Slashdot Mirror
Stealing Laptops For Class Credit
First time accepted submitter core_tripper writes "Students at the University of Twente have stolen thirty laptops from various members of the university's staff. They were not prosecuted for this, so they could just get on with their studies. Indeed, these students even received ECTS credits for these thefts. UT researcher Trajce Dimkov asked the students to steal the machines as part of a scientific experiment. Stealing these laptops turned out to be a pretty simple matter."
This sounds like Pwn2Own taken to the next (and otherwise illegal) level. In this case, it looks like they were auditing physical security amongst other things.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In the other news, 30 new government positions have been allocated as part of a "job program" to 30 soon to be graduates out of University of Twente. Seems like all of them will be IRS related jobs.
You can't handle the truth.
It doesn't mention whether the cleaners or caretakers knew the people they were letting in or not.
Does it matter? A lot of thefts are inside jobs.
At the UofMN people walk out with entire desktops; while the people are still in their office. We had one person who was at her desk talking on the phone, with her back to the door, looking behind her out the window. Someone walked in, unplugged her iMac, and walked out with it.
Suppose one of the students followed his friend around to see how he stole a laptop, and then later copied the method? Would he get credit, or be marked down for plagiarism?
outsourced cleaners with poor English don't know any better and a good story is all it takes to get past them.
Being a janitor does not mean you can use social engineering to get past them. Even with a good story. It depends on the janitors.
I have used social engineering to get past people that can speak the English real good, get paid many times more than a janitor, and have college degrees.
Social engineering works on people that are not always considering security around them, and to a large extent, those that are not cynical and suspicious of others by nature. It's much harder to get past assholes with the best stories and a lot easier to get past a cute secretary that is outgoing and bubbly.
You get a 60 year old janitor who has seen it all and heard it all, and believes there are aliens at Area 51, and you have somebody with a finely tuned bullshit detector. Those are the equivalent of landmines in social engineering.
I have used social engineering to get past people that can speak the English real good,
Have you used it on anyone who could speak English really well?
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
They were testing whether or not the staff followed good practices with physical security.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
From the description, I suspect the notification was more along the lines of "If you catch a student stealing a laptop, see if they are on this list before you call the cops" and not "sure, they can take whatever they want"
I think its just the opposite. They didn't tell them to let the students steal the laptops, they let them know in advance that if they catch someone taking the laptop that it may be legit. Just by mentioning this would have made it harder because laptop theft would be on the security teams mind making it easier to spot.
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
That's an odd name for a dog.
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Seems like a douche move rather than a fair one. A university is a place of somewhat more trust in others than the outside, because in academia you share knowledge with others, the spirit is a bit different, you don't take others' tools.
Taking advantage of that to run a test of whether it's easy to steal laptops is not entirely ethical.
Not to say that people shouldn't be careful, but exploiting them isn't cool either.
When I was in school, someone hacked my student account and framed me for downloading and piracy. I didn't have to go to court, but if I ever found out who did it, I'd gladly have caused them serious injury.
LOL.
Welcome to the real world. Protip: Academia, as much as it tries not to, does lie within the realm of the real world.
And anyone with a brain would be as untrusting, or more untrusting, of a university student/professor than they would of a random stranger.
Where exactly does this sense of trust come from? Because you were a student and you trusted other students? You trust the faculty because they wouldn't risk their jobs?
That's great you have that much faith in your friends and such but that is not everyone that is in a university. Most schools have wide open doors most of the day where anyone can come and go as they please. Strangers are welcomed daily from delivery people, maintenance specialists, tour groups and friends of students and staff. It doesn't take much for someone to walk past an open door with a laptop sitting on the desk. It only take a few seconds for someone to throw it in their bag all because of an opportunity. Some people have the mentality that if something expensive isn't locked down, it means they don't want it so it might as well have a free sign on it.
Cat's are perfectly capable of learning their own names. They simply don't give a fuck when you use it.
Of course, it would be a good scam to tell security that it's a class project anyway. Then after all the laptops are missing and don't show up again, they look up your name and find out you're not a professor and are nowhere to be found.
Of course cats can learn their name! How else would they be able to spitefully ignore you?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It doesn't mention whether the cleaners or caretakers knew the people they were letting in or not.
Given that the University has 9,000 students and 3,300 faculty/staff, and that they were 60 attempts of thefts (only 30 of which succeeded). And given that this experiment was conducted in the context of a security audit, I doubt that the successful cases were all due the cleaners actually knowing the student (may be some of them knew some of the students, but surely not all of them did, and in at least one case, the student got to the laptop just because the door was found unlocked when the door was supposed to be locked).
Besides, "knowing" someone and building rapport can be faked in an extremely short amount of time. For instance, when Steven Spielberg was still a teenager, he got into the Universal Studios through a guided tour, but when he left the Studio that night, he escaped from the guided tour, he dressed himself up in a suit, and he made a point to address the guard on his way out by his first name. After that night, he was able to go back and forth through that security checkpoint as long as that same guard was there, no questions asked. He was wearing the right uniform, a suit, plus the guard "knew" him from the previous day.
Know how I can tell you didn't RTFA?
No, it's not because this is slashdot. It's because the profs who were involved all agreed to it, and in fact didn't involve their normal machines. They didn't just go steal laptops and go "ha ha only kidding" after.
every laptop for decades has a kingston lock on it, which is a little tiny lock with steel rope that loops around anything you feel is too heavy to lift with your laptop
If I loaned you my laptop I would be pretty fucking pissed if it got stolen even after my specific requirements to prevent such an action, and lastly for some odd reasons people often view laptops as valueless tools, which has always baffled me.
I watched a co-worker one day get seriously irate cause someone stole all the pens off of her desk, and while bitching and moaning about it got up and went to go have a hissfit in the middle of lunch... leaving a brand new macbook behind in a not well known but still public area.
Reminds me of the early days of computing, where often a student that was found able to break school system security was often given tasks by the IT admin.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Hard to see how a university ethics IRB (Institutional review board) could approve something like this.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
I once gave my undergrad students a similar assignment where they had to each score an ounce of weed for me.
It was also a great success and provided them with an important life lesson about society and individual liberty. Or something.
The Dean of my department at the time was not amused, though he did think the sticky red bud was the bomb.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Then they fail to get the class credits?
Of course not. why would anyone confess to a crime? Coincidentally, is anyone looking to purchase a completely legitimate iMac? Only thing wrong with it is that its serial numbers seem to have fallen off.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Our dog doesn't call when called, but knows the cat's name. Every time the cat is called for dinner, dog comes running.
heard of laptops being stolen from large businesses by people dressed and acting like UPS/delivery/IT personel. These types of people are generally ignored. Act as if you belong there and people will think you do, even though they have never seen you before.
The most sucessful ones that I had heard of had dressed themselves as delivery people and walked in with a 2 wheel cart with empty boxes on it. The boxes were not empty when the walked out again.
"Cat's are perfectly capable of learning their own names."
Now if you only would be able to comprehend the use of apostrophes, then you would be almost as clever as a cat.
...speaking of food, I still think that as long as there are hungry people in the world, there is no such thing as an unwanted pet.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
People don't engage in criminal acts because they can but because they have a lacking sense of morality and honesty, tests like these aren't going to change their moral outlook to accept dishonesty.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I assume you mean a citation for the Spielburg anecdote. Unfortunately, it is exaggerated. Read more here: http://www.snopes.com/movies/other/spielberg.asp
Using disctinct names to identify a series of cats is a technique I highly recommend. I don't remember where I learned this practice, but it has been invaluable to me in my life. I have had nothing but good experiences following this practice. My friend has two cats named Daryl, and they aren't even brothers. It's a nightmare!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun