NYU’s Daily Student Newspaper
WASHINGTON SQUARE NEWS Vol. 41, No. 63
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2013
nyunews.com
Hacking competition concludes after 72 hours By MICHAEL DOMANICO
Even with 1,800 teams competing in the world’s largest hacking competition, the Polytechnic Institute of NYU appeared no different than it would any other weekend. “Almost everyone [participated] remotely, but about a dozen of the students on NYUPoly teams [were] on campus participating,” said Kathleen Hamilton, the NYU-Poly communications director. The 72-hour Capture the Flag competition, a part of Cyber Security Awareness Week, featured thousands of participants from around the world — from as far away as Australia to as close as New York City. Teams that earned the most points were from universities that included Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and Tsinghua in Beijing. The competition, which was approximately twice the size of last year’s tournament and took more than six months to plan, was judged by a panel of 35 cybersecurity experts who created different challenges, which can involve hacking into programs, systems and websites. The more difficult
the challenge, the more points the competitors earn for solving it. “We ask competitors to try and hack those websites to try and get a key,” said NYU-Poly junior Kevin Chung, a student organizer for the event. Attendees submit their solution to the NYU-Poly website to earn points. While the competition is open to the public, only undergraduate college students can advance to the finals in November. Industry sponsors, including Facebook and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, will fly the finalists to Brooklyn, and the winners of that competition will receive a cash prize and a scholarship to NYU-Poly if they transfer or choose to pursue a graduate degree at the school. The challenges vary year by year and are only available to those who are registered, but they are geared toward students who want to gain hacking experience. “We try to aim it toward students who are just trying to learn,” Chung said. “The first
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JONATHAN TAN/WSN
Torch Day sets stage for spirited year with performances from residents Goddard residence hall performed a video game-themed show. All of NYU’s residence halls staged a variety of skits on Sunday for NYU’s annual event held at the Kimmel Center for University Life.
STORY ON PAGE 3
NYU athletics expects full Experts advocate for humane merger with NYU-Poly education at Law School By MICHELLE TRAN
Athletes at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU will soon formally join their Washington Square counterparts as part of the merger between the two universities, which is scheduled to be completed Jan. 1, 2014. NYU-Poly currently participates in the Skyline Athletic Conference while NYU’s athletics are a part of the University Athletic Association. Once both schools have finished out their respective athletic seasons for the 2013 to 2014 school year, NYU and NYU-Poly athletic departments will merge into one NCAA Division III membership within the UAA league. Assistant athletic director Dominick Ciaccia explained the merger is the outcome of years of part-
nership with NYU-Poly. “Over the last few years, NYU had begun the merger with NYU-Poly by offering athletic facility privileges to current NYU-Poly students and faculty, allowing [NYU-Poly alumni] to become members and participating in our recreation
programs,” Ciaccia said. As a result of the merger, which was first announced in 2008, major changes will affect the dynamic of certain sports teams that demonstrated increased student interest. Ciaccia
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SOURCE IMAGES VIA GONYUATHLETICS.COM
NYU and NYU-Poly will merge in January 2014.
By AFEEFA TARIQ AND MARIA VERBAITE
Experts and scholars discussed awareness of animal rights, human rights and treatment of the environment at the NYU’s Animal Studies Initiative’s humane education conference at the NYU School of Law on Sept. 21. The conference, titled “Educating for a Just, Peaceful & Sustainable Future,” was organized by the nonprofit educational organizations Institute for Humane Education, Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers and Roots & Shoots — a youth-focused nonprofit organization. Zoe Weil, a 52-year-old co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education, Jane Goodall, a 79-year-old UN Messenger of Peace and the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and Arun Gandhi, the 79-year-old grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, were the featured keynote speakers. Weil, one of the first speakers, talked about humane education as a profession. “More than any other field or profession, educators hold the future in their hands,” Weil said in her address. She also explained what she hoped to accomplish from the conference,
which was held on the same day as the UN’s International Day of Peace. “I think the best outcome is that the 450 people who are here today leave with tools that they can use to be better humane educators, and that they feel empowered and inspired to help bring this movement to a critical mass,” Weil said. “We really do reach a tipping point where humane education begins to get incorporated into every institution of learning.” After Weil’s keynote, the director of NYU Animal Studies Initiative, Dale Jamieson, introduced Goodall, who talked about her work with chimpanzees and explained the importance of teachers. “Teaching is not confined to the teaching profession,” Goodall said in her address. “Children are made to spend too long sitting in class and not enough time going out and learning how we learn best, which is by exploring, by touching, by feeling.” Tania Goicoechea, who is a second-year master’s students in environmental conservation education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, said this conference is a highlight of the events she has attended so far at NYU.
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