[IP] More on BS affair. Do read the starred paragraph!!!
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{INBOX} : Re: [IP] When is access unauthorized? -- "John S. Quarterman"
<jsq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Current Mail Folder: {INBOX}
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To:
dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Date:
Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:59:33 -0600
From:
"John S. Quarterman" <jsq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject:
Re: [IP] When is access unauthorized?
Cc:
ip <ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tim Finan's message is the first I've seen in this thread that referred
to the original meaning of the word hacker: someone who enjoys stretching
the capabilities of a system and solving hard problems.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
It's true that many people who pick up scripts and use them to
attack systems (script kiddies) and others who do nothing but
try to break systems (crackers) and others who systematically
exploit system weaknesses for financial gain (organized crime)
may call themselves hackers, but they're flattering themselves.
Eric Raymond's article about ``The Hacker Milieu as Gift Culture''
makes clear the difference:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/homesteading/ar01s06.html
Real hackers have given us Unix and Emacs and the Macintosh and apache
and BSD and Linux and sendmail and numerous other high quality gifts,
because that's what they enjoy and that's how they build their reputations.
Given the results, it's useful to distinguish between real hackers
(whom I'd think Harvard Business School would want to encourage,
considering their activities benefit the economy) and crackers.
*******Also, as an admissions consultant noted in the original article:
"Kreisberg said some applicants may had inadvertently tried to access the
files, without realizing they were looking for confidential information,
after they were e-mailed directions from other students who had copied
them from the BusinessWeek message board."
If that actually happened, some of the applicants may have simply
thought they were participating in the gift culture when they and
HBS were actually victims of a rogue patch, resulting in reputation
damage to them and HBS of the sort described in Eric Raymond's paper.
Maybe HBS should spend a bit more resources increasing value offered
to students by getting up to speed on present-day online culture rather
than pursuing cost-cutting too far by outsourcing critical functions
such as applications to a company that failed to keep them secure.
The former might result in better improvements to the bottom line.
-jsq
John S. Quarterman <jsq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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