President's niece suspect in Yale Web site hackings

Four of the 18 suspect log-ins to a secure Web site at Yale University from Princeton University computers were not made by school officials but by Princeton students and an applicant to both Ivy League colleges, Princeton has determined.\nThe 14 other entries into the site -- set up by Yale to inform undergraduate applicants if they had been accepted -- came from Princeton's admissions office and involved eight students who applied to both schools.\nSeven of the eight have enrolled at Princeton, Helaine S. Klasky, a Yale spokeswoman, said yesterday.\n"That could be happenstance, or it could suggest that Princeton used (information from the Yale site) to recruit more aggressively," said Robert Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, which monitors school admission policies. "We may never know."\nNeither Klasky nor Marilyn Marks, a Princeton spokeswoman, would comment on reports that one of the eight was Lauren Bush, the fashion-model granddaughter and niece of two Yale graduates who became presidents.\nThe daughter of President Bush's brother Neil, Lauren Bush is listed as a member of Princeton's incoming freshman class.\nStephen LeMenager, the number two admissions officer at Princeton, has been placed on paid leave while a former federal prosecutor hired by the University investigates the cyber-snooping.\nIn an e-mail Monday to Princeton students, faculty and staff, university president Shirley Tilghman apologized for the breach and condemned it.\n"Basic ethical principles of privacy and confidentiality are at stake here," she said. "We teach these principles, and we hold our students, faculty and staff to them. Violations of these principles, therefore, must not, and will not, be tolerated."\n"Students who apply to Princeton, or any other university, have every right to expect that information they provide in good faith will be used only for the purposes for which they provided it, and that their privacy and confidentiality will be respected."\nPrinceton said one of the entries to the Yale site through a computer outside its admissions office involved a student who had applied to both schools and checked his status at Yale while visiting Princeton with his family.\nIn the other three cases, two Princeton students were checking whether siblings had been accepted at Yale. One student logged in twice, although Yale had made it clear that the site was for applicants only and not to be accessed by friends or family.\nKlasky said Yale was happy with the way Tilghman was addressing the situation.\n"We think she's handling it just perfectly, and we're very pleased Princeton is taking this so seriously," she said.\nYale has said it will improve security for the site, which required only a student's name, birth date, and Social Security number to gain access. Similar sites issue or require secret passwords.