Name: Jakub Jan Janecka
Age: 33
Email: jjj3@cornell.edu
Hometown: The Hideout, Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania

Appendix

Here are all the relevant resources I could find about this story:

• Body of Cornell Alum Recovered From Collegetown Gorge
• Jakub J. Janecka’s Obituary
• No signs of foul play in gorge death
• The Strange Case of Jakub Jan Janecka

“…it’s impossible to ignore the nasty, ignorant, and bitter members of the minority community who constantly whine about the brutal oppression they suffer at the hands of whitey. Apparently, part of this oppression involves their admittance to an Ivy League institution, likely as a recipient of affirmative action and scholarships.”

Sample 1 of racist speech

“These reapers of racial rage seclude themselves inside their ethnic ghettos (be it [program houses] Ujamaa, Latino Living Center, or Akwe;kon.”

Sample 2 of racist speech

This would be just another matter of one group of students annoyed with another group of student if not for statements from the Cornell University administration, such as this juicy one from Dean of Students Kent Hubble:

“The Review’s journalism, if one dignifies it with that term, creates a climate of intimidation and alienation among the groups that it targets. Must we tolerate this behavior in order to uphold our commitment to free speech and freedom of expression? I would hope not.”

Don’t think that Cornell won’t ask them to change their name–after all, this blog received a cease and desist for including Cornell in its name after publishing unpopular, but well-reasoned (I’d like to think) articles. Unfortunately, whether you agree with it or not, the article in the Cornell Review is protected free speech. And, its use of the Cornell name is clearly within fair-use.

In Arista v. Does 1-17, a new ex parte case to get discovery from the University of Oregon about the identities of its students, the Oregon Department of Justice has made a motion, on behalf of the University of Oregon, to quash the subpoena obtained by the RIAA. This is the first such motion of which we are aware that has been made by the university itself, rather than by the students. It is also the first instance of which we are aware of a State Attorney General bringing a motion to quash an RIAA subpoena.

The University is represented by the Oregon Attorney General who argues lucidly that the RIAA doesn’t have sufficient evidence to be throwing subpoenas around:

Plaintiffs’ subpoena is unduly burdensome and overbroad. It seeks information that the University does not readily possess. In order to attempt to comply with the subpoena, the University would be forced to undertake an investigation to create discovery for Plaintiffs — an obligation not imposed by Rule 45. As the University is unable to identify the alleged infringers with any accuracy, it cannot comply with its federal obligation to notify students potentially affected by the subpoena. Plaintiffs’ subpoena is additionally invalid because Congress intended Plaintiffs to use the DMCA subpoena process to obtain the information they seek, not Rule 45. Lastly, the University should be allowed access to Plaintiffs through interrogatories and depositions to determine whether Plaintiffs have additional information with which to identify
Defendants. For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs’ subpoena should be quashed.

Here’s a link to MOTION TO QUASH SUBPOENA PURSUANT TO FRCP 45 B(3)(A) BY THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON and MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO QUASH SUBPOENA PURSUANT TO FRCP 45B(3)(A) BY THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON. Note that this is the course of action I advised Cornell to follow in my last RIAA post

Elliott Bäck, a Cornell alumnus whose once-controversial campus blog I previously profiled in this magazine, collected data on the hub before graduating and last September posted to his blog an analysis. Bäck found over 19 terabytes comprising about 2.5 million different files shared between more than a thousand users at any given moment. (Apple’s popular—and legal—iTunes store currently has more than 6 million songs, but not even close to the over 200 thousand video files on DC++ at any one time.)

Unfortunately, the article is also heavily pro-administration and pro-RIAA, with a few ridiculous statements like:

• “When presented with a court-ordered subpoena, Cornell has little choice but to hand over this information.”
• “[A]ll Cornell can do is step back and stay as uninvolved as possible in the conflict between the entertainment industry and students.”
• “Mitrano says she has processed over 1,000 takedown notices.”

Nowhere in this article do they suggest that these things are in fact bad. For example, Cornell is able to block copyright holders from identifying alleged music pirates by filing a motion to block or quash the subpoena. Cornell also could, like Professor Charles Nesson at Harvard, actively refuse to help the RIAA’s police mission. As he points out, the purpose of a University is to teach, not enforce an archaic notion of copyright.

I’m disappointed that Rob didn’t quote my response to one of questions:

(4) As you acknowledged in your coverage, the RIAA has not sued a Harvard student yet. Is there anything Cornell can do to protect its students?

Fire Tracy Mitrano. Instead of writing memos like www.cit.cornell.edu/policy/memos/dcplus.html when she receives a request to police the Cornell LAN, she could write a letter categorically refusing to do so, as is the University’s right under the safe-harbour provisions of the DMCA.

It was designed to spark a little outrage and to highlight the fact that she’s not doing her job, unless her salary is coming from the RIAA and MPAA. Note that I am not a lawyer, and in no way this post should constitute any sort of legal advice.

Update: Hurray, I’ve been misquoted by Tracy Mitrano who writes in today’s Sun that “a DC++ posting”–hey we call that a blog entry–concludes with the statement “Fire Mitrano”–which as you can see it does not. It actually concluded with “Fire Tracy Mitrano,” an error so severe given the ready access to the source material above, that I’m not surprised the article offers no insight into what happens when Cornell actually receives a subpoena, or what Cornell is doing to protect its students from predatory lawsuits.

I took a look at The College Freeway and I’m not impressed. I hate to be so negative, but it seems like a less-useful Scribd ripoff designed expressly to either (a) help college students cheat on work or (b) violate the copyrights of people running the course. Scribd, like Google docs, is a generic document sharing and collaboration site, whereas TCF seems to encourage abuse.

Since there are already a few thousand documents, I can’t give numbers, but stuff in CS100 is ripped off of Charles F. Van Loan’s textbook, and the CS211 resource is stolen from a TA’s online course notes. Neither of these is public domain, or under a copyleft license.

You should take a look at TheCollegeFreeway yourself, and see if my assessment of the site is correct. To Christian’s credit, the site is nicely designed, but personally I wouldn’t want to work on a project I knew to built on a business model of theft:

To give you some examples of material that shouldn’t be copied:

• 9 chapters of Charles Van Loan’s Introduction to Computational Science and Mathematics
• 31 course problem sets and prelims for COMS381
• More prelims and problem sets from AEM 221
• The entire course materials for BIOG 110
• Lots of the professor’s ECE 303 hw solutions, which are handwritten.

On the other hand, there is some useful material there, like these class notes for ORIE 568, which falls on the legal side of the line. I usually side with pirates when it comes to electronic copying, but pirates are people stealing from the big bad record companies, who are also basically evil. The two morally negate each other. However, non profit educational organizations are not evil; their copyright materials are what they use to educate you. So, I get more irritated when they’re ripped off.

Media Defender recruited heavily at Harvey Mudd, and also tapped university pools for interns. The best way to fight a young generation of file-hungry students is clearly by hiring some of them to turn against their peers and protect big-media. Their concern with educational institutions seems limited at best. On April 12th, Media Defender president Randy Saaf asked:

Universal is curiouse if we have any historical data over the last 3 months that show whether .edu IP addresses on p2p have gone down. They want to see if their lawsuits are getting students to stop using p2p (take a moment to laugh to yourself). Let me know if anyone has any ideas.

So, Media Defender understands that it can’t win against University students well supplied with bandwidth and torrenting knowledge, and it doesn’t seem to care. Other emails suggest that .edu ip addresses comprised 2.5% of their Gnutella network monitoring in April, but only .65% in July. Either way, .edu is a small fish in Media Defender’s pond.

Does this mean you should relax? No. Media Defender is still out there poisoning a shared resource, wasting bandwidth, and trying to bait Americans into downloading “fake” files. Even if they don’t care about you as a University student, and aren’t trying to sue you (see RIAA and MPAA for that), they’re still just making filesharing a less efficient environment. Blocking their ips is a good way to start; reading more about the leaked email is another trail to follow.

Violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is against the law. If you are caught downloading copyrighted material, you will lose your ResNet privileges forever. No second notices, no excuses, no refunds. One violation and your ResNet internet access is gone for as long as you reside on campus.

Ars Technica, as usual, is quick to point out that “there is plenty of copyrighted material that can be downloaded legally.” They also note that with regular file sharing on the rise, college students are moving to on-campus darknets run with programs like DC++ to share their materials. While I attended Cornell, the on campus DC++ hub had over 19 TB of shared files.

Why the sudden action? The RIAA is playing hardball, filing twice as many takedown complaints in 2005 as 2004, and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) of the House Judiciary Committee appears to have taken up the position as well, saying that “Universities have a moral and legal obligation to ensure students do not use campus computers for illegal downloading.”

It’s a new world we have, where information can be exchanged regardless of borders, copyright, or protection. For media companies to continue to make money, they need to find way to embrace open sharing, rather than trying to litigate it to death. When it’s our generation that controls the country, obviously the viewpoint on file sharing will change, and I believe the media conglomerates won’t be ready.

* North Carolina State University (43)
* University of California – Davis (34)
* University of Nebraska – Lincoln (33)
* University of California – Los Angeles (37
* Drexel University (26)
* University of California – Irvine (23)
* Wichita State University (22)
* Stanford University (19)
* DePaul University (19)
* Rochester Institute of Technology (19)
* University of Chicago (18)
* University of Oregon (17)
* Northwestern University (16)
* Western Washington University (15)
* University of California – Santa Cruz (15)
* Dartmouth College (13)
* University of California – San Diego (9)
* Texas Christian University (7)

Most of the schools appear to be state school, with the humorous exception of Texas Christian. I am not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice, but I sincerely hope that some of these students ignore their letters and fight the RIAA.

The officer found the apartment and kennel area in disarray, with dog food, bleach and detergent spilled. The dog had a laceration 1 inch by 2 inches wide, and some of its skull was showing through, according to the officer’s report.It would likely have diminished eyesight the rest of its life, and it had blood in its stool, probably from ingesting some bleach by licking itself.

The crime, “overdriving, torturing and injuring animals” is a misdemeanor. The officer noted that Atkind acted:

“cocky and arrogant” and “made numerous comments that this incident meant nothing to him, that he would do it again, and that he knows how the criminal justice system works, and guaranteed me the prosecution of this case would result in an ACD in City Court.”

In trying to figure out what kind of guy would do this I pulled up his Facebook profile, which entirely boring:

This is his old profile pic. What on earth is it?

The directory entry for Atkind notes a variety of phone numbers:

NETID: aha23
EMAIL: aha23@cornell.edu
CAMPUS: (607)257-0729 and (617)538-1265
LOCAL: (607)257-0729
MOBILE: (617)538-1265
CAMPUS: 343B Mews Hall
LOCAL: 111 VALENTINE PL., ITHACA, NY, 14850

As an aside, it’s interesting that this Alex Atkind is supposed to be class of 2006, like me, but is apparently a year younger (1983 he was born) and still at Cornell another year later. I wonder what happened to “delay” his graduation. If anyone knows him, or can explain this brutal behavior leave a comment. I’m not impressed with this character.

Update:

Some interesting forum posts over at the Ithaca Journal and Star Gazette:

• As a former dorm-neighbor of Mr. Atkind, this isn’t surprising at all. His nature is completely frightening, and his past behavior mirrors his current situation. He’s never shown any remorse when damaging personal property of others or being downright cruel. Furthermore, he has a SERIOUS anger problem, which rears its head often. When I read that the officer noted him as arrogant, I knew exactly what was going on. Alex thinks himself to be above everyone else, and that he can manipulate the system and other people to achieve his means. I hope he gets the maximum possible punishment for this awful, awful crime.
• is that guy the son of Robert & Nancy Atkind 5 Dover lane Lexington Mass. 02421 with a phone number of 781-863-8008? gee i thought so. i bet he is no longer at 710 Stewart ave.
• Wonder if this is the same Atkind who is a Clinical Instructor at Harvard Medical School and has a private practice in Addiction Medicine? Could this young welp be his son?
• I am sickened that an innocent, good-hearted animal was tortured by a human. I hope to God this horrible person gets jail time. Poor Princess. What a horrible thing to loose part of your sight and have such a trauma. We should all write Cornell’s President and call for the expulsion of this jerk.

Update #3:

It gets better. Our favorite alleged Cornell torturer has been arrested for possessing “magic mushrooms”. Not the Chronic, not E, not some fancy designer drug his Dr. parents could have written him, but shrooms. SHROOMS. I didn’t know people still took them; didn’t that die out in the 70s?

Update #4:

Thanks to our reader, here is his mugshot. No one looks pretty for a mugshot:

Update #5:

The President of the Cornell Alumni Chapter of Pi Kappa Phi writes in to let us know that Alex Atkind, although associated with the Fraternity, was never a brother. This is a distinction which seems a bit like splitting hairs. He writes:

You list the telephone numbers associated with Alex’s Cornell directory and state “one of those phone numbers is also the listed number for the Cornell Pi Kappa Phi Chapter.” You draw enormous and factually incorrect implications from that. Readers of your entry automatically assume that because he had the number listed, Alex has an active tie to Pi Kappa Phi and is associated with the fraternity. Neither could be more wrong. Phone numbers on the Cornell directory are not vetted for accuracy. Furthermore, entries are not updated continuously and therefore, information remains on the directory that is not necessarily accurate. While it is technically true that Alex did have that number listed, he has not had any formal association with Pi Kappa Phi since the Spring of 2004.

Maybe it wasn’t clear, but my intention was to indicate that Alex considered himself a member or associate of the Pi Kappa Phi. Obviously his home number is not the frat number since according to directory information he lives either in Mews or C-Town. Whether he actually is a member of any fraternity is immaterial, since he clearly wants to be part of what he considers Greek life. The President goes on to list a few facts:

1.) Alex did rush Pi Kappa Phi and received a bid in the Spring of 2003.
2.) While Alex lived in our residence as an associate member for one semester, he disassociated in Spring 2004 and all ties were severed but between him, the house, chapter, and national organization
3.) Alex was never initiated into the brotherhood, and was never a brother of Pi Kappa Phi.
4.) Pi Kappa Phi has not had any formal ties or communication with Alex since he deactivated in the Spring of 2004.

So, instead of “Atkind is associated with PKP” we are now informed that “Atkind was a member of PKP for the year 2003-2004 but left.” I’m not sure this offers significantly more clarity, but it’s nice to lay out facts rather than guesswork or inference. As “people have been calling the number that Alex had in the directory leaving harassing messages,” I strongly advise you, whomever you might be to discontinue. Harassing a fraternity, his teachers, classmates, friends, parents, relatives, lawyer, or employer is morally ambiguous and probably illegal. The lady Justice will decide what punishment awaits him.

Update #6:

Alex Atkind and I have agreed to strike an earlier speculative update from this record, in exchange for a legal cease-fire. This agrees with me, since the information could not be verified, and if it could would likely not provide interesting basis.

Update #7:

Interestingly, Alex has pled guilty to a class E felony charge, and will be spending additional time in Jail on top of the time he got for his hallucinogenic mushrooms. When he called me (see Update 6) and asked me to remove a section associating him with several sketchy website profiles, he assured me that the whole truth wasn’t out there. I was skeptical, and now it seems I was right.