Moufid leaves Carleton
By now you’ve probably heard that Carleton University has imposed several sanctions on Mansour Moufid for violating Carleton‘s Student Rights and Responsibilities Policy in the Kasper Holmberg incident. The sanctions include:
- paying $608 for the cost of 32 new student cards;
- paying $2 160 for the cost of extra security staff for the residence buildings;
- seven hours of community service a week at a food bank;
- completion of an ethics course;
- allowing the university to monitor all his online activity through any Carleton University server for as long as he has access and that the information may be shared among university officials
- writing a letter of apology to the 32 students, the university and the university community that includes a statement that he "lied about alerting the university before distribution (of the report)."
- being expelled if he violates the university’s student policy again.
There’s no mention of academic penalty, suspension or expulsion.
I have no problems with any of the conditions other than having to say he lied. There appears to be some confusion at the university over whether the university received the report prior to Moufid making it public. Carleton University spokesman Christopher Walters told the CBC in their September 8th story that "the university received the document alerting them to the problem on Aug. 29", which makes it seem pretty clear they did receive it. Their requiring him to say he lied is going a bit too far. He could probably accept everything else but appeal the requirement to say he lied.
Apart from that, I think the sanctions are quite fair and consistent with the Student Rights and Responsibilities Policy, particularly as this wasn’t Moufid’s first encounter with the university administration for violating their policies. He confirmed in the Ottawa Citizen’s story today that he was given a verbal warning when he was caught creating different IP addresses for his computer in order to get around access resources he was not allowed to access.
Anyways, it appears that Moufid has decided to leave Carleton and work in a warehouse for a year and continue his studies at another university next September. Of course, he may get jail time when he’s found guilty, as he almost certainly will be, so there may be a longer break in his education.
As I said in my first post on this topic, I hope he thinks it was worth it.
AKA Keeper of Maps, I'm a geocacher who lives in Ottawa, Canada.
Man, I think you and the Squid-dude are putting a bit too much importance on this thing. Together, how many posts have you guys dedicated to this subject? Five or 6? I’m too lazy this morning to count.
So a kid did something stupid. Well, we all do moronic things from time to time. I could fill pages and pages with stuff that I have done over the years that have been, uh, questionable…
Yeah, he broke the "sacred" laws of computer security, so what. He was caught and he is being punished for it. Big deal. There are waaaaaaay more interesting things to blog about.
Yawn.
I actually work in the field of IT security, and many of my readers do as well. To us, it’s interesting for a number of reasons.
1. It’s a test of section 342.1 of the CCC – a law brought in place to deal with this sort of thing, but not usually tested due to plea bargains or the next point…
2. Everyone thinks people who do this are heroes… unless the “hero” breaks into their data.
It bothers me deeply that still, after all these years, people still have some weird romantic notion about hackers.
Nope. I am completely devoid of notions – romantic or otherwise.
I’m not trying to be a bother here – simply thinking aloud that in the realm of really “bad things” that this is well… minor.
Whatever the Criminal Code says. Never paid a lot of attention to certian parts of that particular little piece of legislation…
Seriously, my security concerns are much more immediate (i.e., making sure my kids are safe from physical harm) and in my mind, more important than some kid hacking into a Uni’s card reading software.
Yeah, yeah – one thing can lead to another – but ya gotta admit that it’s remote.
Perspective. That’s all I ask.