National Post

Student expelled from Montreal college after finding ‘sloppy coding’ that compromised security of 250,000 students personal data
A student has been expelled from Montreal’s Dawson College after he discovered a flaw in the computer system used by most Quebec CEGEPs (General and Vocational Colleges), one which compromised the security of over 250,000 students’ personal information.

Ahmed Al-Khabaz, a 20-year-old computer science student at Dawson and a member of the school’s software development club, was working on a mobile app to allow students easier access to their college account when he and a colleague discovered what he describes as “sloppy coding” in the widely used Omnivox software which would allow “anyone with a basic knowledge of computers to gain access to the personal information of any student in the system, including social insurance number, home address and phone number, class schedule, basically all the information the college has on a student.”

“I saw a flaw which left the personal information of thousands of students, including myself, vulnerable,” said Mr. Al-Khabaz. “I felt I had a moral duty to bring it to the attention of the college and help to fix it, which I did. I could have easily hidden my identity behind a proxy. I chose not to because I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.” (Image courtesy of safesolvent.com)

Border deal challenge? Convincing Canadians their privacy won’t be invaded

Among the biggest challenges to a border trade and security agreement announced by Canada and the United States this week will be convincing Canadians their privacy won’t be invaded, U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson said Friday.

“There is this kind of urban legend that hey, the United States, once we get your information, it’s just there, anybody can look at it for any purpose,” he told the National Post’s editorial board. “That’s just not true. We value [privacy] as much as Canadians value it. This is confidential personal information, and it is important that we maintain the confidence of it and all those safeguards that we have in our system are going to apply to any information that we’re going to get in this process.”