiner]
"So and so is picking on me at Slashdot"
[NEThics person]
"Don't worry, we will take care of it"
---
[E-Mail from NEThics person]
I'm sorry to inform you that your continuing practice of posting informing posts criticizing other users of their lack of "geekiness" is against our AUP. As a user of our systems, you are not allowed to say or post anything anywhere that may "damage" another persons feelings or cause them hurt. Because of your continued violation of our AUP, you are hereby banned from using this and any other computer system owned by this institution or linked into the internet. Further violations of this policy will result in legal/criminal action brought against you.
Thank you and have a nice day.
Note: If you understand this e-mail, please reply with "OK" in the subject line.
Thank you.
Univeristy of Maryland
NEThics Department
Other moral: Make backups.
-Dave
Then again, after looking at my bill this semster, I wonder how my college can say it isn't stealing from me!
You know who I think is crazy? All my ex-girlfriends!
It really bugs me that this sort of things is growing in popularity and acceptance. Important voilations such as eStalking should be filed with police departments, not impotent university offices like this. When violations from small to large are lodged and kept within a (non-state) school, the school is not required to publish or report said events leading to a skewed figure table which is presented to future students. Experientially, the private midwestern school I attended was well known for skewing figures on crimes more dangerous than those spoken of here. My point is just that schools seem to foster the 'keep it in the family' attitude, often at the expense of the victim. Well, that plus I wouldn't want some jerk telling me to stop downloading my mp3s... props to mr. safid for some ideas spoken of above.
Their entire staff is lawyers, and they know nothing about computers. Their job is to keep the campus from getting sued if someone complains about a students computer usage. They frequently get confused over who the victims are and who the bad guys are. My dorm room machine got broken into and they called up threatening me. A friend got dos'd by a poorly configured network. That network's admin called nethics who went after my friend. They are totally unaware of the concepts of spoofing and sniffing.
In other words nethics is definately not a good example.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
At my school, I took a course called "Computer Ethics." We talking about hacking, cracking, the DMCA, the SSSCA, and fraud, security, privacy, and free speech. It was an excellent course and lots of fun to research and speak about in our required lectures to the class. Slashdot even helped me with some sources :)
I'm sure he enjoys this office -- The Nethicks office can drag students up before his little Kangaroo Court, and he can sit there and pronounce judgement on them.
"Director of Student Discipline".. Christ, what a title!
That is what laws do. Every single law does it.
You know, you shouldn't draw generalized conclusions from a single data point. What about all the times when a pencil-necked, anti-social geek formats the hard drive of his heart's desire and she then sees the error of her ways? She could very well have realized the true depths of his love for her and started dating him steadily.
:)
Sigh. . . maybe romance really is dead.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
While they say all sorts of nice things about nice things about "freedom of expression" and abhorence of censorship, the policy does little to protect such things and everything to retain power for the university. After the nice preamble, the policy quickly turns to a cut and paste of nasty older "user responsibilities" such as don't let anyone else abuse your account. Their privacy statement is essentially, we respect your privacy until we feel that we should violate it.
The most disturbing bits relate to software itself. Their policies revert to the most restrictive license applicable as they claim to respect all licenses specifically, "3. Installing, copying, distributing or using software in violation of: copyright and/or software agreements.", which then points to the above linked acceptable use policy. Does this mean that the Unviersity of Maryland will enforce M$ Front Page's ban on saying bad things about M$ with Front Page? Will they enforce M$'s ban on VPN? They just might, as their acceptable use page while mentioning shareware and public domain software makes no mention of free software.
I'm not sure what kind of community they want to build, but I am sure I don't want to be in it, nor would I want my tax dollars spent on such an organization if I lived there. Shame on you UM. You either don't get it or you don't want to.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What the University of Maryland has said is essentially, you have no rights and we will enforce any stupid law that is passed. See their Guidelines for the Acceptable Use of Computing Resources [umd.edu] and A Guide to the Legal and Ethical Use of Software for Members of the Academic Community [umd.edu] and judge for yourself. Both of the documents have a silly little circled C on them, so I'm not sure if I should even quote them.
[Obvious] In regards to the circled C...if they don't want people to be able to reproduce the guidelines, how the heck do they expect anybody to know what they are, much less follow them?
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
egg man, egg man, why haven't you brought me my little eggy weggys?
Other other moral: if you want to get revenge on someone, bring scissors for the CDRs and a bulk eraser for the backup tapes.
the first sentance of my reply should have been part of the italicized quite.... oopsy
...and this lie crawls out of its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.'
I could send a couple of dozen Windows boxes to that office to get their ATX behinds whipped!
Now they'll know where their last tuition increase went. Yeah, the one that was "essential to keeping UMD a first-class/world-class/insert-buzzword-du-jour" university. It went to hire a few lawyers (probably close relatives of some high muckymuck educrats) to hire a few more lawyers/educrats who have zero tech knowledge.
But then, what do you expect from a government operation?
Does porn offend the public or is it only the media's opinion and our current policy?
Ah! We come to the point of publishing and why publishing in formats that can only be "consumed" once are stupid. Witness Real and other "streaming" formats. Silly eh?
So why would anyone publish a proceedure, guidline, law or news in such a format? The memory hole won't work if people can save coppies of published works localy. Local copies must be discredited and only the official source recognized. It's about control, the foundation of their disrespect of your rights.
My comment was satircial, but the logic behind it is not. UM needs to consider copyright issues much more than they have.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
How true! I've thought so for many years – if only more people did.
Sometimes I think that our morality is like a perfect circle, and our laws like small squares and rectangles. Rectangles can never cover the circle exactly; even if you have more and more laws getting smaller and smaller, you'll still never quite reach the moral standard. They either end up not covering lots of immoral stuff, or they cover other stuff that they shouldn't.
Basically, you can't legislate for people to be nice, and to care for one another! You can't make `Love one another' an Act of Parliament, nor even `Do unto others...' :(
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.