Hackers Disrupt Online NASA Education Competition
3 Black Girls Competing to Win Trip to NASA Reportedly Hacked by Racists, The Root
“The three, who volunteer at the Inclusive Innovation Incubator program in D.C., sought to create a technology that would purify public schools’ water systems through filtration jars that filter water while detecting pH imbalances. After making it to the semifinal round, the young women were in the lead with 78 percent of the vote (which someone was kind enough to take a screenshot of) when NASA closed voting a day early to “protect the integrity of the vote.” Although several media outlets erroneously reported that the early close was because the girls and their fans had voted too much, apparently what happened was that someone hacked into the voting system to take votes away from IN3.”
Three black teens are finalists in a NASA competition. Hackers spewing racism tried to ruin their odds, Washington Post
“But while the teens were gaining traction on social media and racking up votes, users on 4chan – an anonymous Internet forum where users are known to push hoaxes and spew racist and homophobic comments – were trying to ensure the students wouldn’t win.”
NASA Statement
“On Sunday, April 29, hackers attempted to change the vote totals in the NASA OPSPARC Challenge, so managers of the challenge decided to end public voting to protect the integrity of the results. The challenge team has an accurate record of the voting results prior to the attempted disruption. The top three Public Choice teams in each category will be notified and recognized on the challenge website. In accordance with the judging criteria and voting procedures stated on the OPSPARC website, a panel of NASA Goddard judges will make a final determination of the winners using the published rubrics.”
Keith’s note: NASA Needs to fix this. It should never have happened and should never happen again.
This is not NASA’s job to fix. This is our job as Americans to fix.
The fact that a simple contest, with public voting, cannot be carried out in a fair and square manner because there are miserable excuses for human beings in our society who cannot stand the idea that someone who does not look just like them would win on their merits – and therefore have to sabotage it – is an indictment of what we have let our country become. What an absolute disgrace.
These young ladies display every trait that their haters do not possess – intelligence and grace being chief among them. I hope the team is not discouraged by any of this. America needs these young women to achieve all that they are clearly capable of.
And Americans need to start calling out the kind of despicable racist and sexist behavior the hackers displayed, whenever and wherever it occurs and whatever form it is taking. No excuses. Zero tolerance.
As much as we all like to disparage NASA, in general the organization has served to demonstrate that members of minority groups can succeed in technically demanding careers, starting with “Hidden Figures”.
For a long time, when I’d read about this kind of crap, I’d have an uneasy feeling that I couldn’t identify.
Now I know what it is: shame.
As an American citizen, I am ashamed.
It is remarkable that Germany was able to recognize the horrible evil of Nazism for what it was and denounce it, while 150 years after the Civil War, we still have a serious problem with racists (and not all just in the South) who seem unable to accept that human slavery is similarly evil, along with its ideological residue, racism. I have a (sort of) friend from high school who declared that Obama and Lincoln stand together as the two worst presidents in US history.
Part of our complication in the US is of course our commitment to freedom of expression, in which I fiercely believe. But when odious speech shades over into action, it must become illegal. Drawing this line in the sand is admittedly difficult, and doing so is fundamentally the business of the courts. But it must be done firmly and fearlessly, lest the Civil War (“The Lost cause”, as some still call it in the South) continue to fester for still more centuries.
As a new challenge, why not let teams of students analyze the server logs, identify the hacking methods and the vulnerabilities, and demonstrate a secure but user-friendly system?
I would hope NASA actually takes this approach, but I am not holding my breath. Decisions are made by people who have little or no ongoing hands-on system programming experience, and the actual software and hardware work is done by people who have little authority, or more often by outside contractors who must follow arbitrary contractual requirements. Consequently computer security devolves into measures that appear to be defensible to managers but often degrade usability. There is a better way.
There’s a better way to run a country as well, and yet we stumble along, first a right turn, then left, then right, looking for a way out of this awful morass that everyone, aside from a few miscreants like these, agrees is something best seen in the rear view mirror.
I understand well those who behave so poorly. While likely not true for all, my own experience likely explains a large part of this population. To paraphrase a famous aphorism: Racism is deeper than we know; indeed, it is deeper than we can
It’s sad this happened, but why should a competition like this be decided (apparently in whole or in part?) by a popular vote? I’ve worked both the National Science Bowl and FIRST competition, which are decided by demonstrated excellence. Why aren’t the winners decided by a competent panel of experts? If NASA set this up, they all but invited outsiders to spoil the story.