Students see a useful tool, administrators see a potential problem, and some entrepreneurs think they've found a very profitable idea.
Class Buster, a student-created program that can help students slip into booked classes, has been greeted by alarm as well as excitement since its release a week ago. University officials are saying its bad aspects outweigh the good, but an underground group of Class Buster supporters - and potential investors - is quietly surfacing, and they want a piece of the pie.
Class Buster users receive text message alerts the second a space in a desired class opens up on Penn InTouch.
But there's a reason support has been quiet.
The University Registrar's Office sent out a mass e-mail last night to all undergraduate students warning them of the risks it sees in using Class Buster.
"We have serious concerns about [the program's] consequences," the e-mail said. The University registrar wrote that the program may not be reliable, could compromise the security of students who enter their PennKey and password to use it and might interfere with Penn InTouch.
While users can opt not to enter their PennKey and password, entering the information allows users to stay logged in to Penn InTouch - which Class Buster relies on - for more than one hour, meaning that they can receive the text messages for as long as they like. Without entering that information, users are automatically logged out after one hour.
Administrators said they may attempt to block the program if it becomes a problem.
University information security officer David Millar added that he does not want Class Buster to interfere with what's left of this semester's add/drop period.
Both the Office of Student Conduct and the Office of the University Registrar have acknowledged the need for a program like Class Buster, but both condemn it for giving students who can afford it an unfair advantage. Though the site is now free, the Wharton and Engineering student who created it plans to start charging between $15 and $25 for different versions of the program once the next add/drop registration period begins in October.
But the ethics and security concerns presented in the e-mail have not stopped a wide range of Penn students from contacting Class Buster's creator - who has requested anonymity, saying that he fears disciplinary action - or from proposing different ways to milk Class Buster for all it's worth.
"Penn students have proposed some really devious ideas of maximizing Class Buster's profit," said the program's inventor.
He received an e-mail from third-year Law student Anthony Ciolli, who suggested that the two of them "discuss some alternate ways" for making money off of Class Buster.
Ciolli later called Class Buster "one of the worst things [he's] ever seen" when his suggestion was rejected.
"I'm not looking for groupies, but I'll be insulted if there's no Facebook group after the site," added the creator.
Other students have suggested that the program auction off open seats as they become available, the program's inventor said.
Class Buster is even turning heads among Penn's top administrators.
Logged onto a Macintosh computer, Director of Academic Affairs Kent Peterman e-mailed Class Buster's support system when he was unable to access the site to see whether it worked. Class Buster only works through Internet Explorer on personal computers.
