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Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

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Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#641

Post by trollbridge »

crazygringo wrote: post #610
ndriscoll wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, I don't need that training to recognize that they are failing to contribute to society . This is why I'm saying that it is indeed a dodge. "It's complicated and you don't understand it" isn't an excuse for making the world worse . And yes, it is fully possible for a someone to make that judgement without a large background in law, because it's taking a holistic look at "what was the purpose of this law,…

The world is complicated. Laws like FERPA are written with good intentions, but there are a lot of gray areas open to interpretation, and bad actors will take advantage of those gray areas to bring lawsuits for selfish purposes that universities have to spend money to defend themselves and possibly pay expensive penalties over. So lawyers advise how to follow laws in the most risk-free way. Blaming lawyers or Instruc…

FERPA does not have a lot of "gray areas open to interpretation". It's a well-understand body of law, case law, and regulations, and things like whether or not you can e-mail a student a grade are settled questions.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#642

Post by trollbridge »

ndriscoll wrote: post #586
crazygringo wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the lawyers are not "incompetent morons", and I highly doubt you have the legal training and domain experience to be qualified to make that assertion. You would be surprised at the number of frivolous lawsuits and seemingly "zero risk" decisions that wind up turning into actual legal risk and legal fees. The legal world is a lot more complicated than you think. I've been in some of these conversations. Quite fran…

The thing is, I don't need that training to recognize that they are failing to contribute to society . This is why I'm saying that it is indeed a dodge. "It's complicated and you don't understand it" isn't an excuse for making the world worse . And yes, it is fully possible for a someone to make that judgement without a large background in law, because it's taking a holistic look at "what was the purpose of this law,…

I think the lawyers in a straw-man imaginary world where they say a university can't e-mail any FERPA-covered data to a student (which includes such basic things as what times a student's classes are) don't contribute anything to society. But that's because they're just a figment of one person's imagination.

Actual, real lawyers who work for or at real universities often do contribute quite a bit of valuable work. I enjoyed the one I worked with and think she did a great job of putting the brakes on over-regulating or using legal compliance as an excuse for just not doing work.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#643

Post by trollbridge »

crazygringo wrote: post #638
ndriscoll wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a misunderstanding of everything, especially for schools that are government funded. They have a mission, they receive resources from everyone else to do that mission. If they are then worried about penalties for some frivolous side distraction, and choose to not accomplish their mission for fear of that, then why are we funding them to start with ? Frankly it's a perspective that I've only developed as I go…

I really don't know what to tell you. You're literally calling for universities to either break the law or not worry so much about following it, and calling people who do want to be careful about following the law "incompentent and useless". If you don't see how extreme that is, and how much society would break down if everyone started thinking laws were optional and ought to be ignored when they prevent you from acc…

Just to be clear:

E-mailing a student their grade is not "breaking the law".

Not e-mailing a student their grade is not "being careful about following the law". It is just sheer laziness.

A university may develop a policy of "we don't e-mail grades" for another reason, but FERPA is not a valid reason.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#644

Post by ndriscoll »

crazygringo wrote: post #638
ndriscoll wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a misunderstanding of everything, especially for schools that are government funded. They have a mission, they receive resources from everyone else to do that mission. If they are then worried about penalties for some frivolous side distraction, and choose to not accomplish their mission for fear of that, then why are we funding them to start with ? Frankly it's a perspective that I've only developed as I go…

I really don't know what to tell you. You're literally calling for universities to either break the law or not worry so much about following it, and calling people who do want to be careful about following the law "incompentent and useless". If you don't see how extreme that is, and how much society would break down if everyone started thinking laws were optional and ought to be ignored when they prevent you from acc…

Quite the contrary: society very obviously runs because people ignore policies and laws constantly. That's why following all laws exactly is considered a protest or subversion strategy: malicious compliance.

Like the entire AI industry could only work by completely ignoring copyright law. Basically no software could be written if developers were concientious enough to check for and avoid patents first. Tradesmen ignore safety policies. Doctors ignore limits on hours. People do work on their homes with no permits.

Part of being an adult is exactly knowing which rules are important and which you ignore.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#645

Post by ndriscoll »

trollbridge wrote: post #642
ndriscoll wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, I don't need that training to recognize that they are failing to contribute to society . This is why I'm saying that it is indeed a dodge. "It's complicated and you don't understand it" isn't an excuse for making the world worse . And yes, it is fully possible for a someone to make that judgement without a large background in law, because it's taking a holistic look at "what was the purpose of this law,…

I think the lawyers in a straw-man imaginary world where they say a university can't e-mail any FERPA-covered data to a student (which includes such basic things as what times a student's classes are) don't contribute anything to society. But that's because they're just a figment of one person's imagination. Actual, real lawyers who work for or at real universities often do contribute quite a bit of valuable work. I…

That's great to hear. As I agreed elsewhere in the thread, their true purpose is exactly to shield other workers from this sort of nonsense FUD and make-work.

Of course I presume it's also not a strawman because it's not in any way some unique thing to lawyers.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#646

Post by crazygringo »

ndriscoll wrote: post #644
crazygringo wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't know what to tell you. You're literally calling for universities to either break the law or not worry so much about following it, and calling people who do want to be careful about following the law "incompentent and useless". If you don't see how extreme that is, and how much society would break down if everyone started thinking laws were optional and ought to be ignored when they prevent you from acc…

Quite the contrary: society very obviously runs because people ignore policies and laws constantly. That's why following all laws exactly is considered a protest or subversion strategy: malicious compliance. Like the entire AI industry could only work by completely ignoring copyright law. Basically no software could be written if developers were concientious enough to check for and avoid patents first. Tradesmen igno…

Individuals can choose which laws to ignore, like when they jaywalk.

Corporations, universities, etc. are very different. They create policies which are documented and which their employees are required to follow. They engage in risk analysis.

"Part of being an adult" has nothing whatsoever to do with the laws and regulations that apply to organizations. You're making a severe category error.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#647

Post by crazygringo »

trollbridge wrote: post #643
crazygringo wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't know what to tell you. You're literally calling for universities to either break the law or not worry so much about following it, and calling people who do want to be careful about following the law "incompentent and useless". If you don't see how extreme that is, and how much society would break down if everyone started thinking laws were optional and ought to be ignored when they prevent you from acc…

Just to be clear: E-mailing a student their grade is not "breaking the law". Not e-mailing a student their grade is not "being careful about following the law". It is just sheer laziness. A university may develop a policy of "we don't e-mail grades" for another reason, but FERPA is not a valid reason.

"Just to be clear":

It's not "sheer laziness". I can almost guarantee you that Instructure would prefer to e-mail the grade itself, and probably had the code working somewhere before feedback from universities told them to remove it.

There are absolutely cases where sending an e-mail to the wrong person is a violation of FERPA. Can you guarantee that your software will never be configured to accidentally e-mail someone besides the student? That no administrator will ever accidentally set up the wrong e-mail address? Because you're not sure if you can make that guarantee, it's legally safer to restrict it to the actual LMS login.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#648

Post by ndriscoll »

crazygringo wrote: post #646
ndriscoll wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite the contrary: society very obviously runs because people ignore policies and laws constantly. That's why following all laws exactly is considered a protest or subversion strategy: malicious compliance. Like the entire AI industry could only work by completely ignoring copyright law. Basically no software could be written if developers were concientious enough to check for and avoid patents first. Tradesmen igno…

Individuals can choose which laws to ignore, like when they jaywalk. Corporations, universities, etc. are very different. They create policies which are documented and which their employees are required to follow. They engage in risk analysis. "Part of being an adult" has nothing whatsoever to do with the laws and regulations that apply to organizations . You're making a severe category error.

Organizations are made of individuals who I assure you regularly ignore or don't even read the policies they are "required" to follow.

Re: Canvas online again as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data

#649

Post by Xeronate »

SoftTalker wrote: post #543
Xeronate wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maintaining an LMS doesn't seem like a good use of time. You should almost always outsource pieces that aren't your core business.

It's a university. Teaching and learning is their core business.

LMS doesn't improve teaching or learning. They are administrative overhead.
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