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A PhD student who shot and killed a professor before killing himself claimed that the professor had stolen his code:
The student who shot and killed his engineering professor and then himself at a Los Angeles university had accused the professor of stealing his code.
In a blog post on March 10, Mainak Sarkar, 38, said Professor William Klug, 39, "is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy." He continued: "I was this guy's PhD student. We had personal differences. He cleverly stole all my code and gave it another student. He made me really sick. Your enemy is your enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust. Stay away from this sick guy." The post has since been taken down.
On Wednesday, nearly three months after posting it, and seemingly upset at poor grades, Sarkar drove from his home in Minnesota to Los Angeles where he confronted and gunned down Professor Klug at the university's engineering complex. Sarkar then turned the gun on himself and killed himself. The Los Angeles Times quoted an unnamed UCLA source as saying the allegation that Klug stole his student's code was "absolutely untrue."
The professor's name was found on a "kill list" written by Sarkar, along with another professor who wasn't on campus at the time of the shooting and has been confirmed to be safe. Sarkar reportedly killed his estranged wife in Minnesota before traveling to UCLA. Also at Los Angeles Times , The New York Times , CNN.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday June 03 2016, @08:41PM
Seems to be a consensus that the aggrieved party was full of it and didn't have any legit complaint. I wouldn't be so sure. I've heard of professors taking credit for grad students' work all the time. There's a Jack Chalker series, Changewinds, with that grievance as central to the motive driving the "bad" wizard to make war, to get back at the "good" wizard who stole his work.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Friday June 03 2016, @08:47PM
Wait, did you just say this happens all the time and then reference a science fiction work as an example?
Much like the shooter, you seem to have a problem determining actual events from stories you've read.
You don't by chance have any weapons do you?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2016, @03:43AM
yes, i do, its my god given right, thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2016, @08:50PM
Of X university degree graduation tales I heard about, X/3 had wrongfully credited work appropriated by someone up the ladder.
Of X music works I have been involved with, X*2/3 had appropriated credits and I think not even one of them was 100% accurate in credits.
Thankfully I am in a barely first world country (ITALY), so your stats may be better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2016, @01:08AM
Italy is a special place where people in nice academic jobs get there not by competence but by connections. Once in place, they need students to do their work for them. Half the professors are utterly worthless. The ones with brains emigrate, because they'll never get anywhere in life otherwise. It's not so much a brain-drain as an almost willing brain-expulsion.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Friday June 03 2016, @08:54PM
Perhaps, but there's all sorts of reasonable ways it might have gone down, too. For example, the student could have written code in the same spirit as the teacher -- what students typically do, after all -- and then saw the teacher later writing code the same way the teacher always had as "evidence" that the teacher was now copying the student. Or the teacher could have drawn inspiration from the student and adapted one of the student's innovations the same way we all adapt each others's innovations. The student could even have written a library explicitly intended from the start to be shared by the department and gotten upset when people later did exactly that.
And, of course, the teacher could have plagiarized the student or the student could have been completely off his rocker.
Lacking specifics, I wouldn't get too hung up on the copying question since, regardless...
MURDER IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE ANSWER TO PLAGIARISM!
If the student's claims actually had merit, he could have ended his teacher's career. Academic dishonesty is even less tolerated when faculty do it than when students do it. All he had to do was prove his case, even just in the court of public opinion, and the teacher's career would have been over.
But killing the guy?
Seriously. WTF!?
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2016, @05:21AM
A PhD student cannot claim "intellectual property" on code developed for the project. Unless it's code that's obviously not related to his project and field, it belongs to the department anyway, because it's written in the interest of the PhD project.
I assume in very specific circumstances, e.g. the student not being paid, they could claim copyright, but even in that case if the code came about after discussions with the teacher it's shared work...
As far as plagiarism is concerned, that's harder to assess, although in 2016 there should already be some checking mechanisms in place at universities.
In any case, I fully agree that killing the offender is not a solution for plagiarism/copyright infrigement. My personal opinion is that the concept of copyright is flawed in any case, but that's another discussion.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2016, @08:56PM
> Seems to be a consensus that the aggrieved party was full of it and didn't have any legit complaint. I wouldn't be so sure.
The dude killed his wife too for some unspecified wrong she did him.
When everybody else is the problem, it usually means you are the problem.