Someone Hacked Admissions Information Online

Applying to College
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Just Read This, what are your thoughts as more and more colleges move to online applications and online results. My sister found out she was admitted Early Decision to Johns Hopkins through e-mail…

Hacker Helps School Applicants

<a href=“http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050303/D88JOOFG1.html[/url]”>http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050303/D88JOOFG1.html&lt;/a&gt;

Mar 3, 5:14 PM (ET)

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

BOSTON (AP) - A computer hacker gained access to internal admissions records at Harvard, Stanford and other top business schools, then helped applicants log on and learn their fate weeks ahead of schedule, officials said Thursday.

Few of the people who followed the hacker’s directions managed to find out if their applications have been accepted, according to school officials. But many of them could end up getting rejected now that the schools are checking to see who tried to exploit the security breach.

“Hacking into a system in this manner is unethical and also contrary to the behavior we expect of leaders we aspire to develop,” said Steve Nelson, executive director of the MBA program at Harvard Business School.

The unidentified hacker tapped into Business Week’s online forum early Wednesday and posted instruction on how applicants could log onto the schools’ Web sites to check their admission status.

Dozens of business schools, including those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Duke, Carnegie Mellon and Dartmouth, were affected by the breach, with their Web sites vulnerable for roughly nine hours before the problem was fixed.

All of the schools use ApplyYourself, an online application and notification program made by a Fairfax, Va., company.

Len Metheny, ApplyYourself’s chief executive, said applicants could access only their own admissions records.

“There were only a small number of students who actually had a decision,” he added. “For the vast majority of applicants, decisions were not available in the system to be displayed. A blank page would appear.”

Metheny would not say if the company has been able to identify the hacker, who used the screen name “brookbond.” Business Week removed the hacking tips from its site.

School officials hinted that applicants should expect to receive a rejection letter if they tried to hack into admissions records.

Jim Gray, an associate dean at Duke’s business school, said one applicant tried but failed to search the school’s Web site for an acceptance letter. He said school officials know the applicant’s name.

“We’re clearly looking at his application in a different light at this point,” Gray said.

More than 100 applicants to Harvard tried to access the school’s admissions records. “Some appeared to find a decision. Some got a blank screen,” Nelson said. “But even if they got a decision, the decision isn’t final until March 30.”

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<p>thats badas s</p>

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<p>whoa… that’s crazy</p>

<p>imagine…getting accepted to HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL, only to find out you were rejected b/c you played in on the hack… i would probably die, lol</p>

<p>and how can you blame these people? if someone put some kind of hack here i’m sure everyone would do it</p>

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<p>those people don’t deserve to get in…B-schools are trying hard to crack down on unethical behavior due to recent incidents involving high-profile business leaders. if would only make the school look bad if they accepted and graduate unethical business leaders.</p>

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<p>Unethical my ass. The bug was theirs to exploit and the schools should take responsibility. The students didn’t hurt anybody by doing this and shouldn’t be blamed for innocent curiosity.</p>

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<p>That’s wild. :frowning: @ those who “got accepted,” but will find out in a few weeks that they were rejected.</p>

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<p>What if someone looked up someone elses info</p>

<p>Ummm, not so innocent curiosity, and if they could hack into the site, would they go further and try and mess with the information, there are rules, and codes of ethics, if you can’t even follow those rules, ah well</p>

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<p>"What if someone looked up someone elses info</p>

<p>Ummm, not so innocent curiosity, and if they could hack into the site, would they go further and try and mess with the information, there are rules, and codes of ethics, if you can’t even follow those rules, ah well"</p>

<p>These kids weren’t “hacking” into the site, they were exploiting a flaw in the site’s design. There’s no way they could have made any changes or anything along those lines, nor could they have checked the status of other applicants even if they wanted to.</p>

<p>No lines were crossed. The colleges and reporting service ****ed up and should deal with it.</p>

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<p>Yeah, we all know that [no</a> one on here would ever exploit a flaw in a site’s design](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=37929]no”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=37929).</p>

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<p>curiosity killed the cat …</p>

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<p>Ummm…just because there is a flaw, does not mean anyone can go in a steal information…or take something that is not theirs yet…the colleges decide when it available and for a number of reasons…</p>

<p>It is sad and scary that people think just because something has a flaw, they have a RIGHT to break the rules. So, if a system is not perfect, anyone can do whatever they want… nice morals…if I was a school administrator and some one broke those rules, then too bad, they would be out. That is their RIGHT. The people that looked ro tried to look were fools. Why risk everything? You don’t think they can track it? And why would anyone do someting because some made a claim that you could? Hey, the teacher left the test on his desk, lets copy it…well the teacher made a mistake so lets cheat…</p>

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<p>40 Stanford applicants tried to find their results as well. Too bad nothing will be posted until the end of March. So as well as being cheaters, they were just plain stupid. Stanford is ticked off.</p>

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<p>If anyone had any doubts about colleges thinking ethics are important, this should lay those doubts to rest. It should also serve as a wake-up call to those who think if information is available, it’s therefore ethical to run with it. These universities know that their grads are going to be future investment bankers, politicians, lawyers, etc., and don’t want to see their grads in handcuffs on the front page of the NYT someday. That tends to make the school look bad.</p>

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<p>Using one of my many analogies: -</p>

<p>Its like having a jewlery store with a small crack in the window, which u can fit ure hand thru and snatch something, its unethical. But in this case its not as big as it wasnt stealing just curiosity, its like taking them out, having a good look at them and putting them back in.</p>

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<p>■■■! They’re going to reject us?!</p>

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<p>I think the ethics comes down to the way the original hacker phrased it. If his post on BW were like, “Hey you guys, I hacked the system, so you can see your decision early!”, then yes, it’s wrong, because you shouldn’t be messing with it, etc. But if the OP was like, “Decisions released early! Check yours out!”, and DIDN’T make it obvious that he did something sneaky to access them, then I don’t think people should be punished, because people might not realise they did something wrong.</p>

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<p>harvard EAers were able to find out their results hours before emails were sent by using the admitted students page… these people also found a flaw and exploited it; i don’t see the big deal</p>

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<p>what sucks is a person who was harvard worthy and was accepted has to be rejected now because he couldnt be more patient?</p>

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<p>doesn’t suck…if you go around a system, follow some strangers instructions, and then wonder why people are upset, you shouldn’t be in business school!!</p>

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<p>Depends on what the instructions were. If the hacker just provided a link and told people to type something in, I don’t see why that is so wrong. But if there was a lot of hacking involved on everyone’s part, then they should have known better.</p>