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A comment on UMN CS&E Statement on Linux Kernel Research. Parent comment

Re:UMN CS&E Statement on Linux Kernel Research by alexeldeib on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @05:50PM (#26895904)
The prof overseeing the paper clarified that they initially did not seek IRB approval, and then received an IRB exemption [0]. I'd want to ask the IRB why they approved that, for starters. Maybe because they'd already done the research and hoped it would blow over, vs. the controversy of rejecting it when they'd already done the work?

0: https://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~kjlu/papers/clarifications-hc....

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Re:UMN CS&E Statement on Linux Kernel Research by colechristensen on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @06:07PM (#26896046)
Honestly I’m guessing this kind of situation didn’t match any existing policy for the review board and a few people made a bad call.

We need to make sure to be supportive of people making mistakes and learning from them instead of raising pitchforks for every misstep. Failure is never completely avoidable and responding properly to failure is way more important than never failing.

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Re:UMN CS&E Statement on Linux Kernel Research by zxspectrum1982 on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @06:18PM (#26896147)
From my reading of the threads in the kernel mailing lists, it seems the IRB thought "is it bioscience with experimentation on live animals? No? Then it's all fine".
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Re:UMN CS&E Statement on Linux Kernel Research by seoaeu on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @06:34PM (#26896284)
Yeah, especially considering that the IRB said the research was out of scope (specifically that it was not "human subject research") rather than indicating that it was ethical. Kind of like the distinction between a court not having jurisdiction and a court declaring you didn't break any laws.
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Re:UMN CS&E Statement on Linux Kernel Research by ellisv on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @06:32PM (#26896269)
I participated in IRB for a UMN campus and that’s pretty much how these things worked back then.
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Re:UMN CS&E Statement on Linux Kernel Research by _rpd on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @06:32PM (#26896274)
I think they misrepresented the project so that it would be classified as “not human research”. It’s unclear whether the misrepresentation was intentional (to obtain the exemption) or unintentional (they were genuinely unaware of the human impact).
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Re:UMN CS&E Statement on Linux Kernel Research by IncRnd on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @05:56PM (#26895948)
Yes, but that doesn't have bearing on my comment that was being referenced, that they didn't say what had happened was wrong.

Here is Ken Thompson's apropos paper from 1984. [0]

[0] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...

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Re:UMN CS&E Statement on Linux Kernel Research by alexeldeib on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @06:21PM (#26896172)
Sure. I was answering your question:

> Why do you think that enough of an investigation hasn't been performed in order to understand culpability?

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