Documents made public by an MBTA lawsuit against MIT undergraduates show how anyone can get free T fare by copying an existing CharlieTicket or by making their own.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has asked for its temporary restraining order, protecting information about research by MIT students into the CharlieCard and CharlieTicket systems, to be changed to include only “non public” information. MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo characterized documents available online as “harmless information that is now public” in an e-mail.

But that public information shows how to get free rides with a CharlieTicket, leaving open the possibility that the MBTA suspects an even more serious compromise of its CharlieCard system.

Numerous ways to get unpaid-for T fare are clearly laid out in the DEF CON presentation, available online at http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/subway/Defcon_Presentation.pdf; in the report the students gave to the MBTA, available at http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/subway/10-declaration-henderson-vulnerability.pdf; and in prior research on similar systems.

Anyone with a magnetic card writer can repeatedly copy a CharlieTicket onto another card, never having to pay for a ticket again, if the students’ “Vulnerability Assessment Report” is accurate. In the T’s system, a CharlieTicket is worth as much as its magnetic stripe says it is, and no central computer tracks the tickets’ values, according to the report.

A single $25 ticket could be copied onto hundreds, if not thousands of blank cards, providing free travel forever.

A ticket’s identification number or value can also be easily changed, the report says. A $5 card can be made to say it is worth up to $655.36.

A thief could take a 5 cent CharlieTicket, rewrite it so that its value is $99, insert it into an MBTA ticketing kiosk along with a dollar, and receive $100 in T fares on a fresh card, purchased for $1.05, the report says. The ticket would have “$100.00” printed on the front and would appear identical to a legitimate CharlieTicket. The report suggests that an attacker might resell tickets.

(Three people arrested in New York are said to have exploited a vending machine bug to get $800,000 worth of Long Island Rail Road tickets and MetroCard fares for free, The New York Times reported Tuesday. They allegedly sold much of that fare.)

Magnetic card writers go for $173 on eBay, but they can be made for as little as $5 in parts, according to slides the students were to present at this weekend’s DEF CON hacker convention. Discarded CharlieTickets are available in many subway stations’ trash cans; other cards with magnetic stripes can also be found for less than a dollar online.

The information on the ticket includes a checksum, a six-bit number calculated from the rest of the information on the card, which is used to detect errors in the card’s data. There are only 64 six-bit numbers. If you do not know how the checksum is generated, you need only create 64 tickets, each with a different checksum value, and test each. One will work, according to the report.

The report does not say whether the students have successfully written software to generate forged CharlieTickets without having to try all the possible checksums. The final presentation in the spring 2008 subject Computer and Network Security (6.857) was based on guessing the checksum value by making many cards, a “brute force” approach. That work was done by four students: Samuel G. McVeety G, who did not participate in the DEF CON presentation, along with the three students who did, Zackary M. Anderson ‘09, Russell J. Ryan ‘09, and Alessandro Chiesa ‘09. The project earned an A, according to the MBTA.

A central system should store the current value of all tickets so that people cannot forge new CharlieTickets, the students’ confidential report recommends. An “auditing system” should also be used to detect copied or forged tickets, the report recommends.

The CharlieTicket and CharlieCard should both include additional encryption to make them hard to duplicate or forge, the report says. The report recommends an auditing system be installed to detect cloning of RFID cards. It also recommends that the CharlieTicket’s checksum be replaced with a cryptographically secure signature which would be harder to duplicate.

The DEF CON presentation highlighted fixable weaknesses in “physical security.” The presentation includes photos of unlocked doors into subway stations, pictures of open “turnstile control boxes” accessible “almost everywhere,” a picture of a “door key” found in an open box, and a photo of a computer screen in the MBTA’s operations center. (That picture was taken from an adjacent building with a telephoto lens, according to Tech photographer Eric Schmiedl, who gave a presentation on physical security at DEF CON.)

The students’ report suggests that all CharlieCards may be protected against duplication by a single encryption key, but the report is unclear on whether they have decoded that key. If they have found this key, this could be what the MBTA’s restraining order seeks to protect. CNET reported on Thursday that the students gave the MBTA “particular information to complete the Charlie card hack which they say they had no intention of revealing in the Defcon discussion,” which could be this key.

The CharlieCard uses the MIFARE Classic system, which is also used in London’s transport system and in the Dutch transport system. That system is known to be vulnerable to a cloning attack -- by standing near someone, you can decrypt their card and copy its identity and value. The maker of that card, NXP Semiconductors, has unsuccesfully sued in Dutch courts to keep research details from being presented in public.

The students’ report discusses possible ways to decode the encryption key that protects CharlieCards. It also suggests that the key may be the same on every card, rather than differing from card to card -- which could be a serious problem if true. But in a court filing, security consultant Eric Johanson said that the publicly available information about the students’ findings describes an “aspirational” attack on the key rather than a functional one.

The MIFARE Classic card has undergone worldwide security analysis.

In place of the students’ talk on Sunday, Dutch journalist Brenno de Winter gave a talk describing MIFARE Classic vulnerabilities and NXP’s unsuccessful lawsuit that sought to keep Dutch researchers from presenting those vulnerabilities. The research results to be published in October will show how the card can be cloned in a few seconds, he said. “If anyone in the room is using MIFARE Classic at this moment, this is your final wakeup call,” de Winter said. “This is your final heads-up. You’ve got two months left, and then you’re screwed.”

An NXP Semiconductors employee advised the MBTA on July 30 about the upcoming DEF CON presentation. “Of special concern is the announced intent to release open source tools required to perform the attacks,” wrote Manuel Albers, director of regional marketing for NXP. “Please let me know if we can support you in any way,” he wrote.

Three MIT students will not be presenting their security research at the annual DEF CON hacker convention this weekend because of a temporary restraining order filed by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority on Friday afternoon. The students — legally represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group — are appealing the order.

Zackary M. Anderson ’09, Russell J. Ryan ’09, and Alessandro Chiesa ’09 planned to present research on Sunday that would have shown how the MBTA’s CharlieTicket could be reprogrammed to contain up to $655.36 using a $200 magnetic stripe writer. The students would also have discussed the CharlieCard. According to a vulnerability assessment written by the students for the MBTA, the CharlieCard can be read wirelessly and also stores information about its balance on the card.

The MBTA’s complaint says that they intend to sue the students on several charges. In “Count III: Conversion,” the complaint alleges that “the MIT Undergrads exerted dominion over MBTA’s property by traveling on the MBTA lines without paying fares.” But Anderson said in an e-mail that “we never rode the T for free.” Anderson said that

at Saturday’s hearing, the MBTA alleged they anticipated a loss of more than $5,000 in fares because of the students’ research. EFF attorney Marcia Hofmann said that the EFF would represent the students defending against the subpoena, but that the EFF would rethink its support of the students if the MBTA files further suits. (The EFF has no staff attorneys licensed to practice in Massachusetts.)

The CharlieTicket vulnerabilities were discovered in the spring by a team of four 6.857 (Computer and Network Security) students working on a final project, but the MBTA was not notified. Three of the students are those named in the MBTA’s suit. The fourth student, Samuel G. McVeety G, did not participate in the DEF CON presentation preparation, Anderson said, and was not named in the MBTA’s complaint. Anderson, Ryan, and Chiesa continued to research the CharlieCard and they submitted their findings to DEF CON.

Though the presentation itself has been canceled, the presentation slides and confidential vulnerability report the students wrote for the MBTA are now widely available online. Still unavailable is some key information that would complete the attack and let people copy transit cards or add money to their CharlieTickets. It is unclear whether the students had managed to copy or edit the content of the CharlieCard, but their presentation included a detailed discussion of weaknesses in the card’s encryption.

According to the presentation, the students wrote software to generate and analyze cards like the CharlieCard to crack encryption keys on those cards, and they wrote software to read and duplicate cards like the CharlieCard. That software was to have been put online days ago, but the students did not put it on a Web site advertised in their presentation, Anderson said. Researchers around the world have studied for several years the MIFARE Classic card, used by the CharlieCard, London’s Oyster card, and the Dutch public transit system.

For court documents and a copy of the presentation, which was distributed to all DEF CON attendees, see http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/subway/.

The lawsuit surprised many DEF CON attendees, who are accustomed to relatively cordial relations with software companies who are informed of security holes. It also surprised the students, who said they had until then gotten positive reactions from the MBTA.

The lawsuit was filed late Friday afternoon, just two days before the presentation. But MBTA officials had been aware of the talk since at least July 30, when a vendor told them about a description of the talk online at defcon.org. The students had also been in contact with the MBTA since July 31 through Ronald L. Rivest, the professor who had overseen their 6.857 project. Rivest could not immediately be reached for comment.

On Monday, Aug. 4, MBTA representatives met with Rivest, the three students, and an MIT staff attorney to discuss the planned presentation. Anderson said that the students met in order to tell MBTA representatives information about the vulnerabilities which they did not intend to disclose publicly. As a result of that meeting, the students wrote a confidential report for the MBTA explaining the vulnerabilities they had discovered. Leaving the Monday meeting, the students felt that the issue had been resolved based on verbal comments and that they would not face legal action, Anderson said.

At around the time that they delivered their five-page vulnerability assessment report on Friday afternoon, the three students learned that the MBTA had filed a complaint in Massachusetts District Court. The students were not provided notice until the MBTA had already sent lawyers to the court to file the complaint, said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The students worked with EFF staff throughout Friday night to prepare a response. “We haven’t slept since Thursday,” Anderson said Saturday afternoon. EFF attorneys participated in a Saturday morning hearing via teleconference.

On Saturday afternoon, Judge Douglas P. Woodlock issued an order prohibiting the students and “all persons in active concert or participation with any of them” from “providing program, information, software code, or command that would assist another in any material way to circumvent or otherwise attack the security of the Fare Media System.” Most of the information about the vulnerabilities were publicized by the MBTA’s inclusion of the presentation slides and the vulnerability assessment report in their complaint, available online.

A temporary restraining order is issued when a judge believes a future lawsuit is likely to succeed on its merits, that the restraint will prevent an irreparable harm, that the order will not irreparably harm the restrained party, and that the public interest weighs in favor of the restraint. A detailed explanation of the judge’s reasoning was presented orally at the hearing; an audio recording was made by the court but is not yet available.

“The court’s order is an illegal prior restraint on legitimate academic research in violation of the First Amendment,” Jennifer Granickpeech, an EFF representative, said in a press release issued by the EFF. Nevertheless, the students cancelled their talk on the EFF’s advice. “We disagree with the ruling,” but they intend to follow it, Opsahl said. Opsahl said that the court’s ruling was based on a misinterpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The complaint lists Anderson, Ryan, and Chiesa as defendants, as well as Rivest, MIT, President Susan J. Hockfield, Chancellor Phillip L. Clay PhD ‘75, and the MIT Corporation. Opsahl said that only the three students were treated as defendants by the courts. “We can’t comment on pending litigation,” said Pamela D. Serfes, an MIT News Office representative.

MIT lawyers were helpful but did not represent the students. “We have aligned interests, but they’re not representing us,” Anderson said.

Representatives of the MBTA were not available for comment.

The students did not successfully talk with the MBTA about the problems they discovered until July 31, only 10 days before the research was to be proposed. (They tried to contact the MBTA through Rivest about a week earlier, but he did not get in touch until July 31.) Computer security researchers traditionally tell companies about problems they find, give them some time to correct the problems, and only then disclose the vulnerabilities in public, in a process called “responsible disclosure” within the community.

Security expert Phil Zimmerman said that traditionally researchers give at least a month after notification before they disclose a vulnerability in a software system. In hardware systems such as the MBTA’s magnetic-stripe and RFID card system, where fixing the vulnerability could possibly take more time, researchers usually offer more time, he said. “If it was me, I would’ve tried to give them more time to fix it,” Zimmerman said. But, he said, “public disclosure is a good thing,” because intense public scrutiny can help force people to fix systems.

Should security researchers explore systems which could be critical to security, like public transportation? Well, Zimmerman said, “try not to do anything that involves hiring a criminal defense lawyer.”

When an important problem has been discovered with little time until it is publicly announced, Zimmerman said, an organization like the MBTA should fix it immediately. Because lawsuits generally result in security vulnerabilities becoming even more visible, the MBTA should “be thinking a lot about engineering right now and not litigation,” in terms of loss mitigation, he said. If the system is irreparably broken, Zimmerman said, the MBTA might consider switching back to an older form of subway authentication: tokens.

“It’s very easy to fix,” said Brenno de Winter, a Dutch journalist and security analyst. “In the Netherlands, we’ve got a system that works. It’s called paper,” he said.

Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who recently discovered a serious vulnerability in the domain name system underlying the Internet, said that the students’ disclosure could have been handled more gracefully. But the MBTA also responded inappropriately, he said, by suing the students instead of just asking for time.

Many computer software vendors are accustomed to learning of security vulnerabilities from researchers in the responsible disclosure model, Kaminsky said. “You can expect cooperation from software vendors in a way that you could not expect six years ago,” Kaminsky said. But the MBTA is not a software company, Kaminsky noted. They may never have before encountered people interested in testing their security for free, a common occurrence outside of the software realm, Kaminsky said. This was an unpredictable “first-contact scenario,” he said.

“If your goal is to limit discussion, this [restraining order] is not the way,” Kaminsky said. “Suppressing talks in a culture that values freedom of speech just highlights the speech you’re trying to suppress.”

Simmons residents were officially informed on Thursday that their dorm would return to an a la carte dining system in the fall, reversing a July 24 announcement that a new trial of the “all you care to eat” buffet system would be tested instead.

A committee of Simmons residents, chaired by housemaster and professor John M. Essigmann PhD ’76, will further discuss dining issues over the fall term.

“We have heard loud and articulate voices on both sides of the issue,” Essigmann said. “But we have also heard that the level of satisfaction with the system in place before last spring was marginal at best. Returning to it permanently without considering other options seems contrary to the interests of the community. It is time for a dialog within Simmons.”

The committee will submit a series of recommendations to Karen A. Nilsson, senior associate dean for student life. Nilsson will make the final decision on how Simmons Dining will be run next spring and in the future.

The AYCTE pilot that would have taken place came as a surprise to Simmons residents who had gone through a six-week trial of AYCTE dining at the end of spring term and voted, narrowly, not to implement AYCTE permanently in the fall.

Outgoing Dean for Student Life Larry G. Benedict informed Simmons residents of the new AYCTE trial in a e-mail that sparked a flurry of communication between Simmons residents, housemasters John and Ellen Essigmann, Dining Services, and MIT administrators who have been involved in Simmons Dining. Some students who had enjoyed AYCTE dining in the spring were happy to hear that the pilot program would be continuing, but many students were angry because they felt that their house vote to return to a la carte dining had been ignored.

“Most people’s concern was that the residents of Simmons actually got a say in this. People felt their decision had been summarily disregarded,” Simmons resident Josiah W. Schwab ’09 said.

Benedict’s e-mail also detailed several physical changes to Simmons Dining that would make the dining area more accommodating for the AYCTE system. These changes included an increase in the capacity of the stir fry station and more flexibility to switch between serve and self-serve options. Some Simmons residents took these changes as reason to believe that Benedict and other administrators had in fact considered their opinions and concerns.

“I viewed the e-mail as the administration acknowledging that there were problems with the system the way it was,” Simmons Dining Chair Daniel P. Lorenc ’10 said.

Following Benedict’s e-mail and the responses from students, Benedict, Nilsson, the Simmons housemasters, and Dining Services decided not to go through with the pilot.

The first notice that Simmons would be returning to an a la carte system for the fall came in an e-mail reply on July 29 from Chancellor Phillip L. Clay PhD ’75 to Sarah E. Whiteside ’11, a Simmons resident who had e-mailed administrators complaining about Benedict’s AYCTE announcement.

Further notification of the change came in an e-mail to Simmons residents from the dorm’s housemasters and, finally, in an official e-mail from Nilsson on Thursday.

The formation of a dining committee represents a departure from the way in which Simmons had previously made decisions on dining issues, which was with house votes.

“There are lots of ways to decide things and I’m not necessarily sure that a vote is the best way,” Nilsson said. “We found ourselves in a bit of a quagmire … I think bringing a group together will allow us to move forward.”

After experiencing several close votes on dining in the past year — twice on whether or not to go forward with AYCTE trials and once on whether or not to continue AYCTE dining in the fall — many students welcome the change in the decision-making process.

“I think forming a committee is the best solution to the flame wars and debate that seem to sprout up once AYCTE is mentioned,” said Marcella R. Vokey ’11. “If we continue to vote, I doubt the results will change and we won’t have made any progress. But if both people who agree and disagree with AYCTE sign up for this committee, I think we could come up with a compromise or at least some new ideas.”

Christine J. Hazlett ’11 agreed that having a committee would help a lot. “I don’t think the votes were very useful since they were all so close.”

Though there will be no overhauls to Simmons Dining in the fall, Nilsson hopes some smaller changes being implemented will improve Dining immediately. First, James Lachance will be coming to Simmons as executive chef, and Dining Services will also work to provide better vegetarian entrees.

The new dining committee will face the challenging task of trying to satisfy as many residents as possible in a dorm that is currently divided in its opinions.

Some students strongly prefer the AYCTE dining system and are excited by the possibility of it returning next spring.

“I felt that the food quality and selections improved, and I ended up paying less for each meal,” Lorenc said. “With the trial, there was incentive to stay in the dining hall and that created a sense of community. The number of people eating at the dining hall increased.”

Paul T. Miyazaki ’10 and Paresh G. Malalur ’10 also said they paid less for each meal, food quality improved, and that a sense of community was fostered. “We would hang out in the dining hall for a while, and we got to know each other better,” Malalur said.

Other students adamantly oppose the reinstatement of AYCTE, citing concerns that, at times, directly contradict the opinions of AYCTE supporters.

Whiteside and Schwab both thought that the food quality and selection was worse, and both said they paid more for their dinner.

They also said that AYCTE was too inflexible. “For someone who just wanted an entree and a vegetable and fruit, there was no similar low cost option with AYCTE,” Schwab said.

Whiteside thought the AYCTE system might discourage community because students could not enter the dining hall without paying for dinner during the trial. That made it impossible for her to sit with friends who were eating dinner if she did not want to buy dinner or only wanted a snack, Whiteside said.

Other students have no strong preferences for either system.

Hazlett counts herself among “a whole bunch of people [who] don’t really care very much” about the format of dining.

Students and administrators also hold different opinions about which of the controversial issues matter most.

While cost was a large concern for many students, some preferred AYCTE even though they paid more for it. Vokey said that even though she spent about $1.50 more on dinner, she liked the AYCTE trial because “I can’t argue with the chance to sit down for a meal, relax, and actually see other Simmons residents.”

Nilsson declined to comment on cost concerns. “I think that quite often we concentrate on solely money as opposed to what is being offered that will fuel a sense of community,” Nilsson said. “I don’t want Dining to be solely a financial discussion.”

Despite the recent controversy, many Simmons residents and administrators express optimism for the future of Simmons dining.

Lorenc hopes to try to please as many students as possible by considering options that combine AYCTE and a la carte options.

Aafia Siddiqui ’95, missing since 2003, was arrested in Afghanistan and was arraigned Tuesday morning in Federal District Court in New York City. She is accused of picking up an assault rifle and shooting at U.S. personnel when she was in Afghan police custody.

During the Tuesday hearing, one of Siddiqui’s lawyers, Elizabeth M. Fink, told the judge that allegations that her 90-pound client had attacked Americans with a rifle were “patently absurd,” according to The New York Times.

Siddiqui, who received a biology degree from MIT, disappeared in Karachi, Pakistan in March of 2003, along with her three children.

Elaine Whitfield Sharp, who represents Siddiqui and her family, maintains Siddiqui has been secretly held prisoner in U.S. custody at the Bagram Theatre Internment Facility in Afghanistan since her disappearance, a charge that is flatly denied by the United States.

Siddiqui and a teenage boy were arrested by the Afghanistan National Police in Ghazni on July 17, according to the Justice Department’s criminal complaint. The complaint alleges that Siddiqui’s handbag contained a veritable panoply of terrorist paraphernalia, including “numerous documents describing the creation of explosives, of chemical weapons,” and of biological and radiological weapons; papers describing U.S. landmarks; excerpts from the Anarchist’s Arsenal; and “numerous chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars.”

A representative from the Ghazni Governor’s Office, Ismail Jahangir, speaking through a translator, said that Siddiqui was arrested because “they thought she had a bomb.” Jahangir said he did not know if she actually had a bomb, nor any details subsequent to the arrest.

Ghazni officials publicized her capture at a news conference on July 18.

After the press conference, a party of U.S. personnel conducted a meeting in the Afghan Police Station. Siddiqui, unrestrained, was present in the meeting room behind a yellow curtain, the U.S. sworn complaint alleges. The complaint states that she picked up a U.S. Army officer’s M-4 assault rifle and fired shots at U.S. personnel, missing them. (See excerpt from the complaint at right. For a full copy of the complaint, see http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/siddiqui/siddiqui-aafia-complaint.pdf.)

The complaint states that the officer returned fire with his pistol and wounded Siddiqui.

The injured Siddiqui was transferred to the hospital at Bagram Air Force Base, about 30 miles north of Kabul, according to Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Greene, a spokesperson for Combined Joint Task Force 101, which manages the Bagram base.

Nielson-Greene said that Siddiqui received “the exact same” medical treatment that a U.S. soldier would have received for her wounds, and “absolutely nothing was withheld.” Bagram’s hospital is the best medical facility in Afghanistan, Nielson-Greene said. Siddiqui was treated at Bagram for the next two weeks, and recovered to the point of being “ambulatory.”

On Monday, Aug. 4, Siddiqui was transported to New York City, at which time the Department of Justice released the complaint. Siddiqui was arraigned on Tuesday morning, and her next appearance in court is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 11.

Siddiqui’s New York lawyer, Fink, raised questions of Siddiqui’s treatment in an interview Wednesday. She said that Siddiqui had an “oozing wound” and had received neither antibiotics nor painkillers.

Sharp said that Siddiqui is “still very frail” and that Siddiqui said her wound has an odor to it, raising concerns about infection.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office had no comment on Siddiqui’s medical condition.

Fink is a public defender based in New York, who is working jointly with Sharp, who is Boston-based.

Sam Zarifi, the Asia-Pacific director for Amnesty International, said, “The idea that American troops were somehow overpowered and could only deal with her by shooting her­ — it’s certainly a very suspicious story. At the very least, it suggests gross incompetence and a violation of ‘Policing 101’” on the part of the American troops.

The New York Times characterized the Ghazni official, Jahangir, secondhand, as “challenging the American government’s version of events.”

Jahangir maintains that Siddiqui was in good condition and had not been shot, but that was when she was turned over to the Afghan police, not the United States. Jahangir represents the provincial governor, who was involved in the initial arrest of Siddiqui.

A person answering the phone at the Afghan Ministry of the Interior said that the woman and boy arrested in Ghazni were “under the custody of the Police.” When asked if she had been handed over to the U.S., he said “it is not true.”

“No, she was not shot. She was arrested. … She wanted to a suicide attack on the Governor of Ghazni [sic],” the person said.

Sharp maintains that Siddiqui has been held by the United States at the Bagram Theatre Internment Facility at Bagram Air Base since her disappearance in 2003.

United States representatives fiercely deny this claim. “I can confirm, absolutely, I was here. She has never been in our detention facility,” said Nielson-Greene, the spokesperson at Bagram.

British journalist Yvonne Ridley has publicized the theory that Siddiqui has been held at Bagram for years; Ridley said that former Bagram prisoners report having heard a woman’s screams, and she has concluded that woman was Aafia Siddiqui.

Nielson-Greene describes these claims as “rumor and innuendo.” She said that a woman had been held at Bagram in 2003, but that woman, identified only as “Shafila,” was released.

Nielson-Greene said she was “certain — as certain as you can be — [that the woman] doesn’t match the description” of Aafia Siddiqui.

Reached on Monday, before news of the gunfight had been broken, a Defense Department spokesman in Washington declined to confirm or deny whether Siddiqui had ever been held at Bagram, saying that they do not normally answer questions regarding individuals at Bagram.

Between 2003 and 2008, the U.S. government has suggested links between Siddiqui and terrorism.

According to Sharp, Siddiqui’s lawyer, every past allegation of terrorist activities on Siddiqui’s part has been refuted.

Sharp notes that Siddiqui disappeared in 2003 just days after so-called “9/11 mastermind” Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was apprehended by U.S. authorities, suggesting he may have “given up” her name.

In March 2004, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller named Siddiqui as “an Al Qaeda operative and facilitator.”

In 2006, the U.S. declassified a biography of alleged terrorist Ammar al-Baluchi which claimed that he had married Siddiqui after she divorced the father of her children in 2003.

When Siddiqui disappeared in 2003, she was with her three children, aged seven years, five years, and six months. There is still no information on the whereabouts of those children.

Jahangir, the Ghazni official, said the teenage boy arrested with Siddiqui was a 12 year-old named “Ali.” That is not the name of Siddiqui’s eldest child, though her child would be 12 or 13 years old now.

Costantino “Chris” Colombo, dean for student affairs at Columbia University’s undergraduate schools, was chosen as MIT’s new dean for student life. Colombo, whose appointment is effective beginning Aug. 18, will move into Next House with his family.

Colombo replaces Larry G. Benedict, who has held the dean for student life position since its inception in 2000. Benedict, who announced his retirement in October, will leave MIT this month.

Steven R. Lerman ’72, dean for graduate education and chair of the search advisory committee, said that he was “incredibly excited” about Colombo’s appointment. Lerman said that Colombo is “an incredibly thoughtful and wise individual” who brings a great deal of experience to MIT, having held the analogous position at two other top-tier universities.

Colombo, who has worked at Columbia University since 1992, has held the position of dean for student affairs at Columbia since 1998. From 1975 to 1992, he worked at Johns Hopkins University in a variety of positions, including dean for students. (Coincidentally, Benedict took over Colombo’s Johns Hopkins position in 1992 before coming to MIT.)

At Columbia, Colombo oversaw the consolidation of the admissions and advising divisions of Columbia’s two undergraduate schools, according to the Columbia Spectator, a student newspaper. Colombo was also part of a team of administrators that negotiated with students activists during a hunger strike last year.

A quick search in the Spectator’s archives also reveals that, among other things, Colombo created a committee earlier this year to evaluate Columbia’s “opaque” discipline procedures and met with student representatives of groups targeted by racist graffiti last fall.

“It is evident that [Dean Colombo] is a man who fervently cares about his students and loves what he does,” Undergraduate Association President Noah S. Jessop ’08 said in an e-mail. “I believe that he is very curious to learn about what MIT is like now before making any changes. I suspect Dean Colombo will put in the effort to do so in an exemplary fashion.”

Colombo, who is on vacation until Aug. 18, was unavailable for comment.

As previously reported in The Tech, a total of about six dozen candidates to replace Benedict were vetted by an external search firm, with about three dozen of those having complete applications.

Eight candidates were chosen and interviewed by the search advisory committee, with a few candidates invited to a second round of interviews and meetings with students, faculty, and additional administrators. A short list was submitted to Chancellor Phillip L. Clay PhD ’75 who gave a final recommendation to President Susan Hockfield.

In an e-mail, Jessop said that immediate issues for Colombo to address will include dining and housing, and “continuing the recent progress in student engagement.”

“Students are really in desperate need of an ally in the administration,” former UA President Martin F. Holmes ’08 said. He strongly encouraged Colombo to continue Benedict’s tradition of having weekly office hours for students. It would give students “time to interface with the dean,” Holmes said.

Holmes also stated that dining was the most prominent challenge for the new dean. It’s a “monumental issue … that needs to be handled very carefully.”

Lerman added that a long-term sustainable model for construction and maintenance of residence halls was also an issue Colombo would need to address. “Several residences are arguably in need of renovation. … We need a much more coherent plan,” Lerman said.

Continuing to support the fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups, both financially and otherwise, was also cited as another issue for the new dean, as was how to best integrate living and learning.

Colombo’s contributions to student life will build on the work that Benedict has done in his time here.

As dean for student life, Benedict has worked on campus dining issues, overseen dormitory renovations, expanded the housemaster program to graduate residences, and worked on other student services projects. His position also made him responsible for student life and well-being, evident in his work on the 2001 Mental Health Task Force.

“Part of what made this search so hard is that [the new dean] has big shoes to fill,” Lerman said.

“I am not alone in saying that Larryben created an integral part of what we consider the MIT experience, Student Life,” Jessop wrote in an e-mail. “He has done tremendous things for this institution. … I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”

Colombo and his family will live at Next House for the upcoming academic year, in the vacant housemasters’ apartment.

“Living on campus with my family will give me ample opportunity to interact with students,” Colombo told the MIT News Office. “I look forward to moving to Cambridge later this summer.”

The search advisory committee determined that it would be “enormously beneficial” for the new dean for student life to live on campus, Clay said in an e-mail to Next House. As MIT reached its decision, it was discovered that Colombo would be very interested in the opportunity, Lerman said.

Holmes, a member of the search advisory committee, said that he was very excited about Colombo’s decision to live on campus. “That level of commitment and enthusiasm to get to know students and understand MIT culture is a telling sign that he is coming here with an open mind,” Holmes said.

The search for a new Next House housemaster will continue in the fall, and the plan to provide faculty and staff support to Next will remain the same. Residential Life Associate Marc A. Lo will serve as “interim house director” and will work with the house government and with residents. The dormitory’s current housemasters, Muriel Medard ’89 and John Simmons ’90, will move off-campus with their family but will still serve officially as housemasters.

Felony charges against Michael P. Short G related to his arrest in the basement of NW16 have been dropped. According to the motion filed by the prosecution on July 18, dropping the charges is “in the interests of justice as discipline proceedings will be conducted by the MIT internal discipline board.”

Steven J. Sack, Short’s lawyer, expressed satisfaction at the resolution of the criminal charges against Short. According to Sack, Short was hacking at the time of his arrest. Short himself did not respond to requests for comment.

The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The MIT News Office declined to comment.

Short was found in a caged room in the basement of NW16 on the night of June 7 along with Harold S. Barnard G and Brandeis University graduate student Marina Dang. According to the police report filed by officer Duane R. Keegan, Short voluntarily showed how he had used a tool made from a Diet Coke can to open the combination lock that had secured the room. He was subsequently arrested and charged with breaking and entering at night with intent to commit a felony and possession of burglarious instruments. Neither Barnard nor Dang have been charged in connection with this incident.

Undergraduate Association President Noah S. Jessop ’09 stated that he was “very pleased to hear the change of direction in the handling of the case.” However, Jessop expressed concerns about the lessons future hackers might take from this incident.

“I think that in a case where you’ve got a student on Institute property who cooperates, it sends a very conflicting message to send that to Cambridge courts,” he said. “We do not want to send a signal encouraging people to risk life and limb to flee.”

Charging students found in unauthorized locations is “very detrimental to both the Institute and the students involved,” making it much harder for both to go about their normal business, Jessop said.

“In a nonviolent case where a student fully cooperates, things should be handled internally,” Jessop said.

Nevertheless, Sack said that he and Short “feel the police did the right thing in the case.” And former MIT Police chief and current MIT security director John DiFava stood by the MIT Police officers’ decision to file charges against Short. “I thought that the actions were appropriate under the circumstances,” he said.

“Oftentimes an officer finds himself in a situation where the facts dictate that a certain action has to be taken,” DiFava said. “This was one of those situations.”

DiFava pointed to location as the primary reason that the incident escalated to criminal charges. “It was not a logical place for hacking or exploring,” he said. He noted that there are no tunnels or suspended ceilings in the basement of NW16, both features that are commonly of interest to hackers.

In addition, DiFava noted that certain responses by Short may have raised some flags. Keegan claims in his police report that Short said “that he was there to see what he could find for parts in the area.” DiFava also believes that nothing was mentioned about hacking until well after the incident.

The officer “made a determination that it was potentially a crime,” DiFava said.

As part of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, NW16 has slightly tighter security than other parts of campus. Because it houses materials and equipment purchased with funds from the federal governments, the security at the PSFC is reviewed by the Department of Energy every two years, said Matt Fulton, safety coordinator and facilities manager at the PSFC.

Fulton said that the basement of NW16 serves as a storage area for various PSFC labs. According to Fulton, there are “high-value stores” in some areas as well as equipment, such as capacitors and lasers, which could be hazardous if released to the general public.

According to Keegan’s police report, “NW 16 is a common area for theft,” but the MIT Police’s press log does not record any events in NW16 other than Short’s arrest within the past year. However, according to Fulton, there has been an incidence of theft from the basement of NW16 within the last five years.

“As a research laboratory that’s funded by the federal government, we have an obligation” to the protect the property there, said Fulton.

Fulton deferred specific questions about security at NW16 to the director of the PSFC, Miklos Porkolab, who declined to comment.

Despite being part of the PSFC, NW16 does not seem to be a central location for active laboratory research, though. According to PSFC Library coordinator Jason Thomas, NW16 houses mostly conference rooms, offices, and classrooms, with there being only possibly “a couple small labs” in the building.

Though the building is not accessible to the general MIT community, Thomas said that all PSFC personnel have cards that grant them access to NW16 as well as other PSFC buildings, such as NW17 and NW21. According to its Web site, the PSFC Library, which is located on the first floor of NW16, is open 24 hours, 7 days a week to the PSFC community.

It seems that both Short and Barnard had access to NW16 as graduate students in the PSFC.

Nevertheless, despite NW16’s mostly non-active-laboratory function, Fulton expressed a desire for hackers to stay out of NW16 along with the rest of the PSFC. “I hope that research laboratories will become exempt from hacking as a result of this.” He noted his concerns over safety and over research projects that might be jeopardized if equipment were to go missing.

The hack etiquette in MIT’s statement on hacking to be included in the student handbook in the fall includes the item, “Do not steal anything.”

DiFava expressed some frustration with the response to the MIT Police from this incident and the Faculty Club incident in fall 2006, when three students found after hours in the Faculty Club were also charged in Cambridge District Court.

“We’re here to help, not to harm, not to negatively impact anybody,” DiFava said. He noted that there have been dozens of encounters in the last two years in which students found in unauthorized locations have been quietly referred to internal MIT discipline proceedings or even told simply to vacate the premises without further action.

“We don’t have a lot of guidance,” DiFava said, “because it is so difficult a topic.”

“I would prefer that we have further guidance,” DiFava said, but he wanted people to understand that given the circumstances, “we’re not doing bad here.”

“Further guidance” may be forthcoming, as Jessop said that “one of my goals for this year is to be able to paint some really clear boundaries” for what’s hacking and what’s not and to try to define “what everybody can expect from this tradition that brings the Institute great pride and publicity.” Jessop conceded that he did not expect to be able to draw “hard and fast lines,” but he did hope to achieve some “forward progress” in resolving the miscommunication that he’s seen over hacking and its boundaries.

MIT filed a lawsuit against biotechnology company Affymetrix last month, alleging the company’s GeneChip technology infringes an existing MIT patent.

The complaint, filed on July 1, accuses Affymetrix for knowingly infringing the patent and involving others to infringe by marketing the technology in the United States. It cites E8 Pharmaceuticals and MIT as plaintiffs. E8 Pharmaceuticals is a company co-founded by MIT Biology Professor David E. Housman, who is also a co-inventor of the patented technology.

On July 3, Affymetrix filed a notice about the lawsuit to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The notice stated, “We believe that the plaintiffs’ claims are without merit and will vigorously defend against the claims advanced in the complaint.” According to its Web site, Affymetrix invented its GeneChip technology in the late 1980s, with the company now offering “the gold standard tool for analyzing complex genetic information.”

The Affymetrix public relations manager declined to comment, citing pending litigation. The plaintiffs and their attorneys also declined to comment.

MIT and Affymetrix have clashed before, as the MIT complaint reveals. In 2004, the U.S. patent office assigned MIT the patent, naming Housman as co-inventor. A year later, Affymetrix sought a patent for the same technology, therefore provoking the patent office to interfere. In 2007, the patent office determined Housman and his associates as the inventors.

“The fact that the patent interference was decided in MIT’s favor was an important milestone,” Housman said in an e-mail. “The steps which have been taken more recently are also important in resolving this case to reflect the value of the intellectual property which was created at MIT.”

The technology causing the dispute is essentially an efficient DNA microarray. According to the complaint filed by MIT, the technology allows users to cost-effectively analyze genes with minute DNA samples and few reactants, yet yielding results previously considered impossible, even in laboratories employing thousands of different reactants.

DNA microarrays, also known as gene chips, are commonly used in a variety of disciplines such as gene expression analysis, toxicology, and forensic analysis. The chips are single-use, can be customized for a specific organism or to target certain genes, and cost about $200 to $400 dollars each.

Besides supplying products to MIT laboratories, Affymetrix actually has ties to MIT and Harvard’s Broad Institute, collaborating with Broad to develop some of its newest gene chips. How the lawsuit will affect the relationship is unknown.

If MIT wins, up to three times the damages plus interest and attorney’s fees could be awarded, a hefty amount since its claims affect a crucial component of Affymetrix’s business, worth $603 million. Affymetrix faced a similar lawsuit against competitor Illumina four years ago in which the jury awarded Affymetrix $90 million. Patent litigation is not uncommon, especially in the field of biotechnology, with most of the cases settled outside the court.

For court documents related to the suit, see http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/affymetrix/.

A motion to grant Anna L. Tang greater freedoms was denied in a hearing on Wednesday at Middlesex Superior Court. Tang, a former Wellesley College student, is accused of stabbing Wolfe B. Styke ’10 seven times in his Next House residence on Oct. 23, 2007.

Tang has been under house arrest since she was released on $10,000 bail on Jan. 9. She is currently allowed to leave her Framingham apartment only for church, counseling appointments, and workouts in the exercise room at her apartment complex.

Tang’s lawyer filed a motion to allow her to “travel independently by public transportation when feasible,” to attend two classes at either Framingham State College or Massachusetts Bay Community College, to attend “yoga, ballet, cooking and/or art classes twice a week,” and to attend circus classes at Simply Circus in Newton, Mass.

Oral arguments centered around her request to be allowed to attend classes at Framingham State College or Massachusetts Bay Community College. In the end, Judge Diane M. Kottmyer ruled that the motion was “premature,” as Tang had yet to actually enroll at either college. Kottmyer denied the motion without prejudice, indicating that she might reconsider it at a later time.

Robert A. George, Tang’s attorney, called the situation “a Catch-22 within another Catch-22.” According to George, the counseling Tang is receiving as a condition for her release is being paid for by Tang’s student insurance, but Tang must be an actively enrolled student to remain eligible for that insurance. George noted that the judge is unwilling to grant the motion allowing Tang to attend classes without paperwork indicating that Tang has already enrolled, but that enrolling itself requires paying tuition up front.

The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.

The hearing on non-evidentiary motions has been continued to Aug. 18. George said that he would be refiling the motion to modify Tang’s bail conditions on that date. Sept. 12 has been set as the date for hearing motions to suppress evidence, the final pretrial conference is scheduled for Dec. 15, and the trial is currently scheduled for Jan. 5.

Summer residents of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity were relocated after an internal water pipe burst and caused minor water damage to the interior structure of the building.

According to David M. Nole ’09, a member of ATO who was in charge of finding summer boarders, MIT relocated all student residents to Next House for health and safety reasons. Other residents were transferred to a Boston-side fraternity that had a large number of vacant rooms. MIT students will be allowed to stay at Next House for a few more days and will then be allowed to move into their fall dormitories. Nole said in an e-mail that MIT would not charge the students a fee for moving in early.

The water pipe that burst drains the roof of the ATO building, according to Nole, and had become clogged after several days of inclement weather.

MIT contracted a construction crew to fix the water damage, as well as provide previously planned renovations, Nole said. Repairs and renovations are set to be complete by the beginning of September and will be paid for by ATO’s insurance, Nole said.

“MIT has been very helpful and supportive over the past several weeks and we are very thankful for their assistance,” Nole said. Nole also thanked the other fraternities for offering their help.

—Angeline Wang

Harvard pledged this month to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2016. The University of New Hampshire became the first school in the nation this year to use landfill methane gas as its prime energy source. And the College of the Atlantic in Maine plans to open green dormitories with composting toilets in August.

Colleges across the country are rolling out a host of environmentally friendly initiatives, expanding beyond campus recycling and energy efficient buildings to hire sustainability officers to oversee all environmental programs. The push coincides with the rise of “green college” rankings and as the schools use their new policies and practices as a recruiting tool for students who came of age during the release of “An Inconvenient Truth,” former vice president Al Gore’s popular documentary about global warming.

“The current generation of students wants to go to schools that take their environmental responsibility seriously,” said Julian Dautremont-Smith, associate director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, based in Lexington, Ky. “In the last two or three years, it’s really picked up, past some sort of tipping point.”

The rising fervor around environmental initiatives has launched Harvard, UNH, and the College of the Atlantic into the ranks of the nation’s top green colleges, a new category in Princeton Review’s “Best 368 Colleges.”

The three colleges are among the 11 that received a top rating, a list that includes two other New England schools: Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, which started a Zipcar program and a bicycle co-op last year; and Yale University, which generates 50 percent of the power for a divinity school dormitory from solar panels and plans to add solar technology to other buildings next school year.

More than ever, prospective students are judging colleges on their environmental stewardship, along with the traditional rankings of academics, dorm food, and the party scene, said Rob Franek, vice president of Princeton Review and the annual book’s author.

In the Review’s latest survey, 63 percent of college applicants and their parents said they wanted more information about a college’s commitment to the environment; a quarter of them said it would strongly impact their decision to apply or attend a school.

“Students are exposed to sustainability initiatives at a younger age, so they expect the same from their undergraduate schools, and colleges feel obliged to make them available,” Franek said.

Colleges are eyeing each other’s initiatives, as the green movement, once confined to the edges of campus life where students living in co-ops would grow vegetables and compost waste, goes mainstream and the schools scramble to outdo one another.

Harvard, with 24 full-time staff members carrying out its Green Campus Initiative, supports the largest university organization in the world devoted to sustainability work, said Leith Sharp, the program’s director.

Harvard pays its students to promote conservation efforts and holds an annual competition to honor the most Earth-friendly residence hall for recycling and reducing energy and water consumption. The winning dorm takes home the Green Cup, a trophy fashioned out of an old beer keg spray-painted forest green.

The conservation efforts — which include using the cold water setting when doing laundry, taking only what students think they will eat in the dining hall, and shutting windows in the winter — are paying off, saving the university at least $400,000 a year, Sharp said. Electricity use in undergraduate dorms decreased 15 percent within three years of launching the initiative, and recycling increased by more than 30 percent, she said. Dining halls have seen a 33 percent reduction in food waste.

“About a year or two ago, we hit this critical mass within the university, where the issue of greening the campus was no longer a fringe issue,” Sharp said. “It became a central concern.”

Harvard dining halls serve organic produce, compost food waste, and organize weekly farmers markets. Its recycling truck is fueled by waste-kitchen oil. The university also subsidizes half the cost of public transit passes for students and staff and rewards carpoolers with prime parking spots, while raising the price of on-campus parking, resulting in a 10 percent reduction in single-occupant car trips in the last six years, she said.

Students have also pressured university leaders to stay at the forefront of the green curve. Harvard’s Environmental Action Committee, an undergraduate environmental advocacy and political group, got 4,500 students to sign a petition last winter urging Drew Faust, university president, to expand teaching and research on climate, energy, and sustainability, and commit to the bold greenhouse gas initiative.

“Students are used to seeing Harvard as a leader in most things,” said Zachary Arnold, a junior and cochairman of the committee. “Without a strong commitment and active engagement with this issue, Harvard was in danger of losing its leadership.”

Bay State schools that did not make Princeton Review’s list of top green colleges this year tout recognition in other rankings.

MIT ranked among the nation’s top 25 schools in a recent report card issued by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. A rainwater harvesting system on the school’s Cambridge campus cuts potable water use in half. And next year, the university expects to introduce renewable, plant-based biodiesel fuel for its vehicles. It is also studying the potential of mounting wind turbines on several campus buildings.

Interest in environmental sustainability has grown so much among MIT students that the university made grants of up to $20,000 last year to encourage students to pursue energy research, such as mapping energy use in buildings across campus, said Steven Lanou, deputy director for environmental sustainability. The university, like several others, is also developing new courses addressing the issue.

Sierra Magazine, which bestowed the title of “original green school” on Tufts University for developing the nation’s first university environmental policy in 1990, named the school one of the top 10 greenest in the country last year. Dorms hold a monthlong energy conservation competition called “Do It In the Dark!”

“The rankings themselves bring credibility to the issue and will push students to think about this in their selection criteria,” said Sarah Hammond Creighton, director of Tufts’s office of sustainability.

Congress overwhelmingly approved an overhaul of the nation’s higher education law on July 31, adding dozens of provisions and programs to help families with soaring college costs.

The bill is an effort to keep college costs down through greater transparency — and perhaps shaming — without imposing price controls. It requires colleges and universities to report more information about their costs and prices, to be released by the Education Department in user-friendly lists; those with the largest percentage tuition increases will have to tell the department why they were needed and what they will do to keep costs down.

The measure passed in the House by 380 to 49 and in the Senate by 83 to 8.

The measure also simplifies federal financial-aid forms, and, for the first time, makes Pell grants for low-income students available year-round, not just during the academic year. It also requires colleges to disclose all relationships with student lenders and bans all gifts and revenue-sharing agreements between institutions and lenders offering federal and private loans.

Although President Bush is widely expected to sign the legislation, the White House made no promises last week.

“We will review the legislation to see how it addressed administration concerns during the conference process,” said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman.

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House education committee, said the bill would “create a higher-education system that is more consumer-friendly, fairer and easier to navigate.”

Education groups found good and bad in the sprawling 1,100-page legislation.

Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education said he applauded provisions making it easier for low-income students to pay for a college education, but worried about the cost of complying with all the new regulations “dealing with textbooks, tuition and fees, cost of attendance, alumni activities, foreign gift reporting, fire safety, graduation rates, drug violations, vaccines and peer-to-peer file sharing.”

Coming five years after the last major education overhaul expired, the legislation was a source of substantial relief to many lawmakers.

“We have had over 13 different extensions of this bill,” said Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, who has recently steered the bill in the absence of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and chief author of the bill. “I feel like we have been on third base for six and a half years.”

House and Senate negotiators agreed on the final outlines of the bill July 30, getting around the last sticking point — how to deal with states that reduce their spending on higher education — with a symbolic compromise under which states that do so could not compete for money from a new grant program that may never be given money.

College affordability has been a high priority for the current Congress, which in other legislation over the past year cut interest rates on student loans and raised the size of Pell grants. Many lawmakers have been frustrated that every increase in federal financial aid is quickly swallowed up by increases in tuition.

Congress has also been concerned that the form filled out by families seeking help with tuition, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the Fafsa, was a daunting obstacle for many. “Though it was only a seven-page form, you had to hire a financial services outfit to do it,” Ms. Mikulski said.

The new law calls for a two-page Fafsa-EZ form.

With textbook costs averaging about $900 a year and many students forced to pay hundreds of dollars for a required book “bundled” with a DVD or workbook, the new law would require publishers to provide full pricing information and sell unbundled versions of every textbook.

Alexander Vladimir d’Arbeloff ’49, a visionary entrepreneur who co-founded Boston-based high-tech company Teradyne before becoming the eighth chairman of the MIT Corporation, died peacefully on Tuesday, July 8, surrounded by family. He was 80.

As chairman of the MIT Corporation, d’Arbeloff provided crucial leadership for the Calculated Risks, Creative Revolutions fundraising campaign, which had a transformative effect on the Institute — from the physical campus to its research agenda. The campaign ushered in cutting-edge facilities such as the Al and Barrie Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center and the Ray and Maria Stata Center and also sparked a new emphasis on the intersection between the life sciences and engineering at MIT.

With his wife, Brit SM ’61, d’Arbeloff created the Fund for Excellence in MIT Education to support teaching innovations in science and engineering. The pair also supported a professorship in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering and established the d’Arbeloff Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

“All of us privileged to know Alex are deeply saddened by his loss,” said MIT President Susan Hockfield. “MIT has lost an extraordinary friend who paired his passionate devotion to the Institute with a brilliantly dispassionate, clear-eyed view of how it could grow even stronger. Through the d’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in MIT Education, among many other gifts, Alex and Brit tapped a deep vein of creativity that has transformed MIT. We will sorely miss his warmth, charm, humor and remarkable gift for framing complex problems and inspiring visionary solutions.”

D’Arbeloff was born in 1927 in Paris to parents who had fled the Russian Revolution a decade earlier, and his family led a nomadic existence during his adolescence. As the clouds of war gathered in Europe, the d’Arbeloffs moved to South America in 1936, to New York two years later and to Los Angeles the following year, before returning to New York in 1940.

After graduating from MIT with a bachelor’s in management, d’Arbeloff found that his can-do attitude didn’t always sit well with superiors. In later years he was proud to note that he was fired from three jobs during a 10-year period, and that while serving in the U.S. Army reserves, his commanding officer berated him for having “antagonized every officer” at their post.

“I didn’t feel I had,” d’Arbeloff told an interviewer in 1997, recalling the episode. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I just wanted to do more than they were willing to do.”

In 1960, d’Arbeloff co-founded Teradyne Inc. with Nick DeWolf — a former MIT classmate whom he had met when they had to line up alphabetically during an ROTC class. During his tenure as president and CEO of Teradyne, which manufactures automatic test equipment and interconnection systems for the electronics and telecommunications industries, the company’s annual sales rose from $13 million to more than $1 billion.

In 1997, he was named chairman of the MIT Corporation, having served as a member since 1989. At the time, he said he was aware of the differences between academia and the business world but preferred to focus on the common ground they shared.

“You begin, in both cases, with talented people. Then you have to develop an effective organization and instill a sense of mission. You have to strive to win. And, ultimately, you have to provide something of value to society,” he said.

“MIT is a great institution, with great impact on the nation and the world. I am truly honored to have been given this opportunity to serve as MIT’s chairman and to contribute to an institution of this level of excellence, this magnitude, and one that has such an impact on society.”

D’Arbeloff became honorary chairman of the Corporation after stepping down as chairman in 2003. As a professor of the practice, he taught at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. D’Arbeloff also served on the board of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Friends and colleagues recalled his humor, his thoughtfulness, his dedication to his family and his devotion to MIT.

President Emeritus Charles M. Vest characterized d’Arbeloff as a dynamic personality who constantly strove for improvement and who possessed “one of the most active minds” he had ever seen.

“As chairman of the MIT Corporation, Alex properly and productively challenged the ways in which academia functions. His rethinking of MIT’s budgeting processes was invaluable,” Vest said. “He radiated energy, loved to challenge ideas, and was as at home in a classroom as in his board room. He left a great legacy in Boston and MIT.”

Paul Gray, president emeritus and professor of electrical engineering and computer science, emeritus, recalled how d’Arbeloff spoke about the importance of the years that followed his graduation from MIT.

“When we first met he told me about his early post-MIT career experiences which included several tough reviews and dismissals. These led to his decision — brilliant in hindsight — to start his own company, which has been a genuine success, validating his management style,” Gray said.

D’Arbeloff was the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. He also served on the boards of several corporations and on the board of the Whitehead Institute, which he chaired from 2004 to 2006.

He is survived by his wife, Brit; daughters, Katherine and Alexandra; sons, Eric and Matthew; and six grandchildren.

Charles Yardley Chittick ’22, who was honored this past June as the oldest MIT alumnus, died on Friday, July 18. He was 107.

While a student at MIT, Chittick was elected captain of the one-mile relay track team. He graduated from MIT with an SB in engineering administration with a mechanical engineering option, a course that has since been absorbed by the MIT Sloan School of Management. He was also a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

Chittick lived most recently at a retirement community in New Hampshire, but was a regular visitor to MIT’s campus. He was commonly seen at the annual Tech Day Luncheon at Commencement, and celebrated his 86th reunion this past June.

Chittick was also an alum of Phillips Academy, where he roomed across the hall from — and feuded with — Humphrey Bogart, who was a classmate. He was Phillips Academy’s oldest living alumnus, recently celebrating his 90th reunion there this year. He was also the oldest living Beta Theta Pi member and oldest living patent lawyer.

After leaving MIT, Chittick was offered a job by Thomas Edison, but ultimately turned it down to take a job with a manufacturing company that produced golf clubs.

“I had to tell Mr. Edison ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ I went to work for a company that manufactured golf clubs. I guess I was more interested in golf than I was in a laboratory,” Chittick told the News Office in 2001.

Student groups were billed $27,000 in unexpected charges for phones and network in June, covering the fiscal year from July 2007 to June 2008. The MIT administration has agreed to cover the charges this year, but plans for who would pay similar charges next year remain uncertain.

A committee including student representatives is being formed to address this question.

Of the 38 student groups affected, most were charged several hundred dollars, though some larger ones were billed over $1,000.

The charges, posted to student groups’ accounts on June 23, were a result of changes to the billing model for phones and network that Information Services and Technology put into place in June 2007.

This fiscal year, departments were billed on a new system that bases costs on employee headcount. But late in 2007, IS&T consulted with MIT’s grants office and decided that student groups, as well as external vendors on campus, would be excluded from the new billing system, said IS&T Director of Finance Angie Milonas. At that time, no new plan for how these groups would be billed for FY2008 and future years was set.

Student groups were not informed of these changes or discussions.

In early June, IS&T, along with Dean for Student Activities Jed W. Wartman and Peter D. Cummings, director of financial planning for the Division of Student Life, decided to calculate charges based on those from FY2007. Each group was billed 10 percent more than last year to cover rising costs. The student groups were not informed of this decision either.

As reported in The Tech last April, IS&T transitioned their bills to departments from charging monthly fees for each telephone and IP address to charging a fee based on number of employees to try to simplify billing and encourage the Institute to make more effective use of telephone and networking services.

Milonas said the later decision to exclude student groups and external vendors from the new billing plan stemmed from federal restrictions on how grant money can be spent, and a requirement that the federal government not subsidize external vendors.

The Tech reported last April that student groups were likely to stop paying for phones and network as a result of the fee restructuring, but no decisions happened in the following 14-month period.

When students began to notice the June 23 charges, some complained to Wartman, who sent out an announcement to the affected groups that evening, apologizing for the lack of notice and explaining the charges.

In interviews, Wartman and Cummings both agreed that important communication with student groups over these charges had not happened.

The final decision that MIT would cover the costs and a committee would be formed to address the question of future charges came as a result of student complaints about the charges, and the lack of notice about them.

Many questions remain as to how the issue of student phone and network charges will be handled in the future:

¶ Would keeping a per IP address charge for student groups restrict them in ways that departments are not restricted?

¶ Should student groups be treated financially more like departments or external vendors?

¶ What should be the basis for the rates student groups will be charged? Should the 2006–2007 usage be used as a starting point?

¶ Would it be fair to apportion the cost over all student groups, without regard to who uses these services at all?

The yet-to-be-formed committee may address some of these questions in the future. Peter Cummings, who also supervises finances for campus dining groups seems sensitive to the issues at hand: “I’d never want student groups to feel they’re a dining vendor,” he said.

Associate Provost for Faculty Equity Barbara H. Liskov became an Institute Professor, achieving the highest faculty rank at MIT, on July 1.

With this role, she joins a group of 12 other current Institute Professors, which includes Chemical Engineering Professor Robert S. Langer ScD ’74 and only one other woman, Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems Professor Sheila E. Widnall ’60.

Liskov has built a name for herself at the Institute for her work in research, teaching, and the promotion of faculty equity over the 36 years since she became a professor here in 1972.

Liskov, head of the Programming Methodology Group in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, was involved primarily in the development of programming languages earlier in her career, but now focuses her research on distributed systems.

Colleagues and students admire Liskov for her intellect and attitude towards her work. “Barbara is very good at cutting to the heart of systems,” said Benjamin M. Vandiver ’00, one of Liskov’s recent students who graduated with a doctorate in 2008. “This allows her to understand systems quickly and also to present them succinctly.”

Vandiver noted a group meeting in which Liskov spoke in place of a student who could not attend. “Barbara stood up and gave his talk for him with basically no preparation — probably better than he would have done,” Vandiver said.

A current student of Liskov’s, David A. Schultz G, noted her meticulousness and echoed Vandiver’s appreciation of her ability to understand complex systems. Schultz recalls a time when he went in to discuss his research with Liskov and, following the meeting, she e-mailed him a set of notes of their discussion that were clearer and more thorough than his own.

Liskov and the group she leads have made significant advances in the robustness of object-oriented programming languages. Her group produced the first language to support data abstraction and, more recently, developed the first practical protocol for securely replicating data on distributed systems and a language for application development on distributed systems.

A current project on Byzantine-fault tolerant systems may help sensitive data on future computers be more resilient to malicious attacks and software errors.

One researcher in her group developed X Windows, the windowing system used on Linux and Unix operating systems.

Liskov has been recognized for her accomplishments in the field of computer science with both public and technical awards. In 2005, she was given an honorary doctorate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and in 2003 was named one of the 50 most important women in science by Discover magazine.

Discover wrote that Liskov “paved the way for writing far more complex and subtle computer programs” and called her a “key figure” in the development of software for distributed-system application development.

Liskov has witnessed women in her department and the Institute as a whole make strides during her tenure. She has created some of this change herself.

Liskov was the first woman hired as a professor of computer science and, in her time as an associate head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 2003 to 2006, she oversaw the hiring of five female faculty members.

She has continued her involvement in the promotion of women faculty at MIT as Associate Provost of Faculty Equity, a role she took on last year.

So far, she said, she has focused her efforts on making adjustments to the hiring process that could allow more women to be interviewed and considered for faculty jobs.

Wesley Harris, who shares the Associate Provost of Faculty Equity position with Liskov, called her appointment as an Institute Professor “spectacular” and described her as an “analytical, committed, and professional” colleague.

While Liskov is no longer involved in curriculum development, earlier in her career she developed and taught some of MIT’s best-known Course VI classes, including the storied 6.170 (Laboratory in Software Engineering), which was discontinued after Fall 2007, and 6.033 (Computer Systems Engineering).

Liskov spoke highly of 6.170, calling it “one of the hallmarks of MIT computer science curriculum” because of the way it “gave graduates a unique perspective on how to build software.”

She said she was “very sad” to see the class retired.

“Barbara has taught countless undergraduates and graduate students who have gone on to help lead top universities, research labs and IT companies,” Provost L. Rafael Reif said to the MIT News Office. “As a computer scientist, she has made a tremendous impact not only through her groundbreaking research, but through the legions of those she has taught along the way.”