I remember this group did something else a while back too.
Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
331–340 of 690 posts
Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
#332I'm surprised how few comments there are on this thread. This is probably affecting millions of students at the most stressful time of the year. Incidentally I've always hated Canvas and probably every other LMS provider, but what is particularly amusing about this current outage is that it is occurring at exactly the time when universities are demanding that all professors put all of their materials on Canvas, witho…
They have not succeeded in forcing me, yet. But it's sad how many computing faculty apparently can't operate the basic online infrastructure needed to support their courses. Not that universities make it easy for us. And of course the other serious concern I have with Canvas is that they are likely using all the materials faculty upload to train their AI replacements. Many of my colleagues engage in dark humor about…
instructure/canvas-lms is open-source -- is there anything preventing universities from hosting it themselves?
Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
i cannot believe how much benefit of the doubt people are giving canvas ed tech is the WORST performing VC sector the ONLY game in that town is vendor lock-in! are people joking? c'mon, canvas is a huge piece of shit. the SaaSpocalypse is coming for them - it seems it is simply that LLMs will be used to exploit it first, rather than universities writing an open alternative they share with each other for free.
Canvas is AGPL licensed. Moodle is GPL. Universities or anyone else can already contribute to big name LMS. Canvas is used by Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, CalTech, etc. If they each paid 10 FTE, they could set up a foundation that could govern the development of a top-tier LMS. Every tier-1 state institution could contribute 5 FTE. Even little JuCos could chip in an employee here and there. You'd pick up…
How well has this worked for Open edX?
Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really feel like SH fucked up by sinking this low hitting students and Americas young minds like this.... One thing to target coroporations but leave the students alone....
It's not so bad, I'd say the Christmas PS3 hack was worse
You don't care that students are impacted but your ps3 not being playable for a short period was more important.
Heard you loud and clear sheesh
Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
#335A friend who teaches at MIT said they were hit by this. I found it ironic and a little sad that a place like MIT doesn't have an IT staff that can maintain their own on-prem solutions for things like this. But it turns out that MIT used to have their own homegrown system, and recently switched to Canvas. Bet they're regretting that now. The build vs. buy decision seems to have swung very hard toward buy in the last d…
MIT has an incredible IT staff and they do some cool stuff. Every time I interact with any other organizations IT stuff I find it inferior. They just aren’t super big from what I gathered and probably don’t want to do the incredibly boring work of an LMS.
The one they had before Canvas was very very inadequate.
edit: also some of the more popular cs classes have custom websites and don’t really use canvas, but that isn’t the centralized IT department’s doing.
Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the students themselves don't have the artifacts to resubmit via email because they were done in Canvas It’s so simple to send an e-mail to the student with relevant records on completion of a quiz or whatnot. They don’t do it, because they want to control the data. (And universities don’t insist on it for who knows what reason.)
I've never used Canvas before, but all the LMSes that I've used allow students to enable emails whenever anything is updated, including when grades are posted. This is off by default because it's often 10+ emails a day, because many teachers post notes once a day, and with 5 classes, that adds up pretty quick. I personally have it enabled because it's pretty manageable with some custom Outlook rules, but setting this…
> setting this up is well beyond the capabilities of most students.
Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
#337At the same time,
Aussie tech giant pauses work, devotes entire week to AI
Design software giant Canva has halted normal operations across its 5300-strong global workforce for five days of nothing but AI learning and hackathons, bucking the global wave of technology giants that have slashed jobs, citing the technology.
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/aussie-tech-giant-pauses-w...
Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have not succeeded in forcing me, yet. But it's sad how many computing faculty apparently can't operate the basic online infrastructure needed to support their courses. Not that universities make it easy for us. And of course the other serious concern I have with Canvas is that they are likely using all the materials faculty upload to train their AI replacements. Many of my colleagues engage in dark humor about…
instructure/canvas-lms is open-source -- is there anything preventing universities from hosting it themselves?
Money, skill, liability.
That calculus is about to shift.
Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
#3391. It should be illegal for any company to pay ransomware attacks. Period. No pay out ever. 2. The penalty for being the attacker should be linked to the system they violated. If you do this to a hospital and someone dies you are life in prison / chair. The minimum sentence should be so painful that it deters the attack. No this will not stop this and companies need to be held accountable for their lack of security i…
Failure to protect computer system from forseen failure should result passing corporate veil and resulting all stock holders and managers/leadership of funds to be jailed for same period as perpetrator. It is only way to ensure that these things are taken seriously and enough pressure is put on leadership of companies.
Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe a hybrid approach. Scramble to create a final exam/project and give them the option to do pass/fail or a real grade, their choice. And then wish for the death of saas and a day where you can deploy your own software you can control and modify as you need.
What is the strategic response then? Assuming I'm a student and my grades are gone, and I want to graduate, shouldn't I pick pass/fail? Does a future employer look at pass/fail vs the grade? do they care? Are there even jobs that matter enough to care out there for them? This seems like, solving the problem but without actually seeing the broader goal or trajectory education is supposed to follow.
Most jobs I've had didn't care about a transcript in the slightest. It matters for future education and a small selection of jobs, and even them a few pass/fail courses won't cause any issues. It's not great if important, major-specific coursework is pass/fail, but usually you're not allowed to do that, so when it does come up you'll just have somebody ask what absurd situation (like this canvas thing) caused it.