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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."
Maybe they should start with the government monitoring of emails and surfing patterns.
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
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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)
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
Maybe you should read first nations of the net... velly intavesting
-- OMFG = Oh My Floatse Goatse
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
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."
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
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
Bastard Operator from Hell
look here
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
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!
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."
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 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.
[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
And for the very funny BOFH stories online, go
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...
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.