Slashdot Mirror
University Of Calgary To Offer Course On Spam
jrcsnet writes "CBC is reporting that the University of Calgary is going to be adding yet another controversial course (The first, on computer viruses, was covered on Slashdot a while back). According to the article, 'Students will be taught how to write programs that create e-mail spam as well as spy software.' While there must be some benefit for everyone else by creating programs to work against these nuisances, is it worth the risk to the rest of us or even to the potential careers of the graduates of the course?"
One day when spam is truly prosecutable, these graduates might find themselves the first to be questioned :)
What's next? A course on editing child porn photos digitally?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Fantastic...a curriculum has finally been designed that will allow students to pay their own way through university, creating and running spam generators!
It's things like this that keep the word 'almost' in my motto 'I'm almost always proud to be Canadian'.
What's next? A course on editing child porn photos digitally?
Next are courses on Recreational Pharmaceutical Agriculture, Distribution, and Marketing.
win32Api I and win32api II
This kind of information is avilable anywhere really. You could run a google search and get a tutorial on creating a spam cannon server. If someone wants to become a spammer, they can do it without the class.
The attractive aspect here is that these students will know the tricks of the trade when it comes to spamming, and you know what they say: It takes a thief to catch a thief.
Would I pay the 300USD pricetag (Which is the going rate for a 3 hour course at my school, plus books) to take this class? No. But the same is said by many students about Archery, Chess, Basket Weaving and many other classes that are seen as electives.
Let's fake an answer for the curious; let's fake it all for the fame.
According to TFA,
Some companies are run by idiots.
How are people supposed to write security software if they don't know malware works? And how can one really learn how malware works without writing some?
When I worked on a firewall project years ago, I wrote some code to test it versus SYN floods. Where we supposed to just do a theoretic analysis and say "sure, it's safe against this attack"?
When I'm not hacking, among the other things I do is teach karate. That includes playing the attacker sometime for my students to defend. And sometimes they play the attacker for other students. It's the only way to learn.
(Of course in both hacking and budo there are legitimate safety issues. While there aren't enough details in TFA to say for sure, it sounds like they've addressed them.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
People are upset because a university is teaching courses on viruses and spam engines?
You know, if I wanted to learn how to murder someone, probably the best thing I could do is train to be a cop. Or a forensics investigator. Or maybe even a doctor. That's where I'm most likely to learn the skills necessary to help me get away with murder.
Problem is, those classes are also where I'm most likely to learn the skills necessary to prevent a murder, or to save a life, or to bring a murderer to justice.
So what should we do: prohibit universities from teaching skills that might be put to bad use? What would that leave? Philosophy and creative writing?
Sure, someone will argue: but spam engines don't have any good use! You can't save someone's life by learning how to write a spam engine! But I can guarantee you that most of the people who work to block spam engines and stop illegal spammers knows how those spam engines work. They learned it somewhere. Tell me why a university shouldn't be one of the places to acquire those skills.
And certain people who design operating systems should probably take more of those courses in how viruses work. Might keep them from having to release new security patches every eleven days.
What he wants is more important that what I want. What he wants is also more important that what you want.
"Wouldn't it be more productive to study ways to combat spam?"
:)
I agree, but the truth of the matter is, there is money being made in spam. Nevermind the fact that 99+% of the people being spammed hate it and hate the spammers. Now if I were an alumni of this University, they could kiss my shiney white backside before I would ever give them another dime.
Now the story does say "The aim is to develop new ways to fight these online nuisances." I read this and I see a whole new problem.... They write the spamming software and sell it, then write the anti-spamming software and sell it. This course will do nothing more than make problems worse.
When I see things like this course being offered, and things like this story, I no longer belive that what is right matters, it's all about the money or just being plain annoying to as many people as possible . I for one will not shed a tear if the University of Calgary burns to the ground for this as long as no one is hurt (no, I'm not saying it should be torched). What ever happened to doing things to help yourself and/or others?
Spammers remind me of the kid(s) in school who everyone ignored or avoided, only now they have found a way to make people pay attention to them, and they're getting even. I just wish I could burn my email addresses.