my other point is that I’ve also had the experience of meeting a prospective student in an interview situation, deciding s/he is a total jackass, reporting the bad behavior—including in one case, an unpleasant comment about a specific faculty person—only to see them admitted.

In a couple of cases, I figured out after they enrolled that they really weren’t so bad. Nerves can make some people overcompensate, which comes off “arrogant asshole”. But, a few rejections from other departments and maybe a semester or two of grad school later and they’ve settled down, learned to let go of the ego trip and turned into really decent colleagues. No harm, no foul.

I need to learn to parse “dickhead”. Useful word, that.

If the admissions committee decides to start browsing various forums and blogs to look for their applicants’ “true” thoughts and desires for various programs and begins to use them in evaluating an application, then they better start warning their applicants that they are doing so.

However, if a member on the admissions committee “happens” to stumble upon this information (even though I don’t know how that would exactly be possible), of course it becomes an ethical dilemma. But ethical dilemmas in regards to “chancing” upon information are quite different from the blantantly unethcial practice of seeking out personal feelings/writings of applicants without their knowledge.

Fair enough. Up to a point.

And to a certain extent we do take into account the high pressure of a job interview in, for example, whether someone is sweating a little, stutters a bit, whatever.

The simple fact remains: it`s okay to be a dickhead, provided you don`t do it at work. Stick to this rule, and you can get a job anywhere you are qualified to work.

I’m assuming here (for the sake of argument, since this is a hypothetical scenario) that the committee people are smart enough to differentiate between “malicious things” and “blowing off steam”.

Of course the committee people could be a bunch of idiots and/or corrupt individuals, but then we have a different and much bigger problem there.

And I also agree with those who argue that making nasty comments, even untrue ones, on an anonymous web forum and being a dishonest person are two different things. Anonymous nasty comments can be blowing off steam – hell, they can even be a response to a justified grievance. Dishonesty’s a different thing, and if demonstrated is indeed a deal-breaker.

And you should also remember the proverb that eavesdroppers never hear well of themselves.

Fair enough?

No.

As just one of many possible attacks, how ‘bout DNS cache poisoning to intercept mail sent the registration address?

Among the billion or so (estimated) people on the ‘net these days, there are some really unpleasant individuals.