Professor 'Packetslinger' Assigns Questionable Task

mrowton writes "A professor at an undisclosed university recently assigned a practical for his computer-security class. The practical, which is worth 15 percent of the students final grade, requires students to perform reconnaissance on an internet server using tools available in the public domain. While the university is allowing the practical to continue it has also stated that the techniques should not be performed on their own web servers. If students are caught performing any scans against university computers then it would prompt: "Disabling their student account and referring them to the Student Dean of Corrections." The assignment was enough for SANS to dub him 'Professor Packetslinger of the School of Loose Screws.'"

Re:Is scanning a network illegal?

[RagingFuryBlack]

The scan itself is not illegal. However, they're asking the students to go much further then the scan itself.

From the inside

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in the class which recieved this assignment.

I am both an undergraduate CS major and a system administrator on campus. I work with the top-level sysadmins that complained about the assignment, and who likely reported it to the ISC. They're good people that know their stuff, but I think they acted poorly by publicising it. It was a simple assignment which meant no harm. The class has never been taught here before. The CS department's reading of the university AUP and Ethics Policy differed widely from the administration's, and a simple email could have eliminated the confusion. Instead it's on Slashdot.

I think the ISC and the administration's reading of the assignment's intent was way off base. They both seem to be under the impression that simple port scans are illegal and forbidden, when in fact they occur regularly on the residential network and are a part of having an internet connection.

The professor is the dean of the CS department and is a very smart guy. He doesn't deserve to have this situation turned against him publicly. We in the class think it's all pretty ridiculous, and will do the assignment using only the approved IPs which we were given today. This was a simple misstep, and should blow over quickly.

.pdf of the assignment

[sethlong]

Here is the actual assignment. Looks like he carefully told students not to hack into anything.

[niksbox.net]http://niksbox.net/Assignment3.pdf [niksbox.net]

There are sites that permit hack attempts

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.hackthissite.org/ [hackthissite.org]

or google for "hack my server" [google.com]

p.s. didn't RTFA.