There are two types of people on a campus: people love the freewheeling academic environment and really get the mission, and people who would work in corporate except they aren’t competent enough.
And, I want to be clear—I’ve met a ton of the former. Really, I’m not down on universities at all. They are full of wonderful people fighting against the corporatization and just, like, trying to remain human.
But the latter would absolutely implement corporate style surveillance dystopia at the drop of a hat. Except, again, they’d do it in the dumbest way possible, so it would somehow be even slower and shittier than the bloatware you get on your corporate laptop.
worse, a bright eyed smart guy with a young family gets an offer of a lifetime to lead IT at a world-class University based on long stable performance at a low-profile place. The offers start getting exchanged, housing and schools are looked at with cautious optimism and oh, that new paycheck. But as the meetings get serious and papers get signed, there is a certain requirement.. we are upgrading our networks.. in particular the routers.. and our email system is from the stone age. "We" are looking at these certain routers, the new IT director is informed.. this deal has been in the works for a long time. You will have the first duty to implement this giant change. Yes, the routers do "deep packet" inspection but we have government contracts here, this is National Security... Some departments will complain, you will have to meet with them..
<specific names and dates excluded to protect the guilty>
And, I want to be clear—I’ve met a ton of the former. Really, I’m not down on universities at all. They are full of wonderful people fighting against the corporatization and just, like, trying to remain human.
But the latter would absolutely implement corporate style surveillance dystopia at the drop of a hat. Except, again, they’d do it in the dumbest way possible, so it would somehow be even slower and shittier than the bloatware you get on your corporate laptop.