The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
VOLUME CXLIX, NO. 51 |
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
| TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2022
EDITORIAL PAGE 8
NEWS PAGE 9
SPORTS PAGE 10
HUA, a haphazard constitution, has haphazard results
The Cambridge City Council discussed a proposal for bike lanes on Mass. Ave
Track and Field kicked off its spring season with 4 school records
IT Oversight Leaves Files Vulnerable Again Email Lists Stop Working By CARA J. CHANG and ISABELLA B. CHO CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Last fall, after The Crimson discovered a large-scale information security oversight at Harvard that left tens of thousands of administrative files available for University affiliates to view and download, school officials said they took quick steps to patch the issue. But Harvard’s IT troubles didn’t end there. A second, similar security oversight left thousands of internal files from units across the University available for anyone with Harvard login credentials to access via the collaborative platform Microsoft SharePoint. Users logged in with their school account could find the files by entering keywords into the platform’s search function. The documents left vulnerable ranged from obsolete files, such as outdated organizational charts and personal memos, to some sensitive material, such as information about University finances, donors, and employees. The vulnerability — discovered by The Crimson earlier this month, less than six months af
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ter the first issue was resolved — was patched by the school after the newspaper raised questions about the issue. In a statement on Monday, Harvard University Information Technology spokesperson Timothy J. Bailey wrote that “HUIT has taken steps to address the potential for confidential information to be accessed by unauthorized individuals.” Many Harvard units use Microsoft 365 software — including SharePoint — to distribute documents internally. SharePoint offers file creators privacy settings ranging from personal use only to a “shared with everyone” option, which led some employees to inadvertently share their work with all Harvard affiliates — not just their teams, as likely intended. “Microsoft 365’s privacy settings allow users of SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams to specify and manage exactly who can access a file or folder, enabling Harvard staff, faculty, and students to securely collaborate,” Bailey wrote. “HUIT is aware that some Microsoft 365 owners have improperly applied
SEE DOCUMENTS PAGE 7
Email lists operated by the Harvard Computer Society malfunctioned. By VIVI E. LU and LEAH J. TEICHHOLTZ CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
the tomahawk. The museum then initiated talks with Chapman and Ponca tribal leaders on a potential repatriation of the relic. According to Jane Pickering, director of the Peabody Museum, Ponca tribal representatives planned to travel to Cambridge and take possession of the tomahawk last October, but ultimately canceled their visit due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “When I last heard from them they planned to reschedule their visit for the Spring,” Pickering wrote in an email. “The Peabody stands ready to welcome the delegation and assist in any way we can,” she added. “In the meantime, we continue to care for the pipe tomahawk but do not allow
Club and house email lists managed by the Harvard Computer Society have been down for at least the past week, leaving students frustrated and in the dark. HCS, a student-run computer science organization founded in the 1980s, started offering mailing list services to clubs on campus before Harvard implemented its own system. Though some groups opt for mailing lists on other sites, a number of clubs continue to use the HCS platform to publicize events and contact club members. HCS co-president Will C. Cooper ’23-’24 wrote in an email estimating that “50-75 active club lists and on the scale of 10,000 inactive lists” are on HCS-run servers. Cooper wrote HCS is aware of the issues with the mailing list, which he attributed to an expired SSL certificate — a security measure — and connection issues with the organization’s remote Amazon Web Services server. In late February, club leaders began reporting problems with the email lists to HCS, though the lists were “still largely usable” at that point, Cooper wrote. The problem intensified by April 4, when most undergraduates lost the ability to send or receive emails on lists run by HCS servers. Winthrop House resident Tess C. Kelley ’23 said she noticed an issue with the email
SEE TOMAHAWK PAGE 7
SEE COMPUTER PAGE 7
The Harvard University’s IT Department is located on 784 Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Mass. JULIAN J. GIORDANO—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Peabody to Return Pipe Tomahawk By JORGE O. GUERRA and DAVIN W. SHI CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology removed a pipe tomahawk that once belonged to Ponca chief Standing Bear from its collections last September, after calls for the museum to return the tomahawk to the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma garnered international attention. Oklahoma attorney and lineal descendant of Standing Bear Brett A. Chapman called attention to the tomahawk in a viral Twitter thread last May, prompting Nebraska State Senator Tom R. Brewer to sponsor a bipartisan resolution in the Nebraska State Legislature calling upon the University to return
Harvard’s Peabody Museum has agreed to return a to pipe tomahawk that once belonged to Ponca chief Standing Bear to tribal leaders. TRUONG L. NGUYEN—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
HOOP Protests Israeli Rep. Ro Khanna Speaks at Institute of Politics Ambassador Herzog By MILES J. HERSZENHORN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
By MILES J. HERSZENHORN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Chanting “end the occupation” and “apartheid has got to go,” Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine protesters disrupted an event with Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, at the Harvard Kennedy School on Thursday. The Kennedy School’s Israel Caucus, a student group, organized the event with Herzog. The discussion was moderated by Eric B. Rosenbach, co-director of the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Shortly after Herzog began speaking, protestors interrupted the ambassador with chants and walked out of the event. Morgan K. Benson, an HKS student who participated in the walkout, said he protested the Kennedy School’s decision to host “perpetrators of apartheid.” “I’m disappointed that I go to a school where we can’t speak plainly about justice for Palestinians and the conditions that they’re living under, and that we are willing to platform war criminals who have directly contributed to those injustices,”
INSIDE THIS Harvard Today 2 ISSUE
Benson said. “It’s just important for students to counteract that normalization of the occupation that’s happening at the school.” Joseph G. Leone, a student at the Kennedy School who also participated in the walkout, said he recognizes the school will invite a range of government officials, but those responsible “for Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism shouldn’t be welcomed at HKS.” “HKS is going to host officials of various countries — that’s true — and we host plenty of odious figures from the United States as well,” Leone said. “But I think there’s a line, and I think that HKS has lines as well.” Elad Strohmayer, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, wrote in a statement that “the Ambassador came with the purpose of engaging in an open and honest dialogue.” “While the Ambassador welcomes criticism, it was a shame that a small group of students only cared to create a provocation,” Strohmayer wrote.
SEE HKS PAGE 9
Arts 3
News 7
United States Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) spoke about the role of technology in the future of the American economy while discussing his new book at a Harvard Institute of Politics forum on Monday evening. Harvard professors Michael J. Sandel and Amartya K. Sen joined Khanna at the event, which was moderated by Anika Bagaria ’24 and IOP Director Mark D. Gearan ’78. Khanna said the decision to offshore a lot of manufacturing jobs, which has “left out lots of people and communities” in the United States, needs to be fixed. “Maybe that helped consumer prices, but the reality is a lot of that led to a loss of income, a loss of jobs,” he said. “And the beneficiaries of it ultimately was a lot of capital, people who owned the capital.” According to Khanna, there now exists a “bipartisan consensus” on returning some production to the United States because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the “hollowing out of the middle class,” and “the rise of China.” The panelists also discussed efforts to regulate social media companies. Sandel gave the
Editorial 8
Sports 10
Monday’s IOP Forum featured Ro Khanna, as well as Professors Amartya Sen and Michael Sandel. MILES J. HERSZENHORN—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
audience his definition of social media companies’ business model — “to commandeer our attention and hold it for as long as possible, so that they can capture more personal data about us, so that they can use that data to try to sell us stuff.” “That seems to me a per-
TODAY’S FORECAST
nicious business model that’s deeply corrosive of democracy,” Sandel warned. “Not only because it depends on hooking people with sensationalistic and often false and hateful information and news feeds,” he added, “but the whole idea of capturing our attention
RAINY High: 70 Low: 43
and directing it to the empty, banal, and sensationalistic stuff that draws our attention distracts us from more important things to pay attention to.” Khanna agreed with Sandel that the business model of social
SEE IOP PAGE 9
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