Read Case 2.1: Hacking into Harvard, located on page 71 in your textbook. As applicants began to defend themselves against the penalties handed out by the business schools, they appealed to both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist criteria to support their actions. Some responded by pointing out that their intentions were never malicious, while others argued they did not think checking their application statuses would cause any real harm. Review the case study and analyze the actions of the students from a Kantian perspective. Consider whether the actions taken by the hackers were permissible according the standard of universal acceptability.<\/p>\n
CASE 2.1 Hacking into Harvard EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER APPLIED FOR ADMISSION to a selective college or who has been interviewed for a highly desired job knows the feeling of waiting impatiently to learn the result of one\u2019s application. So it\u2019s not hard to identify with those applicants to some of the nation\u2019s most prestigious MBA programs who thought they had a chance to get an early glimpse at whether their ambition was to be fulfilled. While visiting a Businessweek Online message board, they found instructions, posted by an anonymous hacker, explaining how to find out what admission decision the business schools had made in their case. Doing so wasn\u2019t hard. The universities in question\u2014Harvard, Dartmouth, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and Stanford\u2014used the same application software from Apply Yourself, Inc. Essentially, all one had to do was change the very end of the applicant-specific URL to get to the supposedly restricted page containing the verdict on one\u2019s application. In the nine hours it took Apply Yourself programmers to patch the security flaw after it was posted, curiosity got the better of about two hundred applicants, who couldn\u2019t resist the temptation to discover whether they had been admitted.19 Some of them got only blank screens. But others learned that they had been tentatively accepted or tentatively rejected. What they didn\u2019t count on, however, were two things: first, that it wouldn\u2019t take the business schools long to learn what had happened and who had done it and, second, that the schools in question were going to be very unhappy about it. Harvard was perhaps the most outspoken. Kim B. Clark, dean of the business school, said, \u201cThis behavior is unethical at best\u2014a serious breach of trust that cannot be countered by rationalization.\u201d In a similar vein, Steve Nelson, the executive director of Harvard\u2019s MBA program, stated, \u201cHacking into a system in this manner is unethical and also contrary to the behavior we expect of leaders we aspire to develop.\u201d It didn\u2019t take Harvard long to make up its mind what to do about it. It rejected all 119 applicants who had attempted to access the information. In an official statement, Dean Clark wrote that the mission of the Harvard Business School \u201cis to educate principled leaders who make a difference in the world. To achieve that, a person must have many skills and qualities, including the highest standards of integrity, sound judgment and a strong moral compass\u2014an intuitive sense of what is right and wrong. Those who have hacked into this web site have failed to pass that test.\u201d Carnegie Mellon and MIT quickly followed suit. By rejecting the ethically challenged, said Richard L. Schmalensee, dean of MIT\u2019s Sloan School of Management, the schools are trying to \u201csend a message to society as a whole that we are attempting to produce people that when they go out into the world, they will behave ethically.\u201d Duke and Dartmouth, where only a handful of students gained access to their files, said they would take a case-by-case approach and didn\u2019t publicly announce their individualized determinations. But, given the competition for places in their MBA programs, it\u2019s a safe bet that few, if any, offending applicants were sitting in classrooms the following semester. Forty-two applicants attempted to learn their results early at Stanford, which took a different tack. It invited the accused hackers to explain themselves in writing. \u201cIn the best case, what has been demonstrated here is a lack of judgment; in the worst case, a lack of integrity,\u201d said Derrick Bolton, Stanford\u2019s director of MBA admissions. \u201cOne of the things we try to teach at business schools is making good decisions and taking responsibility for your actions.\u201d Six weeks later, however, the dean of Stanford Business School, Robert Joss, reported, \u201cNone of those who gained unauthorized access was able to explain his or her actions to our satisfaction.\u201d He added that he hoped the applicants \u201cmight learn from their experience.\u201d Given the public\u2019s concern over the wave of corporate scandals in recent years and its growing interest in corporate social responsibility, business writers and other media commentators warmly welcomed Harvard\u2019s decisive response. But soon there was some sniping at the decision by those claiming that Harvard and the other business schools had overreacted. Although 70 percent of Harvard\u2019s MBA students approved the decision, the undergraduate student newspaper, The Crimson, was skeptical. \u201cHBS [Harvard Business School] has scored a media victory with its hard-line stance,\u201d it said in an editorial. \u201cAmericans have been looking for a sign from the business community, particularly its leading educational institutions, that business ethics are a priority. HBS\u2019s false bravado has given them one, leaving 119 victims in angry hands.\u201d As some critics pointed out, Harvard\u2019s stance overlooked the possibility that the hacker might have been a spouse or a parent who had access to the applicant\u2019s password and personal identification number. In fact, one applicant said that this had happened to him. His wife found the instructions at Businessweek Online and tried to check on the success of his application. \u201cI\u2019m really distraught over this,\u201d he said. \u201cMy wife is tearing her hair out.\u201d To this, Harvard\u2019s Dean Clark responds, \u201cWe expect applicants to be personally responsible for the access to the website, and for the identification and passwords they receive.\u201d Critics also reject the idea that the offending applicants were \u201chackers.\u201d After all, they used their own personal identification and passwords to log on legitimately; all they did was to modify the URL to go to a different page. They couldn\u2019t change anything in their files or view anyone else\u2019s information. In fact, some critics blamed the business schools and Apply Yourself more than they did the applicants. If those pages were supposed to be restricted, then it shouldn\u2019t have been so easy to find one\u2019s way to them. In an interview, one of the Harvard applicants said that although he now sees that what he did was wrong, he wasn\u2019t thinking about that at the time\u2014he just followed the hacker\u2019s posted instructions out of curiosity. He didn\u2019t consider what he did to be \u201chacking,\u201d because any novice could have done the same thing. \u201cI\u2019m not an IT person by any stretch of the imagination,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not even a great typist.\u201d He wrote the university a letter of apology. \u201cI admitted that I got curious and had a lapse in judgment,\u201d he said. \u201cI pointed out that I wasn\u2019t trying to harm anyone and wasn\u2019t trying to get an advantage over anyone.\u201d Another applicant said that he knew he had made a poor judgment but he was offended by having his ethics called into question. \u201cI had no idea that they would have considered this a big deal.\u201d And some of those posting messages at Businessweek Online and other MBA-related sites believe the offending applicants should be applauded. \u201cExploiting weaknesses is what good business is all about. Why would they ding you?\u201d wrote one anonymous poster. Dean Schmalensee of MIT, however, defends Harvard and MIT\u2019s automatically rejecting everyone who peeked \u201cbecause it wasn\u2019t an impulsive mistake.\u201d \u201cThe instructions are reasonably elaborate,\u201d he said. \u201cYou didn\u2019t need a degree in computer science, but this clearly involved effort. You couldn\u2019t do this casually without knowing that you were doing something wrong. We \u2019ve always taken eth ics seriously, and this is a serious matter.\u201d To those applicants who say that they didn\u2019t do any harm, Schmalensee replies, \u201cIs there nothing wrong with going through files just because you can?\u201d To him and others, seeking unauthorized access to restricted pages is as wrong as snooping through your boss\u2019s desk to see whether you\u2019ve been recommended for a raise. Some commentators, however, suggest there may be a generation gap here. Students who grew up with the Internet, they say, tend to see it as wide-open territory and don\u2019t view this level of web snooping as indicating a character flaw.<\/p>\n
Email Hacking Is A Serious Crime<\/b><\/p>\n
POSTED IN PRIVACY LAW<\/a> BY LAWYERS.COMSM<\/p>\n Practically everyone has an email account, and they’re used for personal and business reasons. It’s only natural for us to expect a little privacy<\/a> in our email, and there are all sorts of federal<\/a> and state laws<\/a> protecting that privacy.<\/p>\n A case involving former Governor Sarah Palin<\/a> shows how serious it can be to break these laws and hack into someone else’s email account.<\/p>\n College “Prank?”<\/b><\/p>\n In April 2010, David Kernell went on trial for “hacking” into then-Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin’s personal email account.<\/p>\n In 2008, John McCain was the Republican party’s candidate for president. Sarah Palin was the Governor of Alaska and McCain’s vice-presidential running mate. David Kernell<\/a>, the son of a Tennessee state lawmaker<\/a>, was a student at the University of Tennessee. <\/p>\n At this time, it’s claimed Kernell wanted to “derail” Palin’s campaign, and he gained access or “hacked” into Palin’s personal Yahoo<\/a> email account. He apparently changed the password and posted personal information he found in the emails on a website. He also posted the password so others could access the account.<\/p>\n Kernell was indicted<\/a> - meaning a grand jury<\/a> thought there was enough evidence to put him on trial – on several federal charges. A jury convicted him<\/a> of only two charges. He was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison.<\/p>\n The jury didn’t buy Kernell’s defense that it was all just a prank.<\/p>\n The Law<\/b><\/p>\n Kernell’s case shows the types of crimes an email hacker may face. He was charged with four very serious felony crimes<\/a>:<\/p>\n Wire Fraud<\/b><\/p>\n In simple terms, wire fraud<\/a> involves using a computer, radio, television, or telephone to get money or property from someone else through trickery or deception. Although taking money is a common example – such as through various internet scams<\/a> - stealing personal and confidential information qualifies as wire fraud, too.<\/p>\n One of the keys to wire fraud is that the emails, telephone calls, or wire transmissions have to pass between two or more states or countries.<\/p>\n It was claimed that Kernell used an old computer in Tennessee to hack into Palin’s email account, which, presumably, was based in Alaska. Once in, he took personal information, such as email addresses and telephone numbers, and posted them online.<\/p>\n Kernell was not convicted of this crime.<\/p>\n Computer Fraud<\/b><\/p>\n Computer fraud<\/a> isn’t much different than wire fraud, except this crime applies only to computers, as opposed to telephones and radios, and it also requires some sort of interstate connection. However, the law applies only to computers used:<\/p>\n 1. By or for financial institutions, like banks, or the US Government <\/p>\n 2. In such a way that the computer impacts interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the US<\/p>\n Presumably, Palin’s connection to the federal election and Senator McCain brought the federal computer fraud law into play. Kernell was convicted of unauthorized access to a protected computer<\/b>, which falls under computer fraud.<\/p>\n Identity Theft<\/b><\/p>\n Identity theft<\/a> is when someone uses fraud, deception, or trickery to get and use another person’s personal information. Usually, the information is used by the thief to make money, but money doesn’t have to be involved. <\/p>\n In Kernell’s case, once Palin selected the email address, “,” it became her own, unique address and no one else could use it. When Kernell accessed and used that email account he gained access to personal information, such as family email addresses, family pictures, birth dates of Palin and family members and pictures of Palin’s family members.<\/p>\n This information was posted online as part of Kernell’s plot to derail Palin’s vice-presidential bid.<\/p>\n Kernnel was not convicted of this crime.<\/p>\n Obstruction of Justice<\/b><\/p>\n Obstruction of justice<\/a> covers many things, but it typically means interfering with some legal process or investigation. Kernell was charged with this crime because it was claimed he tried to erase evidence of his hacking activities from his computer before federal investigators could retrieve it.<\/p>\n Kennel was convicted of this crime. <\/p>\n Other Laws<\/b><\/p>\n Someone in Kernell’s position could face other criminal charges and non-criminal (or “civil”) lawsuits, too. The federal government doesn’t have to get involved, either.<\/p>\n For example, in most states, there are criminal and civil identity theft laws<\/a>. In addition, in some states, like Virginia, it’s an invasion of privacy to look at someone’s personal information, and it’s a crime. In many states, like Maryland<\/a>, accessing and telling the world about another person’s personal information is an invasion of privacy that may make the hacker liable for money damages to the victim.<\/p>\n Even if, as it was claimed Kernell’s case, the email hacking was a “prank,” the hacker could still be charged with less serious crimes (called misdemeanors<\/a>) and face several months in jail, thousands of dollars in fines or both.<\/p>\n Hacking is indeed a serious crime. If you’re thinking about doing it, even as a joke, you should think again.<\/p>\n Questions for Your Attorney<\/b><\/p>\n 1. What’s the first thing I should do if I think someone has hacked into my email account? <\/p>\n 2. Is it a crime if I look at my spouse’s email account without permission? <\/p>\n 3. If my child uses my computer to commit a crime, can the authorities take my computer and search anything on it, including my personal files and data?<\/p>\n Retrieved from: communications-media.lawyers.com\/…\/ email-hacking-is-a serious crime<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read Case 2.1: Hacking into Harvard, located on page 71 in your textbook. As applicants began to defend themselves against the penalties handed out by the business schools, they appealed to both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist criteria to support their actions. 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