Ahmed Al-Khabaz (born 22 April 1994), known as Hamed, is a Canadian citizen who was involved in a controversial media story in his country back in 2014. The issue was his expulsion from Dawson College for exposing a security flaw in the school's computer system. He became a technology entrepreneur after the incident.
Hamed Al-Khabaz | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ahmed Al-Khabaz April 22, 1994 |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur, Computer tech |
Early life
editAl-Khabaz was born to a Shia Muslim family who fled Iraq in the early 1990s. His father was educated as a doctor at Indiana State University, but had been imprisoned due to his religious beliefs when he came back to Iraq.[1] Al-Khabaz' interest in computers stemmed from playing games at an early age. He was thrilled about the idea of breaking stuff and making new discoveries. He hacked into computer games like the real-time strategy Warcraft game and the first-person shooter video game, Counter-Strike.
At age 16, he would code in C++ and inject dynamic-link libraries into video games, which he would release to public chat forums.[1] After high school, he applied for the computer science program at Dawson College but was not accepted.[1] He was, however, admitted to the school's social studies program and transferred to computer science later.[1]
Controversy
editWhen he was 20 years old, Al-Khabaz was expelled from Dawson College for what the school called as "unauthorized access" offense.[2] As a member of the school's software development club, he was creating a mobile application that would allow students easier access to their personal information.[3] In the course of the application development, he discovered that the college's online administration system, which uses Omnivox software, was vulnerable to hacking due to what Al-Khabaz cited as "sloppy coding".[4] The software, a system widely used by Quebec's general and vocational colleges,[5] was developed by a company called Skytech Communications.
The vulnerability exposed the personal information of over 250,000 students, including social insurance number, credit card numbers, home address, phone number, class schedule - basically all the information the college has on a student.[4][1] It was reported to the college's director of information services and technology. Al-Khabaz was initially congratulated for his work with a promise from the school that the system would be fixed.[5] When he did not hear from administrators after a few days, Al-Khabaz checked if the problem was addressed using Acunetix, which is a program used to analyze the security of web applications.[6] This was how he was accused of cyber attack for being spotted in the Skytech system without prior notification from the system administrator.[4] According to Dawson College, he was expelled for violating the school's code of professional conduct[7] on account of his repeated and unauthorized attempts to access the college information system.[8]
Hearing
editThe story attracted national attention in Canada after it was published by the National Post.[8] Al-Khabaz maintained that he did not receive a fair hearing when a panel of 15 faculty members voted in favor of expulsion, 14-1 although he was interviewed by the dean of Dawson College and his computer science program coordinator.[5] The expulsion received criticism from some quarters such as the Dawson Student Union, which later worked for Al-Khabaz' reinstatement. An online petition urging the school to revoke its decision gathered 12,000 signatures.[9] The school stood by its decision and cited how Al-Khabaz was repeatedly warned to cease and desist but failed to do so.[10]
Technology entrepreneur
editAfter he was expelled, Al-Khabaz received numerous job offers from technology and software companies.[11] These included a public offer from Edouard Taza of Skytech Communications who said that the student is “extremely bright”, promising a full scholarship to a private CEGEP and a part-time job at his company.[10] Al-Khabaz, however, opted to launch Outpost Travel, a startup that aggregated peer-to-peer travel accommodations with business partner Ovi Mija, a fellow Dawson College student.[9] His company was awarded $200,000 in venture capital, and counted Dave McClure as one of the investors.[1]
In 2016, Al-Khabaz relocated to Boulder, Colorado where he got accepted to the Travelport Labs Accelerator program.[1] Al-Khabaz has since co-founded a travel tech company named, Stay22, which is a free accommodations widget for event websites that allow users to view price-coded map of all accommodations in the area where an event is taking place.[12] Stay22 raised over $750,000 from various investors including Travelport, FounderFuel, Real Venture, and 7 Gate Venture.[13]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g Czikk, Joseph (2017-02-10). "Entrepreneurs Under 25: stay22's Hamed Al-Khabaz". Montreal in Technology. Retrieved 2019-03-11.
- ^ Matthews, Lee (2013-01-22). "Expelled Canadian student offered scholarship by software firm he exposed". Geek.com. Archived from the original on 2019-06-07. Retrieved 2019-06-06.
- ^ Shumaker, Randall; Lackey, Stephanie (2015). Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality: 7th International Conference, VAMR 2015, Held as Part of HCI International 2015, Los Angeles, CA, USA, August 2-7, 2015, Proceedings. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. p. 483. ISBN 9783319210667.
- ^ a b c Wagner, Kyle. "Kid Got Expelled from College for Reporting a Security Problem to School Officials". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2019-03-11.
- ^ a b c Gallagher, Sean (2013-01-21). "Update: Canadian student expelled for playing security "white hat"". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2019-03-11.
- ^ Kucan, Berislav (2017-07-10). "Review: Acunetix 11". Help Net Security. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
- ^ "Ahmed Al-Khabaz, Dawson Student Expelled For Hacking, Gets Job Offers (VIDEO)". HuffPost Canada. 2013-01-22. Retrieved 2019-03-20.
- ^ a b "University disciplinary rules not always fair to students: critics". canada.com. 2014-09-12. Retrieved 2019-03-11.
- ^ a b Muschi, Christinne (2013-07-17). "Montreal student expelled after finding security flaw now leading new startup Outpost Travel". Financial Post. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
- ^ a b "Ahmed Al-Khabaz receives job offers after Dawson college expulsion | National Post". nationalpost.com. 2013-01-22. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
- ^ Wyatt, Nelson (May 11, 2018). "Student expelled for hacking Quebec college system gets job offers". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2019-03-15.
- ^ "Startup Nation: Travel upstarts find their footing, fish for funding | Hotel Management". www.hotelmanagement.net. Retrieved 2019-03-15.
- ^ "Travel Tech Company Stay22 Raises $750K As Event Travel Industry Calls for Change". ReadWrite. 2018-05-09. Retrieved 2019-03-26.