Friday, March 15, 2013

Open Access - on a personal note

I have repeatedly voiced my support for open access of scientific publications in this blog and I am sure I will continue to do so.

However, there are obviously some misdirected people out there (it is hard to refrain from name calling!) that thought it is a good idea to use my university account to access our university library remotely to download large numbers of publications.

(1) I have no idea how they managed to hack into my account as I never react to any phising attempt and I am very protective of my passwords. However, I also know that nothing is really safe in the web.
(2) I don't know what the motivation for this was but it is either greed (maybe one can sell the papers somewhere else) or even worse somebody who thought this is the best way to make publications accessible to the public.

My message to this nutcase(s) somewhere in Germany (that's where the IP's point to) is to hold on for a minute and think about it. You are breaking into someone's account in order to break into a university library! Double illegal and most cowardly. If it is really about open access stop hiding and refrain from causing trouble to others.


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