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This sounds like the administration wants hackers to keep doing all the things which help MITs image, but if hackers get caught doing these things, theyll be mercilessly prosecuted.</p>
<p>Why does MIT put on display all the hacking memorabilia when they would prosecute anyone in the act of putting together those very hacks? Since when do administrators know more about the hacking code of ethics than the hackers who wrote it? Since when does hacking get thrown into the same category as academic integrity and hazing? How can a hacker follow the hacking code of conduct without hacking?
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<p>Someone close to me assures me that this opinion piece is completely spot-on. If so, it is a sad commentary on one of the magical aspects of MIT that make it stand out from many of its peer institutions.</p>
<p>One very famous professor at MIT once told me privately: "I will never tell you what to or not to do. Because that would require that I am smarter than you. At MIT, we are all equals."</p>
<p>Sometimes I think the administration could take a leaf out of that book. A bunch of people who just want the place to run smoothly with no exceptional circumstances or oddities. Of course, exceptional circumstances and oddities are generally the basis of any good work that was ever done at MIT.</p>
<p>Yeah, major props to Vinayak (the article's author). It's a really touchy issue, and his editorial was exceptionally well written. It could have easily come off sounding whiny or obnoxious.</p>
<p>I totally started all of the heated debate that went on in the blogger's discussion list, too. =)</p>
<p>Vinayak did a nice job. I've heard a lot of props for that op-ed.</p>
<p>(Chancellor) Phil Clay didn't even bother to write a new email on this topic for this year - he just changed a few words. Somebody did a diff on the two years' emails and sent the results to the Senior Haus discussion list.</p>