MIT Prank Paper Accepted for Publication
- Apr 20, 2005 03:56 PM (AP Online)
By JUSTIN POPE AP Education Writer
BOSTON (AP) -- Three MIT graduate students set out to show what kind
of gobbledygook can pass muster at an academic conference these days,
writing a computer program that generates fake, nonsensical papers.
And sure enough, a Florida conference took the bait.
The program, developed by students Jeremy Stribling, Max Krohn and
Dan Aguayo, generated a paper with the dumbfounding title: "Rooter: A
Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and
Redundancy." Its introduction begins: "Many scholars would agree
that, had it not been for active networks, the simulation of Lamport
clocks might never have occurred."
The program works like the old "Mad Libs" books, generating sentences
taken from real papers but leaving many words blank. It fills the
blanks with random academic buzzwords common in computer science. And
it adds to the verisimilitude with meaningless charts and graphs.
Nonetheless, the students received word earlier this month that the
"Ninth World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and
Informatics," scheduled to take place in July in Orlando, Fla. had
accepted the 4-page "Rooter" paper. A second bogus submission _ "The
Influence of Probabilistic Methodologies on Networking" _ was turned
down.
The offer accepting a paper and inviting the students to present it
in person in Orlando was rescinded after word of the hoax got out,
and the students were refunded the $390 fee to attend the conference
and have the paper published in its proceedings. But they still hope
to go, using the more than $2,000 raised in contributions to their
prank, much of it from admirers who tested the program on the
students' Web site.
...
- http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=48509600
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