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Last week, a merry trio of pranksters from MIT had cause for celebration: Middlesex county prosecutors dropped serious charges against them that would have been punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The crime perpetrated by our more mathematically inclined neighbors along the Charles: an attempted “hack” on MIT’s Faculty Club. This case’s dismissal sets a heartening precedent for college students nationwide...
...those unfamiliar with MIT’s endearingly dorky cyber-lingo, the three students were not hacking in the traditional sense—utilizing advanced computing skills to maliciously invade Faculty Club hard drives and wreak havoc. Rather, the term “hack” at MIT refers to any sly, intricately planned prank committed by a group of students on campus; this particular group of students were caught after slinking around the Faculty Room and setting off an alarm. Although it is unclear exactly what the students intended to accomplish, they apparently pried off a wall panel...
Such “hacks” have a rich history at MIT. There is even a university website, hacks.mit.edu, which documents and glorifies these pranks. Among the most notorious was the 1999 transformation of MIT’s Great Dome into a gargantuan, mock R2-D2 paying homage to the release of “Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace...
...more famous “hacks” appear to have been staged by students auditioning for MTV’s “Beauty and the Geek,” the “hack” is a time-honored tradition every bit as venerated at MIT as the Harvard-Yale football game is here...
...particular, the event at MIT billed Weiss as representing a "Jewish view" on foreign policy and social justice. Weiss routinely presents the Neturei Karta as representing "authentic Judaism" despite the fact that only several thousand people identify as members of the sect and that most Jews, including the Ultra-Orthodox, have strongly denounced Weiss and his associates. Finkelstein is more subtle: He harnesses his Jewish background in an attempt to bring legitimacy to his opinions. He routinely and targetedly mentions that his mother is a Holocaust survivor, and employs common Jewish expressions—such as "chutzpah...