[IP] more on MIT says it won't admit hackers

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Bradley Malin <malin@cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:32:53 -0500 (EST)
To: <marcaniballi@hotmail.com>, <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on MIT says it won't admit hackers

Whoa, let's hold on a minute.  I concur with several of the postings
regarding the overreaction of the schools in question, but encouraging
illegal activity is not something that these schools would benefit from.
Hacking for "curiosity" and testing system vulnerability can be very
useful for creative and syetems development perspectives.  This is
why hacking and security classes in academic institues are run on
closed systems with no information that can be used for harm.  Once
you start encouraging hacking in an open environent, you'll be inundated
with all sorts of people, both the good and the bad, with intention of
protection and maliciousness.

> If I were presiding over an institution such as MIT, I would be
encouraging
> hackers to play and report their findings - even give credits! Better an
> environment of play and co-opetition, than one of repression and
> significantly higher vulnerability.

Moreover, once you encourage unfettered cracking, you're going to end up
with social engineering problems (which I'm sure already exist to a
certain extent) which may be great for people interested in industrial and
governmental espionage, but not for legitamite business processing and
development.

-Brad

------ End of Forwarded Message

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