THESE ARE STORIES WHICH QUOTE ME DURING THE INFAMOUS HBS HACKING SCANDAL

Harvard rejects 119 accused of hacking

Harvard and MIT Join Carnegie Mellon in Rejecting Applicants Who Broke Into Business-School Networks

THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
By DAN CARNEVALE

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said on Tuesday that they would not admit any of the 151 applicants who hacked into their business schools' computer systems to sneak peeks at their acceptance status. Carnegie Mellon University had announced a similar decision earlier.

But not everyone agrees that the students should be automatically denied admission.

"This behavior is unethical at best -- a serious breach of trust that cannot be countered by rationalization," Kim B. Clark, dean of the Harvard Business School, said in a written statement. "Any applicant found to have done so will not be admitted to this school."

Sanford Kreisberg, an admissions consultant who is president of Cambridge Essay Service, said the institutions that have made a blanket decision not to admit the applicants involved were overreacting. He said that he had talked to many of the applicants, and that many did not think that what they did was wrong.

"It's somewhere between a prank and a hack," Mr. Kreisberg said. "Some people said they didn't realize it was wrong until later. Some people were notified by an e-mail or by others saying, 'Check this out.'"

He also said that many people who grew up using the Web view the Internet differently than do older counterparts, who look down on the more freewheeling aspects of online life.

"There's a generational issue," Mr. Kreisberg said. "The judges in this case have not grown up with the Internet. It's kind of like the traffic-court judge who doesn't know how to drive."