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UCLA Shooter Accused Victim Of Stealing His Computer Code
The gunman who shot and killed a UCLA professor on Wednesday has been identified as Mainak Sarkar, said Los Angeles police. Sarkar, a former doctoral student accused the vicitim William Klug, 39, of stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else. According to reports, Sarkar used a 9mm semiautomatic pistol to shoot the professor, and then turned the gun on himself. A March 10 blog post by Sarkar, now archived reads: William Klug, UCLA professor is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy. [...] My name is Mainak Sarkar. I was this guy's PhD student. We had personal differences. He cleverly stole all my code and gave it another student. He made me really sick. Your enemy is your enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust.
..handbook of student relations!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valery_Fabrikant
They should teach software licensing to psychotic students.
If he had GPLed it first then his professor couldn't steal it.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Well damn fool write some more code... your code is not like bodily fluids it is not that precious.
In my own experience as a grad student, the terms were not unlike those at a company. The work you do in a research group belongs to the university, and it's normal practice for research codes to be passed on to other grad students for continuity within a research group. If Sarkar's code was something personal, then he could have a legitimate complaint, but the whole thing sounds fishy.
Klug's real crime was that he changed all the tabs in the code to spaces before handing the code to another student.
Some developers really do not like that sort of thing.
Because it is about someone who uses computers?
It is unwise to ascribe motive
The important thing for researchers is getting credit, giving code to someone else to use is not stealing, *but claiming you made it is*. Having said that the case could have been either, we wont be able to tell for a while it is still to soon.
His grammar is certainly impeccable.
Funny how all of the media yesterday came right out screaming that it was a white male who had committed the shooting...nope, no evidence of bias here guys. None at all...anyone else want to bet that since the shooter is no longer white in the news cycle, you won't hear about it anymore. It's kinda like those ~400 people and 21 dead shot in Chicago in the last month.
What a fucking mess. You guys in the US really need to get your shit together over the media and their agenda carrying.
Om, nomnomnom...
I just want to know what level of crazy this person really was. Did he really have a novel piece of code, and just didn't know how to deal with the loss. Or are we dealing with a nutcase who saw a fellow student use a linked list the same way he did, and assumed that they must have gotten it from the teacher.
https://arduinohistory.github....
worth a read. I had no idea massimo stole the idea from his student.
I think a lot less of massimo now, sad to say. yeah, he messed up the top .1 spaced headers (a crime in itself) but taking a student's work and calling it your own, that's really something to be publicly shamed over.
and yet, massimo does world tours claiming he's the arduino inventor guy.
just read the student's post about how HE came up with the concepts and had it stolen from him. I feel for him and I can imagine that happening, too.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Why are you assuming what this obviously deranged person said actually represents the facts?
#DeleteChrome
It seems he drove from Minnesota to UCLA, he killed someone there and also had a hit list of another professor that he did not get. Yes he was crazy. Its unfortunate that this was not recognized sooner, his posts were there well before he committed to act.
From the UCLA copyright information: "At UC, students generally own the copyrights in their creative works, including theses and dissertations. Any works produced by a registered student without the use of university funds (other than Student Financial Aid) is the intellectual property of the student."
But we don't (yet?) know what really went down.
Either he had grounds for a lawsuit, and wouldn't lose standing in the academic community by suing because the prof's actions were egregiously wrong, or.... he had no grounds for a lawsuit and had simply failed to understand the conditions under which his work could be re-used.
A lot of things in academic life are a raw deal: Tired TAs doing the actual teaching, great teachers who don't get tenure because publishing is regarded as more important, "piled higher and deeper" because publishing is important, etc. If you don't know that going in, once again... it's all on you.
I have more sympathy for undergrads who didn't realize they'd be crushed by debt and having a hard time finding a job that covers it when they get out. By the time you're going for a PhD, you should realize how the world works.
I first read the gunman's name as Maniak Sarkar
This guy was incredibly unstable and sound like over the top paranoid. Maybe even Schizophrenic.
Sick people do sick things.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Don't share code with the guy that is now dead. Don't take code from the other guy that is now dead. Be nice and fair or someone might pop their cap, freak out and kill you. Sound like a typical day on the LA freeway.
Academic plagiarism is a huge issue and very common. I have even seen different academic departments (e.g. math vs physics) fight each other over these issues. When undergrad students and graduate students do work for a professor and are not named in the paper or the work is given to another student for use and publication, students have no recourse. It is important to understand that many grad students have no grant or employment contract which cedes IP rights to the university/professor. University in-house counsel and IP departments have no oversight of publication or assignment of credit. I would only perform work for a professor (for free without an employment contract) if I could demand a contract outlining ownership.
It's all fake, it has to be.
This was a gun free zone, so things like that can't happen there. And California has all those gun laws, so they would prevent that; And he used a pistol so they should ban all long guns, because that will solve it.
Cue flurry of handgun restriction bills in the near future.
If you want a tab you will fucking well say 0x09. If you commit tabs your account will be locked for 4 hours. second offence 8 hours. after a few more we won't have a problem anymore.
I'd go with playing odds on this one.
At least some of it is shared
Maybe that's because they used MIT License.
I don't quite understand how this could have happened. I've been told my whole life that "common sense" gun controls will prevent crimes like this, and that passing new gun control laws will make us all safe.
Until today, I guess? See, I know it's a serious crime to carry a gun illegally in California, and doubly so to carry one onto a college campus. Add to that the killing of another person, which is hugely illegal.. and I just don't get it.
We were promised that these laws would work, yet day in and day out we see stories of shootings like this. So, what gives? Surely it can't be that these gun control laws don't work. We were promised they would, and that they were infallible, and a guarantee of safety, and that nothing else would work. I trusted them.
Not sure what to do now. I think I need a safe space. Thank God there's a gun-free zone nearby where I can hide.
who knew?
Why? It's going to be pretty hard to prosecute him.
Instead of killing someone who you believed stole your code you could have simply sued them. Or complain to the university.
In no way does this excuse the actions of the shooter, but for those unfamiliar with post-graduate studies, there is little institutional oversight of the faculty at most academic institutions, despite the lip service that they may give to the contrary. It's important to remember that it's in the instruction's best interest to protect the faculty member, rather than the student, as the student costs money, while the faculty member bringsince it in (in the firm of grants).
In my experience, I've had PIS that have required me to share equal credit
...that we have a serious culture-of-crazy-people-willing-to-kill-over-nothing problem; unfortunately, it's too politically useful to interpret it as a "gun problem".
-Styopa
Stolen code? Someone should have told Sarkar that this wasn't the right way to get a job with Oracle.
So you're telling me software ownership literally kills people.
And we let these savages near our children. Someone think of the children. /s
If you look at Klug's lab's webpage the shooter had be there since 2006 - longer than any other grad student there. My interpretation is that Klug gave him a problem/idea. The shooter was taking too long trying to come up with a solution and Klug gave it to someone else in the lab to work on. That combined with the fact that the shooter probably wasn't progressing towards finishing is PhD probably sent him over the edge. (And, if I remember correctly, I think UCLA has a 10-year limit on time-to-degree while Engineering's is usually 6.5 years.)
Mainak
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I no way am I condoning the actions of the shooter; however, he may have had a very legitimate gripe with his PI (Primary Investigator - academic parlance for adviser). For those unfamiliar with post-graduate studies, there is frequently little or no institutional oversight over faculty members at most research institutions - despite the lip service that most give to the contrary. It's important to remember that the student costs money, while the faculty member brings it in (in the form of grants), so it's in the institutions' interests to protect the faculty member rather than the student. More over, if a student goes outside of the university and sues either the faculty member and/or the institution or department, they are committing academic suicide because academia is such an insular field that you need a letter of reference/recommendation from your PI in order to progress to the next stage of your career. And, unlike private industry, where you can find a new employer relatively easily if you don't get along with your boss and/or they are abusive; once you are far enough along, you may be stuck with your PI until they decide you are finished.
In my experience (have a PhD, did a short postdoc, and am now a research scientist), I've dealt with PIs that:
- told me I was on a grant, when in reality I was removed, so that I was no longer eligible for funding once my contract was over. In this case, I wasn't informed until I asked about it again 6 months after the grant had been submitted, and at a point when it was far too late for me to secure my own funding. This was the mildest of the lousy experiences I have had.
- have required me to give equal credit on a project to another student that contributed little to the actual software that was developed, nor the testing of it. When I complained, I was told I would be dropped as a student, as would my project if I pushed the issue with anyone in the department. This does not include the innumerable ways in which he was verbally abusive towards me, frequently in public.
- demanded that 2 of my peers collect samples illegally, even after they had been informed that what they were demanding was illegal. His justification was that the work we were doing was of too much importance and too much benefit to be impeded by the laws of our state. Ironically, the work wasn't wasn't important enough or of sufficient benefit for him to pay for the nurse that he'd need to collect it legally, but I digress. Note, this was in a meeting of roughly 10 people... because he knew that no one would complain lest they get on his bad side and not get the ever important letter of reference/recommendation. There's a reason why I'm only posting this as an 'anonymous coward'.
So, while I don't condone this student's reaction, he may have had a very legitimate gripe - and with no meaningful way of seeking redress - this may have been the push that was needed to send someone with mental health issues over the edge.
Islam actually improves lives compared to the primitive customs it replaces in many places
Are you fucking kidding? Islam is the very definition of Primitive Customs.
Libya, Yemen, Nigeria, etc. etc.
90% of the world's hell holes are run by Islamic nut jobs and the other 10% Socialists/Communists.
Is it justifiable to take the life of some one who is guilty of destroying your livelihood?
Or we could just rant and rave about an issue in which the facts are purposefully being withheld and censored by the government to give the media time to spin this the right way (it's not a white shooter this time after all)
It seems odd to me that everyone immediately jumps to the conclusion that he is delusional. What do we actually know? Have we figured out what code he is talking about (if there even is any code)? Is there any evidence anywhere online that this student is actually intelligent, or is there evidence corroborating the unknown source who said that it would be "psychotic" to think that the professor would have stolen something from this student, and that there would even be anything to steal from this student in the first place? Is UCLA trying to cover something up? I'm just saying...
Colleges can be super sketchy, and as someone who works in academia, I wouldn't be shocked at all to find out that everything Sarkar is claiming is true, even given everything we have heard so far about the professor, etc. People you would never suspect can often turn out to be crazy cuthroat, and administrations will bend over backwards and break the law to protect them if it will make the school look better in the short term. So what do we actually know?
given the evidence, I'd pretty much ignore anything he said without a heck of a lot of corroborating evidence.
Wow, these code reviews are murder....
Err, I mean, well, ah....I guess that's what I mean.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Its tragic that a professor had to die. His life can be celebrated by the loss to the gene pool of yet another person that should not be contributing to it, Mainak.
Thank you.
NOT.
Another deranged third world piece of shit who shouldn't be in the USA. Why can't white people have our own countries?
Anybody got an answer?
I usually shoot anybody who fucks with my intellectual property.
This should be a warning to all greedy professors out there, you aren't safe if you participate in theft. You will be shot.
This has been a common accusation of graduate students.
When I look at the real work and insight behind many published papers, it seems that there is a pretty heavy number of professors who build their reputations on the ingenuity and effort of their graduate students.
It's one of the reasons I have a deep dislike of Academic Social Authority. It's not that I don't see the need for accredited authority in education, far from it, but rather that there seems to be little or no oversight to prevent abuses in the system other than program validation at the university level.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Engineering seems to be the one high status profession that the oppressed are able to get into (If you are a Palestinian refugee in a camp you are not going to become a doctor or a lawyer or even if you become one you are not going to be able to practice in the US as these professions are very protectionist). Yasser Arafat was a civil Engineer.
Also the people who gravitate towards engineering and programming (similar but not identical professions) are people who can concentrate for long periods of time without needing human interaction. This means anti-social folks who hate human interaction and humans in general can be very good engineering students.
So I am not surprised an Engineer took out another Engineer especially when he believe that the other Engineer had committed the cardinal sin of Academia - stealing credit. (Funnily enough VCs do this all the time. Some startup will come and give a demo. They wont fund them but take the code and give it to another startup which they do fund because their gut tells them the other startup has a better chance of executing to success)
**Life is too short to be serious**
Typically when you're angry enough to shoot someone the anger is at least in your own head justified. If the professor didn't steal it, then the shooter most likely at least thinks he did.
OK if I am the govt and I needed to disappear a few researchers for a top secret project (and one of them insists on taking his girlfriend along) how would I do it?
Well telling that one shot the other and killed himself would be a good way. Has anyone even seen the bodies? Putting a campus on lockdown is a good way to make sure noone sees the gvot leaving with the guys.
And then of course you create a soical media back history to paint it as a crazy. But there the govt slipped up by putting up Sarcar's profile as a Muslim. Sarcar is a bengali Surname and probably the intern at the *ia tasked to create the profile just went with Muslim as most Bangladeshis are Muslim but Sarcar is a Hindu surname.
OK guys how do you like this conspiracy theory. Please find holes in it
**Life is too short to be serious**
Why are you assuming that anyone who would take justice into their own hands is deranged?
Because of a programmed response. What is the point of commenting if you aren't taking this opportunity to flesh out your ideas of morality? Is this just some kind of morbid entertainment to you?
What about the possibility of the law protecting injustice?
When is it justified to take life in general?
There is a severe lack of critical thought on your part.
Because white people can't stop taking other peoples' countries.
Gosh, the name "semiautomatic" pistol just had to be mentioned in order to distinguish this evil type of weapon from say a bolt action or pump action pistols.. Saying semiautomatic pistol is like saying a "road car".
I'm sure a 7,14,30,90 day waiting period would have prevented this...not.
that mental illness is a medical issue. our society is neglecting its own people which always has tragic results.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
EVEN if he did, which by all accounts seems highly unlikely -- reports are this guy was a mediocre grad student at best -- last I checked theft of that level isn't a death penalty offense...
And what does 'passions must still be considered' mean? That it's ok to murder someone because you are emotionally unstable and have poor impulse control over a perceived wrong doing that in no way threatened your life? I don't get where you're going with this...
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
One comment after another from people claiming to have insight into the world of academia.
If you believe half of the comments, it would seem that once you become a professor you have suddenly lost your credibility as a researcher and only have one way to get it back. Steal the research of your students.
Sure. Let's disregard the statements of past students of the same professor that paint a picture of a caring person. Let's instead paint a much darker picture. One of a psychopath whose true nature was cleverly hidden from other students, faculty and friends. Coaches little League? I'm sure only for some deviant behavior.
No, we can be quite sure that the killer had justification. Why else did he get so mad? Or go so mad? Crazy? Someone drove him crazy.
Sure. It's all clear. The code was special. He should have had his PhD long ago. Instead of taking an indeterminate amount of time to get his degree, he should have been rich and famous from his special code. Instead he wound up being under the thumb of a professor who not only stole his code but took a darn long time doing it. How perverse can you get?
Of course he had to first start off by killing his girlfriend. Nothing unusual about that. Where else would you start?
Shooter thinks shootee "stole" his code. And you dipshits are actually talking about open source licenses, whether or not the shooter's code was "stolen", etc etc etc.
The issue is this asshat decided to shoot his professor. Period. He had no right to do so. He did have a right to go to his college administration. He did have a right to go to the courts. He did not use those rights. Looks like he also shot some woman in another state, then drove to UCLA to shoot the other guy.
Relevant facts? Some asshole shot 1, maybe 2 innocent people. Asshole had other options to redress his grievances, which he did not use.
Asshole's name should be erased from history, except when you're googling extreme assholes.
Looks like the sings weren't big enough for him to read. Gun Free Zone means NO GUNS allowed. These signs have stopped SO MANY shootings lately.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
If his professor really did that he could have reported him to the regents or the FBI. Sarkar also killed his wife. Did she steal his code too? The guy was mentally unhinged.
Why are you assuming what this obviously deranged person said actually represents the facts?
Did somebody quote Trump?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Get a dictionary and make the name substitutions needed, and perhaps some formal operation to transform some references (transitive to intransitive and such), and it is MY CASE WITHOUT ME. Even the names match like a misspelled name. Understanding this tires..
Sarkar is Brahmin.
Brahmin are racist by birth.
Expel Brahmin from USA.
http://www.petition2congress.c...
Casteism
Every ( and I do mean every last one ) grad program in the world operates like this. They give money to students and the terms for the grant/scholarship also include that the university owns the work for your degree and it's IP. The only way to own your work afterwards is to not accept a single DIME of financial aid/grants/housing/etc while attending classes. If you 100% self-fund yourself, you've got a case that it's your work. And they do give every last grad student some sort of aid or incentive offer, no matter how small, with this attached. Because they want the IP.
So, yes, they can and do give your code away. Re-use it, sell it to the military, or let it rot. Or whatever else they decide to do since they gave you a break on your tuition in exchange. This is how research universities operate and the original article just points out that the guy was a tool who didn't want to accept the terms that he clearly signed when he entered the program.
My son is in college right now. 100% of everything that he does is theirs. Fair enough, since he also is getting a nearly free education. It's how you play the game, folks.
I'm not justifying anything this guy did -- I'm saying rational thought evaporates when one feels betrayed.