News Oxford hackers face punishment

Also from the Beeb:

Two students from Oxford University are facing disciplinary action after hacking into the university's computer.

They could be fined £500 or be suspended after infiltrating the system and publishing their story in a student newspaper.

First-year students Patrick Foster and Roger Waite say they wanted to expose the weakness in the IT system.

They were able to view live closed circuit material and access information about students' computer use.

They published their story in the student newspaper Oxford Student

Full story here

TBH, it doesn't matter how much good intent was involved - if it's against college rules, they deserve what they get. If they had serious doubts over the network security, they should have voiced their concerns to the admins.

 

Yeh, but if they didn't do anything malicious, then i don't see the harm

 

Yea at the end of the day:

a)oxford can now fix the security problems
b)it'd take about five minutes to remove any stories they might have deposited on the computer while placing it in the newspaper.

It's a bit like wardriving really, just helping to raise awareness about security flaws, and not causing any harm.

 

nobody would have listened. it costs money to fix things, and unless you prove it is needed nobody will do anything.

 

nvm