more on MIT says it won't admit hackers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Miles Fidelman <mfidelman () meetinghouse net>
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 12:13:56 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on MIT says it won't admit hackers

Dave,

I remember two relevant things from my MIT days:

1. The IT systems were kept off networks, and behind locked doors -
precisely because the IT folks figure that any MIT student with his/her
salt could hack into them.

2. John Donovan, a professor in the Sloan school, taught a very popular
introduction to computing course (6.251, a course number out of the
EE/Computer Science Department - for those who care about details).  The
course was pretty hands on. In those days (1971) the problem sets
included submitting card decks over a counter, and then time-sharing
based exercises on both TSO and Multics.  The problems submitted on card
were packed up as:
- faculty prepared JCL cards (remember JCL?)
- student prepared JCL
- student prepared program decks

The instructions for one of the problem sets specifically included a
statement that if you could crack the grading code to give yourself an
A, the grade would stick.  But... if your attempt to crack the code
crashed, or otherwise broke things, then you'd fail the exercise.

Cheers,

Miles

------ End of Forwarded Message

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