Ahmed Al-Khabaz, a 20-year old computer science student from Montreal’s Dawson College was expelled after he found and reported a flaw in the computer system used by most Quebec CEGEPs. Ahmed was working on a mobile app to allow students to access their college account. He found sloppy coding in Omnivox software that would allow anyone with basic knowledge of computers to access the personal information of any student in the system, Social insurance number, home address, and phone number included. He brought his findings to the attention of the Director of Information Services and Technology Francois Paradis. Paradis promised that he a Skytech would fix the problem immediately. Two days later Ahmed decided to run a software program called Acunetix to test if the problem had been fixed. A few minutes later his phone rang and it was Edouard Taza, the president of Skytech. He said that they saw Ahmed in their logs and that what he was doing was a cyber attack. Ahmed apologized repeatedly and explained that he was one of the people that had found the problem. Taza said that if Ahmed did not meet with him and sign a non-disclosure agreement that he was going to call the RCMP and have Ahmed arrested. Ahmed signed the agreement. The administration of Dawson College proceeded to expel Ahmed for a “serious professional conduct issue.”
