Why would the school admin go nuclear over a request to integrate with the registration system, a system that is clearly intended to be used by applications: > “The Student Web Service gives your application access to information in the Student database such as course data, registration data, section data, person data, and term data (general academic data).” It doesn't make any sense. Was there something left out of…
I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
81–90 of 737 posts
Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't mention a lawyer casually. Just have the lawyer send a letter. Don't give them the option to call your bluff. People casually mention a lawyer so frequently it means nothing. Receiving a letter from an actual lawyer means everything.
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It's all fun and games until you're called into a deposition.
Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
#83Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…
The way that the leadership will make it right in the end is VIA YOUR LAWYER. Without a lawyer they have no reason to do anything. You paid a lot to graduate, it is nothing short of foolish to squander that investment by forgoing legal representation while they try to extort you. Don’t have any more unrecorded conversations with them. They are playing hardball and you are pretending that everything is a-ok, when it c…
Also, treat email conversations as “unrecorded” if they’re using your university email address. Make sure to download a copy of all email correspondence to a storage device outside the control of the university.
Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
#84Why would the school admin go nuclear over a request to integrate with the registration system, a system that is clearly intended to be used by applications: > “The Student Web Service gives your application access to information in the Student database such as course data, registration data, section data, person data, and term data (general academic data).” It doesn't make any sense. Was there something left out of…
Yea, I don't understand the response to him here. You can just tell the random student who wants the keys to the student database "no" and go about your day.
Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They have a lot of time on their hands because there are so, so many people in administration. Not so polite take: most of them could be replaced by a 20 line shell script.
such as?
I feel like if you just piped stdin to stdout you would have a solid start on it
Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
#86Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…
This is bonkers, and sort of smells. I’m not saying you have outright said anything untrue, but there is at least some ambiguity that my mind is filling in, potentially incorrectly.
Can you clarify how you got the Swagger files? Were they publicly available?
Could you share the exact verbiage they used to seemingly extort labor and intellectual property from you?
Does the university have some previously existing (and communicated/documented) policy regarding swapping or trading seats?
Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
#87something is missing from this story. it doesn’t make sense they jumped right to blocking your account because you requested to integrate. You sort of skipped over the part where you got hold of the Swagger files. would you care to elaborate on how exactly you found those files and if this might have been the reason for the heavy handed response? usually swagger files would be locked down on the backend .
> would you care to elaborate on how exactly you found those files and if this might have been the reason for the heavy handed response? usually swagger files would be locked down on the backend .
Presumably by visiting `https://site.com/swagger-ui` or one of the other common doc endpoints. It's not that hard, and many places do not lock them down (even if they should).
Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
#88Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…
> I am not planning to get a lawyer involved as I have faith that UW leadership will make it right in the end.
All evidence so far indicates they will not make it right, but instead they may make it even worse. Your faith is wildly misplaced. Seriously, talk to a lawyer.
Keep in mind, just because you seek advice from a lawyer doesn't mean you need to take legal action against the school. Talking to a lawyer is not an escalation; the school doesn't even need to know you consulted one. A lawyer will advise whether you should take legal action and any more amicable alternatives available before they do anything on your behalf.
Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasn't a government agency rendering citizen SSNs client-side and when someone discovered it, they went after them? Wouldn't be surprised if the anti-DRM part of the DMCA is used to persecute these non-crimes.
I imagine governments tend to be the same way, though my only direct experience here is that I don't report anything and nothing bad happens. The funny thing to me is that the discovery of these issues is not what triggers retaliation, but the audacity of reporting them. Were I personally impacted, I would just submit information to the media as an anonymous whistleblower to get it fixed.
Really? If you’re personally impacted then surely you don’t want the media bringing attention to an open vulnerability where anyone can steal your data.
I’d opt for silence in this case and hope that some future update patches the bug (accidentally or otherwise).
Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
#90something is missing from this story. it doesn’t make sense they jumped right to blocking your account because you requested to integrate. You sort of skipped over the part where you got hold of the Swagger files. would you care to elaborate on how exactly you found those files and if this might have been the reason for the heavy handed response? usually swagger files would be locked down on the backend .
They seem to be public. A simple "University of Washington swagger" search turned this up: https://itconnect.uw.edu/tools-services-support/data-reporti...