Dana Tom
Executive Editor
On Monday, a group of hackers leaked 1,764 data entries from Penn. The information included names, PennCard ID numbers, phone numbers and email addresses of students, administrators and alumni.
In an email to all undergraduate students, the University urged us to take comfort in the fact that “no sensitive information that could result in identity theft” was leaked. The successful hack, nonetheless, created an atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust on campus.
While The Daily Pennsylvanian condemns the hacking, we aim to arm our community with knowledge of the data leak and hold those involved accountable for it. As such, we published an initial article about this incident on Tuesday night and are continuing to investigate.
Our articles do not link to the database tables or to the search engine built by College and Wharton junior Matt Parmett. This decision reflects our commitment to avoid propagating sensitive information that was obtained without consent. While our reporting may have prompted some to seek out the leak, we’ve left this decision to our individual readers.
Although our article did not include a link to the leak, we realize that some commenters have pasted it in their posts. We’ve left these comments intact on our website because we believe our commenting section serves a separate purpose from our editorial content.
As the independent student publication of this university, we have a dual purpose. We aim to inform the community through our editorial content. Our commenting section and sections of our opinion page, however, provide an open forum that is designed to encourage community members to engage in campus-wide discussion.
While we reserve the right to moderate comments on a case-by-case basis, we’re committed to facilitating uncensored discussions on this campus.
This speaks to our long-standing philosophy to inform our readers and to provide an open forum for our community.
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