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MIT President Tells Grads To 'Hack the World'

Posted by timothy on from the but-gently dept.

theodp writes "On Friday, MIT President L. Rafael Reif exhorted grads to 'hack the world until you make the world a little more like MIT'. A rather ironic choice of words, since 'hack the world' is precisely what others said Aaron Swartz was trying to do in his fateful run-in with MIT. President Reif presumably received an 'Incomplete' this semester for the promised time-is-of-the-essence review of MIT's involvement in the events that preceded Swartz's suicide last January. By the way, it wasn't so long ago that 2013 commencement speaker Drew Houston and Aaron Swartz were both welcome speakers at MIT."

38 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. sounds familiar... by Tastecicles · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...Line from "Hackers", repeated several times:

    "Hack the planet!"

    --
    Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    1. Re:sounds familiar... by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 2

      They're TRASHING our rights, man! They're TRASHING the flow of data! They're TRASHING! TRASHING! TRASHING!

    2. Re:sounds familiar... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      what a nice, polite and subtle tribute so such grim events.

    3. Re:sounds familiar... by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      You sound like my hard drive. Time to buy more RAM?

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    4. Re:sounds familiar... by Steve_Ussler · · Score: 1

      I think he loved that movie :) But MIT hackers are real...the movie was a sham.

    5. Re:sounds familiar... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually - some female hackers look better than Jolie. The problem is yours - you spent so much of your youth watching the television, and being indoctrinated to prefer women who look like Jolie. Those of us who aren't totally indoctrinated prefer real women, who aren't draped in (tens?) thousands of dollars worth of designer clothes, hundreds of dollars worth of make up, carefully airbrushed in every image, blah, blah, blah.

      You want Jolie? Go get her. Personally, I wouldn't follow her around the corner to get a better look at her.

  2. Go on, kids, hack the world! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Go ahead and hack the world. If you get caught, I never said that and we've never heard of you.

    1. Re:Go on, kids, hack the world! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Go ahead and hack the world. If you get caught, I never said that and we've never heard of you.

      1. The word 'hack' has several meanings. Maybe you picked the wrong one.

      2. We have good relations with the well known law school up the river. However Prof. Lessig is very busy, I'm afraid.

      3. Couldn't you settle for disrupting the Harvard-Yale football game?

      4. Or the kind of hacking that leads to an IPO, so you can live a life of luxury and MIT can hit you up to fund some new research labs.

  3. Huh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So can this guy share some blame when the law comes knocking?

    Cuz "hack the world" didn't work out so well for Aaron Swartz...

  4. Hack the World except... by Virtucon · · Score: 2

    For our materials that are paid for by US tax dollars and put behind systems to deliberately make you get at it through our multiple gates and measures or any other thing we make money on.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  5. Pesky Kids by sanman2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky kids!

  6. Make the world a place for rich loyal kids by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I think you misunderstood "more like MIT". The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a deeply traditional institution, not some revolutionary place. People go there to change the odds in their favor, not to make the world a better place.

  7. MIT Hacks by e4liberty · · Score: 5, Informative

    At MIT, the word "hack" means something very specific, and not criminal or unethical. It is a impressive, creative, and clever achievement. From http://hacks.mit.edu/ The word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, which is both challenging for the perpetrators and amusing to the MIT community (and sometimes even the rest of the world!). Note that this has nothing to do with computer (or phone) hacking (which we call "cracking").

    1. Re:MIT Hacks by darkfeline · · Score: 1

      Substitute "less" for "worse". I wasn't thinking properly, that's how much parent post's lack of thought angered me.

    2. Re:MIT Hacks by divisionbyzero · · Score: 3, Insightful

      At MIT, the word "hack" means something very specific, and not criminal or unethical. It is a impressive, creative, and clever achievement.

      From http://hacks.mit.edu/

      The word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, which is both challenging for the perpetrators and amusing to the MIT community (and sometimes even the rest of the world!). Note that this has nothing to do with computer (or phone) hacking (which we call "cracking").

      So, the president of MIT was urging MIT students to pull clever practical jokes? That's stupid or he meant something different. Presumably he meant "hack" in the same way that people who have been actually involved with computers understand it: exploring the possibilities of a system (often including some that the inventor never intended) for the sake of discovery and in some cases using those discoveries to create unique and innovative outcomes. I get that you are trying to make a distinction between "hacking" and "cracking" but "hacking" has a meaning that transcends the special case of practical jokes that are a part of MIT folklore and if the president of MIT did not have the broader meaning in mind, then his comments are almost comical.

    3. Re:MIT Hacks by VortexCortex · · Score: 2

      You don't get to define hack. Culture does. Don't get me wrong. I'm a hacker in the original classic sense. However, Science, or even just Progress is about compression. Compression is the ability to Sense observation Decide the likely outcome based on prior observation, and Act with predictive powers given by the prior observation. If you and I have different dictionaries, we have less progress; More wasted time building a conversion table, clarifying the symbolics of communication. When faced with a more broadly adopted definition it is not only foolish, but against progress to not adopt the new meaning.

      TL;DR: The media Hacked your term for Hacking. Call yourself a Hacker and you'll be rightly considered a Hack.

    4. Re:MIT Hacks by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 1, Informative

      So, the president of MIT was urging MIT students to pull clever practical jokes?

      Umm, no.

      That's stupid or he meant something different. Presumably he meant "hack" in the same way that people who have been actually involved with computers understand it: exploring the possibilities of a system (often including some that the inventor never intended) for the sake of discovery and in some cases using those discoveries to create unique and innovative outcomes.

      Yep. That's actually what it means at MIT too, except the origin isn't necessarily only in computers. A "hacker" at MIT is one who explores in general -- often finding ways into the deep tunnels of the sub-basements in campus buildings or on the roofs and domes, seeking what goes on in the bowels and secret places of MIT.

      The famous "hacks" at MIT are merely a side-effect of that exploring culture. It's only because hackers have such intimate knowledge of the buildings and systems on campus that they could manage to put a police car on the great dome, etc.

      At MIT, "hacking" has the exact connotation of positive exploration that you describe. On the other hand, when the term became known to a wider culture at a point where computers were still mysterious and somewhat scary, a "hacker" was seen primarily in a negative light -- someone who knew "too much" about things he wasn't "supposed to."

      So, the broader culture saw hackers as criminals. Technically, at MIT, they are too. (Last time I heard, students get fined if found on the roofs of buildings, for example.) But the cardinal rule of the MIT movement is non-destructive exploration for the sake of knowledge.

      That's what the MIT president was talking about.

    5. Re:MIT Hacks by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 2

      You don't get to define hack. Culture does.

      Absolutely. MIT doesn't get to define "hack" for the culture at large. However, MIT does have its own distinctive culture, and it has its own sets of terms, phrases, and special meanings (just like Slashdot).

      MIT does get to define what the term "hack" means when used on its own campus, as long as its own communal culture agrees on it.

      And thus, when an MIT president speaks to MIT students, he might be expected to use the term "hack" in that sense. There is nothing inherently "wrong" with this, nor is there anything wrong with someone trying to explain this distinctive culture and terminology to others... others can then freely choose whether or not this unusual meaning is of any use to them or not.

      This, by the way, is exactly how meanings of words evolve over time. If everyone always used words in the same way, word meanings would never change. History shows they do. That's a fact of life.

      If you and I have different dictionaries, we have less progress; More wasted time building a conversion table, clarifying the symbolics of communication.

      Anyone who has spent time trying to translate something with subtle meaning from one language to another realizes that each language has a distinctive set of circumscribed and interconnecting meanings that are difficult to render in another language. In essence, different languages actually can produce different ideas and different knowledge, just because of the way words connect to each other.

      There are certainly benefits to a universal standard for communication. But there are also benefits from letting smaller groups develop their own distinctive cultures and even distinctive languages, because by doing so, they may end up making connections, distinctions,and even discoveries not possible (or at least unlikely) in another language.

    6. Re:MIT Hacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, they have. Most MIT "hackers" are very respectful of property and equipment, we just like to play with it.

      For example: when visiting various MIT buildings and roofs somewhat illicitly one evening, we noticed that some very clumsy fools had damaged the lock leading to one of the MIT rooftops. The next week, we showed up with tools and parts and repaired the lock, so that there was no sign of damage.

      MIT authorities, in turn, treated our hacks fairly kindly. When we turned the "assembled underwater to practice space manufacture" cube hanging in the lobby of MIT's main entrance into a six-sided die late one night, we took much longer than planned. And when we scurried off for a celebratory drink at the allnight coffeehouse, someone realized they'd left the blueprints in the lobby. When they retrieved the blueprints, it was apparent the campus police had found them and had previously been leaving us alone while we worked, because they had an added signature from the head of the head of campus police.

      We were *very* careful about hacking. The points of good hacks were technological accomplishment, and *surprise*, not theft or destruction. A hack that left someone glad you'd done it was considered ideal, such as the police car or telephone booths on the Great Dome.

    7. Re:MIT Hacks by cbhacking · · Score: 1

      I believe he meant phone as in smartphone (or tablet). I hack my phone, and occasionally hack *on* my phone, all the time, in the MIT sense. Phreaking is entirely different; that's hacking the phone system.

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
    8. Re:MIT Hacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, which is both challenging for the perpetrators and amusing to the MIT community (and sometimes even the rest of the world!). Note that this has nothing to do with computer (or phone) hacking (which we call "cracking").

      ...implying there is no such thing as ethical computer/phone hacking. The way I see it, Aaron's actions CAN be seen as ethical (although possibly illegal) "hacking". After all, he was "hacking" to liberate public domain works to the larger public, which CAN be seen as ethical (although possibly illegal).

      tl;dr: MIT's President should stfu about "hacking".

    9. Re:MIT Hacks by Trip6 · · Score: 1

      Can you "hack" a "Smoot?"

      --
      I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
    10. Re:MIT Hacks by DaTrueDave · · Score: 1

      Hmmm... What do you suppose someone thinks of a "lifehacker", someone who visits and applies the advice given at the immensely popular website http://www.lifehacker.com?

      I think the word "hacker" means different things in different contexts, and just because one definition is used less doesn't mean it no longer exists, or that it holds up progress.

    11. Re:MIT Hacks by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      And to many of us, that's why we still use the word 'hack' in both the making something cool category and 'hacking' into a system.

      To me, this insistence on using the word 'cracker' came about a decade too late -- because 'hack' was used for both for a long time, and then a bunch of people starting whining and saying it should be 'cracking'.

      For me it will always be hacking code and hacking into a system.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    12. Re:MIT Hacks by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Absolutely. MIT doesn't get to define "hack" for the culture at large.

      No, but the term hacking was in use for a very long time before everyone came along and decided cracker was a better word.

      Many of us are old enough to remember the term applying to both, and listening to the whining about how it's supposed to be crack instead of hack gets an eye roll, because those people weren't around when 'hack' covered a lot more.

      MIT doesn't get to define the word, but people who are trying to retroactively re-define it are also missing the point.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    13. Re:MIT Hacks by darkfeline · · Score: 1

      Yes. I know all of this. But if you, say, reconstructed a police car on a building outside of MIT, I doubt you'll find the authorities there as accomodating of your technological accomplishments as you'd like. So go "hack the world". Even if you leave no damage and put everything back where it was, you may just find an arrest warrant out for your name.

      People are commonly called out for finding exploits and security vulnerabilities. Do you honestly think a practical joke would get away unpunished? It's awesome that MIT promotes this kind of culture, but it's best to keep reality in mind, especially for new graduates.

  8. The best advice.... by David_Hart · · Score: 1

    I still think that the best advice I've ever heard/read at any commencement advice is.... to wear sunscreen...

    Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

  9. MIT Forever Changed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Prior to the incident with Aaron Schwartz and how it was handled by MIT, I associated nothing negative with MIT. MIT was all about higher technology learning and legendary hacks. I am saddened that MIT now conjures strong negative as well as strong positive thoughts with regards to some of the core activities that one associates with a computing career choice and lifestyle.

  10. Re:really sad, rip Aaron by couchslug · · Score: 1

    Don't rust anyone over 30.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  11. snide comment is dumb by superwiz · · Score: 1

    There is a difference between not living up to ones own standards and not having standards. Setting a good goal for yourself and telling others that this goal is good doesn't always preclude one from being weak and failing to live up to ones own expectations.

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  12. Re:Wow, Slashdot has changed by superwiz · · Score: 1

    Well, even in software development hacking doesn't mean a clever solution, anymore. Most people writing software are not that clever. What they call a hack is usually a kludge... And cutting corners will often save 20 minutes and waste a month down the line. So, in all fairness, these "hacks" do more damage than the "crackers."

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  13. MIT: Have you no sense of shame by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 1, Troll

    Aaron Schwarz would roll over in his grave.

  14. Re:Thedp is the Worst Submitter Ever by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Irony is dead...

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  15. Hypocrite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And plagiarist.

  16. Watchlist by Reliable+Windmill · · Score: 1

    He's now on every singe watchlist there is.

    --
    Signature intentionally left blank.
  17. The new sports on slashdot: by drolli · · Score: 1

    How quickly can we connect the Aaron Schwarz case as quickly as possible without sign of reflection to a random factoid?

    While i certainly dont appreciate the possible punishment for copying files, what he did was *not* hacking. Hacking is ti exploit unexpected, new paths. Attaching a computer to a netwerk and copying files for releasing them, unrelated to demonstrating a new way of exploiting something is *not* hacking

    1. Re:The new sports on slashdot: by drolli · · Score: 1

      no. i downloaded my thoughts on the article and the representation of the case in the media.

      Not everything assumed to be a crime related to computers qualifies as "hacking"

      Not everybody whom i would count as a hacker does only "Hacks"

      Not every head of an institution with many departments and different interests bound by some contracts must/can represent the facet in which a certain part of people looks at it in a specific way without being forbidden to use a specific word afterwards.

      I appeciate that the word "Hacking" will be more positivly used in public by such aa prominent use of the word in its original meaning. This is good news. If people shakingahands with politicians give us back the original meaning, its good in my book. As a scientist "Hacking the world" is the best formulation of what i should aim to do; not just understanding things but constantly look around where assumptions of what cant work are not valid.

  18. other colleges started big Tech companies by peter303 · · Score: 1

    Harvard dropouts started MicroSoft and Facebook. Stanford/grads dropouts started CISCO, Yahoo, Google, HP ... I dont see MIT with an "elephant" for all its bravado.