<p>OK, I don't know if you have heard about this, but there was this case some years ago when some students managed to find a way to see their desicions to Harvard Business School before the decisions were officially out. The result - their admissions were revoked...
I don't think using that page is that serious of a deal, but have this in mind...</p>
<p>OK, well, I'm sure they had to pull some serious hacker subterfuging in order to do that one. </p>
<p>This is openly on the admissions website. I assumed that just about everyone had tried it for kicks... And I unlike the previous example, I seriously doubt any of us would have any success.</p>
<p>Check this out:</p>
<p>Here is the first part of the story:
<a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=506140%5B/url%5D">http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=506140</a></p>
<p>The results were pretty bad for the cheaters: </p>
<p>"Harvard Business School (HBS) announced on March 7 that it would categorically reject all 119 applicants who used a hackers tip to try to check their admissions status earlier this month, sparking debate over the appropriate response to the students actions."</p>
<p>Interesting. </p>
<p>Good that you pointed this out...however, it stands that I wasn't trying to "hack into" anything by testing that out.</p>
<p>Sorry janel89, too late. I already reported you...
j/k
I was just pointing out the curious event from last year. Trying out the admissions page is pretty innocuous compared to the "feat" of these guys above.</p>
<p>lol, easy atanas, you really scared me there for a second.</p>
<p>Well, it's a way of increasing my odds, you know... Eliminating the competition through subversive activity. Especially now that my interview did not take place and I need another edge...</p>
<p>"Incentives move the world around us..."
Freakonomics</p>
<p>Not so fast, boy.</p>
<p>For one can just as easily notify them of your dubious tactics and to secure their own vanquishing in return. </p>
<p>So now we are caught in the prisoner's dilemma. You could choose not to take action in the hopes that I too would not take action -- in which case we would both be best off. But, if you take the risk of not taking action, you could be royally screwed and I could be off scotch-free. And vice versa. Or, we could both do it to each other, and we will both be relatively hurt, but not as much as we potentially would had we not made any moves at all...</p>
<p>Thus the dilemma facing the world we know. </p>
<p>Hardy har har.</p>
<p>I prefer to stick with the Nash equilibrium...</p>
<p>Too bad that the fact that 1000-2000 other people will also read this thread kind of changes our options here...</p>
<p>Are you majoring in econ btw?</p>
<p>I hope you know I'm kidding. haha. In any case, that analogy doesn't really apply because neither of us would be "off scotch-free" since the chances of admission are so low. With Harvard, everyone gets screwed.</p>
<p>I am an econ minor.</p>
<p>That there may be thousands of persons reading this thread does not remove the applicability of the prisoners' dilemma, it just adds more players to the game.</p>
<p>My professor actually ran a class-sized prisoners' dilemma over whether there should be an exam or a final paper worth much less - this was after other assignments were graded, thus some students would want a weightier exam so they might have the opportunity to raise their grade if they obtained a low score on the previous assigment. Needless to say, the exam-option always one.</p>
<p>I actually have a friend who stared Professor Nash in the eye.</p>
<p>Edit: Woooo. 3,000th post. Waha.</p>
<p>nspeds, you made your 3,000th post! </p>
<p>CONGRATULATIONS!!!</p>
<p>WOOO! I've baked you a cake.</p>
<p>"That there may be thousands of persons reading this thread does not remove the applicability of the prisoners' dilemma, it just adds more players to the game."</p>
<p>That's so, but they are in different shoes, so it's not a classical prisoner's dilemma case, being that I and janel89 have written so many things here and are "exposed", while the readers can just go and report us without much harm.</p>
<p>
[quote]
That's so, but they are in different shoes, so it's not a classical prisoner's dilemma case, being that I and janel89 have written so many things here and are "exposed", while the readers can just go and report us without much harm.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, I was just thinking that. Oh well.</p>
<p>I'm honestly just asking: isn't it "scott-free" and not "scotch-free?"</p>
<p>Getting off "scotch-free" sounds like kicking a drinking habit, not getting away with something.</p>
<p>lol, maybe, usually. I don't know.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Getting off "scotch-free" sounds like kicking a drinking habit, not getting away with something.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It sounds like getting liberated from tape.</p>
<p>Actually, it's "scot free." But read to the end, and you will see that it has also had a correlation with scotch (the drink), which is perhaps where my mix-up came from.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
[Q] From Pete Barnes: Exactly whence came the term scot free? Does it, as it sounds, refer to citizens of Scotland? Or am I reading something into that?
[A] As with the word hopscotch, scot free has no connection with Scotsmen, frugal or otherwise. Its a Scandinavian word meaning payment. The expression derives from a medieval municipal tax levied in proportional shares on inhabitants, often for poor relief. This was called a scot, as an abbreviation of the full term scot and lot, where scot was the sum to be paid and lot was ones allotted share. (This tax lasted a long time, in some places such as Westminster down to the electoral reforms of 1832, with only those paying scot and lot being allowed to vote.) So somebody who avoided paying his share of the towns expenses for some reason got off scot free. It was also used for a payment or reckoning, especially ones share of the cost of an entertainment; when one settled up, one paid for ones scot. Again, someone who evaded paying their share of the tab got off scot free. Its been suggested that this usage may have come from the old habit of noting purchases of drinks and the like by making marks on a slate, or scotching it, but the evidence suggests this is just a popular etymology, and that the usage comes from the same idea of a sum due to be paid.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Look how this thread evolved!</p>