I wonder if this incident makes current students wary about the change in MIT ethos.
As an alum, I don't see a change in ethos. During my time there ('91 to '95) things were open, but if you were doing something that the institute considered improper they asked you to stop. If you persisted in the behavior, they escalated the response. In my four years there, I witnessed this philosophy applied to drinking, trespassing in forbidden places (roofs for example), harassing behavior and yes, behavior on the network.
Students often "explored" the network (myself included) but it was possible to go too far.
(no, I don't think Swartz's transgressions warranted multiple years in prison and the whole situation is a tragedy)
I don't think this is only MIT. It's just a new ecosystem growing up. I remember when spoofing a superior's email was fun. I remember when accessing other people's emails via misconfiguration, etc. was 'fun'. I remember when very few paces had any kind of firewall.
None of these things are true any longer. As things mature, they take on a new importance and are treated as such.
When the first aeroplanes were around, did one need to get a pilot's license (no), could you buzz buildings (yes)? When the first autos came about, where there any traffic regulations? Nope. They were both freewheeling till they took on importance.
There does seem to have been a change in the culture at MIT though. I can't find the article now, but I recall reading years ago about the student body being vocally opposed to one administrator in particular who didn't seem to grok the culture there.
So clearly there's been some discussion a sea change in the culture at MIT. If true -- if it is even perceived to be true -- that will really be a problem for the school, as its status among technical universities owes a lot to its cultural respect for all forms of hacking.
Brewster Kahle was at MIT in 1982. I get the impression that MIT was gradually locked down. For example, prof Jerry Lettvin said, "Up to about 1950's there was a kind of freedom in the scientific world — certainly at MIT — that allowed you to play games of all sorts. As two or three decades went by MIT was taken over by managers." (http://www.tengerresearch.com/learn/interviews/jeromelettvin...)
And as the internet became important to business interests, it's not that surprising that these crimes became more harshly punished. (Though there's the argument that these punishments should be relaxed in some cases because elite CEOs and technologists have been guilty of them as part of their educations. Like Steve Jobs, Tufte, etc. Not unlike presidents getting away with drug use. And there's a conflict between businesses about intellectual property; Google probably would be happy if they could open up books.)
Comments
I wonder if this incident makes current students wary about the change in MIT ethos.
As an alum, I don't see a change in ethos. During my time there ('91 to '95) things were open, but if you were doing something that the institute considered improper they asked you to stop. If you persisted in the behavior, they escalated the response. In my four years there, I witnessed this philosophy applied to drinking, trespassing in forbidden places (roofs for example), harassing behavior and yes, behavior on the network.
Students often "explored" the network (myself included) but it was possible to go too far.
(no, I don't think Swartz's transgressions warranted multiple years in prison and the whole situation is a tragedy)
I don't think this is only MIT. It's just a new ecosystem growing up. I remember when spoofing a superior's email was fun. I remember when accessing other people's emails via misconfiguration, etc. was 'fun'. I remember when very few paces had any kind of firewall.
None of these things are true any longer. As things mature, they take on a new importance and are treated as such.
When the first aeroplanes were around, did one need to get a pilot's license (no), could you buzz buildings (yes)? When the first autos came about, where there any traffic regulations? Nope. They were both freewheeling till they took on importance.
There does seem to have been a change in the culture at MIT though. I can't find the article now, but I recall reading years ago about the student body being vocally opposed to one administrator in particular who didn't seem to grok the culture there.
I did find an article from 2007 about a case that raised questions about how the university handled hacking (http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N4/hackers.html), and a follow-up from 2008 titled, "Hacking tradition under fire?" (http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N66/hacking.html)
So clearly there's been some discussion a sea change in the culture at MIT. If true -- if it is even perceived to be true -- that will really be a problem for the school, as its status among technical universities owes a lot to its cultural respect for all forms of hacking.
Brewster Kahle was at MIT in 1982. I get the impression that MIT was gradually locked down. For example, prof Jerry Lettvin said, "Up to about 1950's there was a kind of freedom in the scientific world — certainly at MIT — that allowed you to play games of all sorts. As two or three decades went by MIT was taken over by managers." (http://www.tengerresearch.com/learn/interviews/jeromelettvin...)
And as the internet became important to business interests, it's not that surprising that these crimes became more harshly punished. (Though there's the argument that these punishments should be relaxed in some cases because elite CEOs and technologists have been guilty of them as part of their educations. Like Steve Jobs, Tufte, etc. Not unlike presidents getting away with drug use. And there's a conflict between businesses about intellectual property; Google probably would be happy if they could open up books.)