Recent Questions About Prior Consent
Most recently we have received a number of emails and blog postings concerning obtaining consent prior to the experiment. Unfortunately due to the inherent deception used in the experiment, this was not possible. The Human Subjects Committee granted a waiver of consent for this experiment.
The goal of the study is to raise user awareness of threats of this type, and to determine the likely success rate of an attack of this kind. Our findings clearly emphasize the need for defense mechanisms. Markus Jakobsson is part of a group of researchers that is developing practical defenses against this very type of attack; these defense mechanisms will hopefully soon be integrated in our shared communication infrastructure, and prevent abuse. We hope you will be cautious not to fall victim to real attacks, whose goals of course are to actually collect user credentials (we did not) .
Nate and Tom
April 25th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
Reposted — these actions by Tom Jagatic represent a central problem within the overarching “policy” offices — zero forethought regarding the effects their selfish decisions will have on others. I hope he is terminated along with whoever else gave the green light at his office. His self-serving and condescending style has no place at a public university. He is a weasel and should be stomped.
April 25th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Agreed. Let’s do this.
April 26th, 2005 at 11:16 am
Though I disagree with your evaluation of the experiment, self-servile condescension is commonplace, even encouraged by a competetive academic atomsphere.
April 26th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
I’m glad someone did such an experiment. I didn’t fall for the trap when I received the email but I understand why some did. They should be happy they didn’t fall for some real scam but for one which showed them they were too trusting.
April 26th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
Doh! Leave the atomsphere alone, pretend you never heard about it, it’s my PhD thesis (expected publication date March 2009… really).
Oh yeah, if self-servile condescension is encouraged by an environment as friendly and collaborative as academia, what do you call the $%^# they do in the business world?
As for being selfish, I’m sorry Tom bruised your ego when he was teaching you a lesson and trying to develop methods to keep you and other uneducated computer users from being taken advantage of. I suggest that you and the rest of the imbeciles complaining about the legality of this study learn to control yourselves and do your research before you start spouting off, HSC would never have approved it if there was any question as to legality. It’s a shame that students who are ostensibly adults have not yet reached a sufficient level of maturity to objectively examine events in their own lives and instead allow their judgement (or lack thereof) to be clouded by ego.
-Nick (I would post an email address, but chances are if you don’t know who I am, I probably don’t have the time to waste talking to you, excepting of course anyone associated with the Web Mining class I don’t already know)
April 26th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
When someone shows you a mistake you’ve made, its pretty silly to turn around and attack them. For everyone pissed because they were too trusting when mucking about on the internet, the key to your experience is to understand how you got caught so it never happens again. Next time, it might be someone actually phishing for your identity, and not a well-meaning researcher. If I got caught by something like this, I would be glad that my vulnerability was pointed out to me, and I would learn from it.
April 26th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
Such misplaced anger by the “victims”. Highlights a deeper problem with society: it’s always someone else’s fault.
My compliments to the researchers.
April 26th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
“these actions by Tom Jagatic represent a central problem within the overarching “policy” offices — zero forethought regarding the effects their selfish decisions will have on others. I hope he is terminated along with whoever else gave the green light at his office. His self-serving and condescending style has no place at a public university. He is a weasel and should be stomped.”
muuuuhahahhaha … this has to be one of Tom’s friends joking around. there is no way that there is someone stupid enough to say this and mean it.
April 27th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
i recomend legal action against the studets resposible!
April 27th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
If you find a law that the researchers have broken, please post it. I’d be interesting in reading it…
April 27th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Maybe if people ‘thought before clicking’ and took responsibility for their own actions, then the world (online and offline) would be a better place.
I say ‘well done’ to both students.