Loren Terveen

CS department leadership at the Univ. of Minnesota just learned about the details of research conducted by its members into Linux kernel security, and the concerns of the Linux community. We have immediately suspended this research... @gregkh @johnregehr https://cse.umn.edu/cs/statement-cse-linux-kernel-research-april-21-2021 …

I appreciate that this is being taken seriously now, but did it really have to come to this? Back in November when this was first made public, AFAIK there was notification to at least the UMN IRB, as well as the editors of the journal. What broke down in the process here?

I am particularly concerned that the result of that notification appears to have been a rubber stamp "IRB-exempt" determination. I hope your review will extend to the institutional processes that led to said approval.

Although the department can make complaints about IRB decisions, they don't really have any control over it.

Fair enough, but what I mean is that this was reported to the university back in November and was the subject of extensive public discussion. Why didn't the department review this at the time? Did the complaints not reach, did people not understand what was happening?

A longish response: I think perhaps the key point here is that faculty at a university are in many ways "their own bosses". Faculty don't ask their department heads (or senior colleagues) for 'permission' to do any research...

and typically most people in any department are unaware of the details of what their colleagues are doing. In the US, the right way to vet the ethics of ones' research is through your University's IRB. Again, one's dept. head and colleagues are not involved in this process at all