14 DAY TRIAL // When I first got hold of this material, I thought it could not be possible! Some people have no idea what's good for them! I mean, when someone finds out you have a cyber-security issue, you should at least thank them, not punish them!
This is the case of an Oregonian student, that also worked as a journalist for the campus newspaper. Blair Loving is a student of Western Oregon University and this year, in June to be more exact, he stumbled upon a file containing sensitive data of fellow students (including Social Security Numbers), on the university's public server. You'd probably think that he went and used the data for something devious, but he didn't! Instead, he took the file to the newspaper he worked for, as evidence of the breach and also alerted the university about his findings. This seems like the right decision to me!
However, the people in charge of the schooling institution had a different opinion about it. They almost expelled the poor guy, but as the Student Press Law Center informed us on Friday, he was allowed to remain a student of the Western Oregon University, while this 'crime' would remain on his record. This is not right! What 'crime'? He didn't do anything bad! However, the university said that he violated their computer policy, because he downloaded something he shouldn't have. If pointing out a security breach, and giving proof of it, is against the policy, then I don't know what those guys were thinking!
Furthermore, as the same source informs, Blair Loving also has to write an article about the importance of computer policies and create a proposal to help students understand the computer policy. Now, if this guy didn't know anything about cyber-security, would he have gone through all the trouble of proving them they have flaws in the system?
I've only covered the cyber-security part of this piece of news - should you want to find out more, click here.