Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!yale.edu!ox.com!msen.com!emv From: emv@msen.com (Ed Vielmetti) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Should we let students run COPS to get each other's passwords? Message-ID: Date: 16 Jun 91 23:49:28 GMT References: <27111@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> <1991Jun16.214835.26892@athena.cs.uga.edu> Sender: usenet@ox.com (Usenet News Administrator) Organization: MSEN, Inc. Ann Arbor MI Lines: 35 In-Reply-To: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu's message of 16 Jun 91 21:48:35 GMT In article <1991Jun16.214835.26892@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes: Stealing passwords is a violation of Georgia law and of the policies that students promise, in writing, to obey when they receive computer accounts. Do you have the text of the relevant Georgia law, and of the written policy statements which students are required to sign? That'd be a good addition to the archive of policy statements kept at ftp.cs.widener.edu:/pub/cud/schools/ . Note that there are some schools which have an "honor code" of some sort that is a blanket prohibition of all kinds of unethical behavior; for instance, if you were to go about cracking passwords at the U of Michigan engineering school chances are that as a student the first thing that'll be thrown against you is an honor code violation. All this casuistry about what is meant by "confidentiality" is pointless. Nice word, casuistry. American Heritage just says "determination of right and wrong in questions of conduct or conscience by the application of general principles of ethics". Webster goes a bit farther and says "sophistical, equivocal, or specious reasoning." Apparently you have a low opinion of people who are critical of your policies. That said, there are any number of people who make decisions about where to pursue further schooling or employment based on the reasonablenes of the computing environment provided to them; to be blunt, the U of Georgia doesn't appear to have a particularly appealing setup. A giant password file out in the open, and the only effective means of ensuring security of any means is via litigation and kicking people off of the system and out of school. --Ed