Comment Re:This cries out for a lawsiut against Harvard! (Score 1) 802
1. There was more than a hidden url, the post blatantly said that a person could find out, before they were supposed to, the admission decision, and revealed a back door. It wasn't as though he encouraged others to do so in an attempt to make others do the same thing for some dumb reason. It was the posting of a hack.
2. Robbing a bank might be clearly against the law, but who says law has to do with morality? Hiding behind the word of a law is a failing of a week moral character that allows others ideals determine what one does. Rules or not, some things are not blatantly benign. Breaking the standard protocol in a field that is already rife with corruption might be a standard thing to do, and there might be no laws specifically written against it, but the lack of an obvious punishment doesn't make it right to do something.
I really wouldn't be surprised if the perpetrators sued, as the (mispelled) parent topic suggests, because it would show the same general lack of self-responsibility that is evident in many facets of exploitative business models today, and also a concern with the letter of the law defining what one can get away with without punishment. And if punishment is the only motivator for someone behaving, what's to stop a person who arrives in a position of economic power (as undoubtedly most of the grads of HBS will) from manipulating a system (lobbying might be expensive, but is less expensive than bankruptcy) for their own and their companies benefit--at the detriment of many others--just because they know that in the end their power will allow them to dodge the bullet? Harvard did right by blacklisting these people. And if someone didn't know it might be wrong? These applicants have been applying for stuff all their lives. If they weren't familiar with adhering to admission deadlines, then they got as much as they deserve anyways.
2. Robbing a bank might be clearly against the law, but who says law has to do with morality? Hiding behind the word of a law is a failing of a week moral character that allows others ideals determine what one does. Rules or not, some things are not blatantly benign. Breaking the standard protocol in a field that is already rife with corruption might be a standard thing to do, and there might be no laws specifically written against it, but the lack of an obvious punishment doesn't make it right to do something.
I really wouldn't be surprised if the perpetrators sued, as the (mispelled) parent topic suggests, because it would show the same general lack of self-responsibility that is evident in many facets of exploitative business models today, and also a concern with the letter of the law defining what one can get away with without punishment. And if punishment is the only motivator for someone behaving, what's to stop a person who arrives in a position of economic power (as undoubtedly most of the grads of HBS will) from manipulating a system (lobbying might be expensive, but is less expensive than bankruptcy) for their own and their companies benefit--at the detriment of many others--just because they know that in the end their power will allow them to dodge the bullet? Harvard did right by blacklisting these people. And if someone didn't know it might be wrong? These applicants have been applying for stuff all their lives. If they weren't familiar with adhering to admission deadlines, then they got as much as they deserve anyways.
