Annalee Newitz on state of cyberliberties on U.S. campuses

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>


Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 20:09:21 -0400
From: Annalee Newitz <Annalee () techsploitation com>
To: declan () well com
Subject: electronic privacy on campus

Hi Declan. Here's an article from CNN about the research I recently
completed on cyberliberties at the top 50 universities in the United
States. I have a small article about it in this month's issue of Wired
magazine. To sum up: nearly every one of these universities has a policy
stating that if students use the campus network, they will be monitored.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/05/06/hln.wired.cyber.rights/

And here's me talking about it on CNN Headline news:

http://www.vmsdigital.com/MyFiles.aspx?Onum=4B0C1437-AC99-4891-8B29-274C317E
70B8

I'd love to see somebody create a wiki where folks could post comments and
links to the computer use policies at their colleges/universities. Students
need this as a resource.

-- 
Annalee Newitz
www.techsploitation.com

------ End of Forwarded Message

Cyber rights... and wrongs

By Erica Hill
CNN Headline News

(CNN) --I can't remember a single person worrying about cyber rights when I
was in college. Maybe it was because the Internet heyday hadn't yet arrived;
maybe it was because the thought never crossed our minds; maybe we didn't
know they were important.

Just a few years later, the rules have changed.

Technology writer Annalee Newitz looked at the best and worst when it comes
to campus cyber rights for the latest edition of Wired Magazine. What she
found surprised me.

Using the U.S. News & World Report list of the nation's top 50 research
universities, Newitz compared the schools based on three areas: how much
privacy students had on university computer networks; the availability of
privacy tools -- and whether they charged for them; and what the school's
bandwidth limitations were.

All the information is public; Newitz told me she found it on the university
Web sites.

I expected MIT -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- would come out on
top. I didn't expect schools like Columbia and Berkeley to wind up at the
bottom.

I wondered about the state of affairs at my alma mater, Boston University. I
did a little search to find out what the current policy is.

Penned in June 1997, the Boston University Conditions of Use and Policy on
Computing Ethics clearly states that anyone using university facilities --
including university-supported e-mail -- "are on notice, and by using these
facilities agree, that no representation has been made to them as to the
privacy of any communication or data stored on or sent through these
facilities."

That summed it up pretty clearly for me. In case I didn't get it, the policy
goes on to state that use of the university's computing facilities is a
privilege, not a right (now it was sounding like I was back in school).

I asked Newitz about similar policies at other universities. We abide by
company rules every day at work. It didn't seem that far-fetched that
students would have to live within the confines of some university-defined
rules in cyberspace.

Newitz disagreed, noting the difference between network administrators
looking at traffic and monitoring content.

"College students are private citizens, they're not employees of the
university," she told me. "They are paying to be there, and in a lot of
cases because they are paying they're actually paying for the use of the
university network."

"I believe that it's fine if [the] university wants to regulate, for
example, bandwidth access," she said, "but they should treat the students
data as private data."

She's not off -- privacy is increasingly important as it slips away.

It's a topic that is sure to get more attention as both universities and
students become more technologically savvy. In the meantime, it is a
delicate balance, one that may best be achieved by discussion from both
sides.

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