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A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021)

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Re: A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021)

#41

Post by NetMageSCW »

tptacek wrote: post #9
paultopia wrote: post #8

Woah, the thing that leapt out at me, as a professor, is that they somehow got an exemption from the UMN institutional review board. Uh, how?? It's clearly human subjects research under the conventional federal definition[1] and obviously posed a meaningful risk of harm, in addition to being conducted deceptively. Someone has to have massively been asleep at the wheel at that IRB. [1] https://grants.nih.gov/policy-an…

The whole story is a good example of why there are IRBs in the first place --- in any story not about this Linux kernel fiasco people generally cast them as the bad guys.

Since this IRB approved the study, what good were they?

Re: A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021)

#42

Post by amypetrik214 »

derbOac wrote: post #34
paultopia wrote: post #8

Woah, the thing that leapt out at me, as a professor, is that they somehow got an exemption from the UMN institutional review board. Uh, how?? It's clearly human subjects research under the conventional federal definition[1] and obviously posed a meaningful risk of harm, in addition to being conducted deceptively. Someone has to have massively been asleep at the wheel at that IRB. [1] https://grants.nih.gov/policy-an…

I've also had to deal with the IRB a lot as a professor. The retroactive application is extremely weird (although maybe better than nothing?). This seems like one of those situations that would usually require regular review to err on the side of caution if nothing else. It's worth pointing out there are exceptions though: https://grants.nih.gov/sites/default/files/exempt-human-subj... Generally those exceptions fall…

>I've also had to deal with the IRB a lot as a professor. The retroactive application is extremely weird (although maybe better than nothing?).

I mean I feel like the IRB is mostly dealing with medical stuff. "I want to electrocute these students every week to see if it cures asthma". "No that's too much.. every other week at most". "Great I'll charge up the electrodes"

So if a security researcher rolls in after the fact and says "umm yea so this has to do with nerd stuff, computers and kernels, no humans, and I just want it all to be super secure and nobody gets hacked, sound good" "ok sure we don't care if no people are involved and don't really understand that nerd stuff, but hackers bad and you're fighting hackers"

Re: A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021)

#44

Post by margalabargala »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #41
tptacek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole story is a good example of why there are IRBs in the first place --- in any story not about this Linux kernel fiasco people generally cast them as the bad guys.

Since this IRB approved the study, what good were they?

That person died in a car accident and they were wearing a seatbelt! Why would anyone wear a seatbelt? They are clearly useless.

Re: A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021)

#45

Post by Consultant32452 »

margalabargala wrote: post #44
NetMageSCW wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this IRB approved the study, what good were they?

That person died in a car accident and they were wearing a seatbelt! Why would anyone wear a seatbelt? They are clearly useless.

If a lot of money is involved, it's only a matter of time before all oversight is corrupt. Similarly, you can safely assume all data that is on an important (big money) topic is fake.

Re: A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021)

#46

Post by stinkbeetle »

margalabargala wrote: post #44
NetMageSCW wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this IRB approved the study, what good were they?

That person died in a car accident and they were wearing a seatbelt! Why would anyone wear a seatbelt? They are clearly useless.

That seems like a bad faith reinterpretation of the context that the question was being asked in. The statement that the question pertained to was, "in any story not about this Linux kernel fiasco people generally cast them as the bad guys."

Re: A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021)

#47

Post by fwip »

something765478 wrote: post #20
paultopia wrote: post #8

Woah, the thing that leapt out at me, as a professor, is that they somehow got an exemption from the UMN institutional review board. Uh, how?? It's clearly human subjects research under the conventional federal definition[1] and obviously posed a meaningful risk of harm, in addition to being conducted deceptively. Someone has to have massively been asleep at the wheel at that IRB. [1] https://grants.nih.gov/policy-an…

I think they should have gotten permission from IRB ahead of time, but this doesn't sound like they were researching human subjects? They were studying the community behind the Linux kernel, and specifically the process for gatekeeping bad changes from making it to the kernel; they weren't experimenting on specific community members. Would you consider it human experimentation if I was running an experiment to see if…

A community is made out of humans.

Re: A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021)

#48

Post by jjmarr »

amypetrik214 wrote: post #42
derbOac wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also had to deal with the IRB a lot as a professor. The retroactive application is extremely weird (although maybe better than nothing?). This seems like one of those situations that would usually require regular review to err on the side of caution if nothing else. It's worth pointing out there are exceptions though: https://grants.nih.gov/sites/default/files/exempt-human-subj... Generally those exceptions fall…

>I've also had to deal with the IRB a lot as a professor. The retroactive application is extremely weird (although maybe better than nothing?). I mean I feel like the IRB is mostly dealing with medical stuff. "I want to electrocute these students every week to see if it cures asthma". "No that's too much.. every other week at most". "Great I'll charge up the electrodes" So if a security researcher rolls in after the…

Any undergrad doing a survey at my university has to get IRB approval.

Re: A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021)

#50

Post by knallfrosch »

paultopia wrote: post #8

Woah, the thing that leapt out at me, as a professor, is that they somehow got an exemption from the UMN institutional review board. Uh, how?? It's clearly human subjects research under the conventional federal definition[1] and obviously posed a meaningful risk of harm, in addition to being conducted deceptively. Someone has to have massively been asleep at the wheel at that IRB. [1] https://grants.nih.gov/policy-an…

Don't worry, the university investigated itself (again) and (again) found no wrongdoing. /s
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