[desperado.]

Totally immature behaviour by the harvard addcom

even the IIMS reacted to this in a better way...

but then it was just the CAT and not the GD/PI result in the case of IIMS.

[Simba]

I agree with u Subbu. The 'Holier than thou' attitude totally sucks. They are out there to just cover their a$$. Thinking back on the IIM issue, the students were in no way penalized and thats the beauty of the whole thing. Here, the school instead of taking the blame on itself & on its S/w vendor, it goes out & humiliates the students.

Someone said on the BW forum.. The students did not humiliate the school at any point but the school with as much reverence as Harvard did not even spare a moment to humiliate the students. Such things actually make u wonder about a lot of things. Too sad that these schools are not taking a pragmatic approach and also not trying to understand the issues in internet & n/w security. Come to think of it, MIT is an ace of a school for technology... too sad that they too consider this thing as a 'breach'.

I only wish the BW forum had kept the thread running for more than a day. Then the school would have had a clear picture of the 'unethical' students. Considering the kind of nerves we have during the apping & waiting period, its not a big guessing game as to why people checked!! All those who could not check their results in that time frame must have been cursing their stars about the debacle.. now, they must be jubliant. So, are they really just plain 'ethical'? Sheesh.. too bad.

Stanford's Bolton says that whoever did it should come out & own up their faults. Now, when will the Bschools own up their faults for using a lousy network security!??

[ketanm]

Some links


Today's Harvard Crimson has the full story

Reuters has picked up the story as well


Of course, these developments have sparked a great deal of debate:

BW1
BW2
wakechick
wharton


Ketan

[ketanm]

BTW I just realised another angle to the story..... When I apply to a B-school... I supply most of my personal information.... (in some cases like passport details , may be credit card details or contact details or my other life experiences).... and if the database can be so easily hacked... then isnt "my privacy" being compromised by the B-school??


Ketan

[Simba]

Check this out - CafePress

& Britchick

[amithmp]

[Deleting old posts]

[pagalguy]

The world seems to be enamoured by the word 'hack' , without as much as a clue as to what it entails. Happened with us here with the IIMs and now it happened in the US. Although a seriously hamfisted judgement by the bschools. Had the hack been alive for 2/3 more days a majority of the applicants might have checked out the same. With that many applicants on line, I wonder how the bschools would have reacted. Would they still be talking about ethics or would have probed deeper to figure out what really happened to understand the situation better. Atleast the IIMs have shown way better judgement than HBS or MIT.

[ketanm]

I found this on one of the blogs....funny

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7am - HBS Dean offices

Ring... Ring... Ring...
Click
"Dean Clark, your son John is on line 3"
"Hey John. Good to hear from you. I'm in a fire fight right now. Is everything ok?"

"Dad, this morning, I was looking at the B-Week forums and this guy posted instructions on peeking at our HBS application status by typing some Web Address link parameters. It was kind of cool because although you already told me that I got in, I just thought I'd look and see what it said. So, I was just wondering if this was a documented thing with the application software or not."

"John, I just got wind of that issue this morning as well and it's not a sanctioned loophole. That's the fire-fight thing I'm in right now."

"What do you mean?", said John

"I can't talk much about it right now..." said Dean Clark abrubtly

[knock on door]
"Dean Clark, I was able to reach MIT Dean Schmalensee for you. He's on line 2 for you" said Dean Clark's assistant

"ok thanks" said Dean Clark

[Retuning back to his phone call with John]
"Hey John, Can you e-mail me whatever you saw on those forums? I have people looking at it now as well. I've gotta go. I have a phone call I have to take."

"sure, no problem. Hey Dad.... did I do anything wrong?"

~~ later that evening ~~
[Lawrence Summers office]
Lawrence and Dean Kim Clark alone in the office on a conference call with Len Metheny (CEO of Apply Yourself)

"Len! Tell us that there aren't any more loopholes in your software and if there are, what the hell you're going to do to verify that. Have you seen the online papers today! And what's the status on what your engineers are finding!?", said Lawrence in a stern upset tone.

"We have had our best engineers on this and we're finding that their application status is the only thing that can be viewed. Everything is locked down.", said Len in as calm and confident a voice he could muster in the moment.

"Len! Here's the thing. We're going to spin this thing the best we can. But, what I want you to do is to hire an outside security firm to verify everything you're saying. We'll pay a portion of the cost. I've already talked to Dean Schmalensee at MIT and he's agreed to pitch in as well."

"We'll get right on that. I'll have some companies that we can use say tommorrow afternoon." said Len.

"Good", said Mr Summers, confident of his decision and request.

Quickly cutting in before Mr Summers and and Dean Clark could say anything else, Len confidently began...
"But, I do want to say that my Sr Project Manager informed me a few minutes ago that an internet cookie maintained on the Server will have records of all the students who attempted the "work-around"."

"Really!" said Dean Clark.

"Yeah, and I have some instructions on creating the list being written up now. We should be ready to send those instructions over within the hour. But before doing so, I would suggest that you take the computer systems off-line in order to do a full backup of the Servers to get an image of all the files" said Len, acting more like an instructor and confident techie more than a CEO of company at this point.

"Good, I'll have our IT staff do the backup here shortly." said Mr Summers.

"Oh my God. That means they'll see John's attempt" thought Dean Clark quietly and fearfully.

"Len, I'll expect that e-mail within the hour." said Mr Summers.
"Yes sir" said Len
[click]

"Damn what a mess" said Mr Summers as he turned to Dean Clark while shaking his head.
"Mr Summers, I need to talk to you about something...." said Dean Clark with a tone that sounded like he'd been socked in the stomach.

==============================================
Now imagine that could have hypothetically happened at HBS. Do you think they would have made the decision about the 119 that they did in light of this? If you do... you need to stop watching those reality TV shows.