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A comment on A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021). Parent comment

Re:A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021) by jruohonen on Wednesday January 14, 2026 @02:21AM (#46613303)
> Woah, the thing that leapt out at me, as a professor, is that they somehow got an exemption from the UMN institutional review board. .... in addition to being conducted deceptively

There are cases where deception (as they call it) can be approved (even by ethics boards). Based on the Verge's article, this research setup should not have been approved even by then. But the topic itself seems as relevant as ever with the xz case and all.

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Re:A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel (2021) by tdeck on Wednesday January 14, 2026 @08:28AM (#46615825)
Right, that's something to discuss at the IRB review. But they didn't even do an IRB review before conducting the experiment. After the outcry, they went back to the IRB and said "was this OK?"
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