BADR BIN SAUD Okaz newspaper DAWSON College in Canada has expelled a 20-year-old Saudi student Ahmed Al-Khabbaz because he discovered some loopholes in the college's website. The decision to dismiss the student was not made haphazardly but came after the college's senate voted on it. Fourteen out of the 15-man senate voted in favor of the decision. Khabbaz, who is studying computer science, told the college that the data on 250 students, including himself, could easily be accessed and exploited. The college's student union sympathized with him; a page on Facebook was created in his support and there were calls to readmit him to the college. Six Canadian companies offered to employ Khabbaz and to allow him to complete his studies at their expense, but Dawson College made him sign a pledge that condemned him and placed him on a blacklist. Therefore finding work in Canada or Canadian universities to study in is not only difficult but completely impossible. The college justified its action by saying that this was not the first time Khabbaz had hacked the institution's website, which indicated that he did not respect academic rules and regulations. The Saudi Cultural Attache in Canada has not commented on the case. What Khabbaz has done has been done before by many others. Their electronic penetrations, known as "hacking", are considered crimes that should be punished. However, what has been written in local newspapers in support of this student is not to be believed. He deliberately broke into his college's website to gain access to information which he was not authorized to have and he used illegal means to do so. The silence of the Saudi Cultural Attache in Canada might be unspoken agreement that what the Saudi student has done is illegal, and maybe the Attache is currently making efforts to quietly resolve the case. Although some aspects of the case are still unclear, it is known that Khabbaz entered the college's website by using some applications in his personal mobile phone. He clearly gained access to some personal and private data about students at the college which he had no right to have. He also had signed commitments that he did not honor. The media published details of the case and gave the number of the students whose records were broken into. In principle and without any passion, I find that the method adopted by the college in dealing with the case was fair and unbiased. The manner in which our local papers have dealt with the case contains a clear defamation of the college. This support of Khabbaz and making excuses for his illegal actions is a clear manifestation that some of our local newspapers are operating without a moral compass. They are clearly looking for suspense just for the sake of it and at the expense of journalistic integrity and objectivity. Our newspapers are being selective about what to publish and what not to publish. This sometimes serves a narrow interest over a larger one. The dangerous thing is that a blatant crime is considered to be a creative and innovative adventure. Such attitudes will give wrong practices an honorable look which they do not actually deserve. I seriously doubt that our local press would support Khabbaz if he had hacked the website of a Saudi university.
