November 2, 2017 by The Daily Pennsylvanian

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2017 VOL. CXXXIII NO. 83

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International students expand resources

The Assembly of International Students is working to address visa concerns ESHA INDANI Senior Reporter

Despite seeing a 10 percent increase in international student applications for the 2017-2018 academic year, some international students at Penn are growing increasingly concerned about their safety. While the United States is still a major destination for universities for international students, there has also been a greater increase in interest for universities in other countries, said Arun Ponnusamy, chief academic officer at Collegewise, a private college counseling firm for international students. “What does appear to have changed is the margin by which [the United States] is the prime destination. Interest in UK, Canadian and Australian schools has exploded,” Ponnusamy said in an email. He added that some of this is likely the result of “bad news surrounding America.” President Donald Trump’s administration has enforced multiple travel bans since the beginning of the year that have impacted students from various countries, most recently those from Chad, Iran, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. Ponnusamy added that increased interest in other colleges is also a side effect of concerns over free speech and job opportunities post-graduation. “There’s less conversation surrounding transformative experiences and more surrounding, “Will I get a job after I graduate?” Ponnusamy said. “So if American universities become less of a guarantee in that way — especially as H1-B visas and OPT options dry up — the significantly cheaper costs of UK, Canadian and Australian educations becomes very appealing.” President of the Assembly of International Students and Engineering senior Dhruv Agarwal said that at Penn, AIS has been working with both International Student and Scholar Services and the administration to address concerns of prospective, incoming and current international students. Before admission decisions come out every March, AIS holds a training session to teach current Penn international students how to mentor incoming students from abroad. This includes guiding them on how to address their concerns about the current political climate. "[Student mentors] were also told to redirect any question to the right person in ISSS if they did get things about is my visa going to be revoked,” Agarwal said. “I don’t want a mentor answering that question because their answer may not be correct because of the policies changing so quickly.” AIS sends current members to their respective high

Fossil Free Penn refocuses on education by working within University guidelines MICHEL LIU Staff Reporter

After various failed attempts to get Penn to divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies, Fossil Free Penn is changing its protest tactics to adhere to University regulations. Starting Oct. 30, FFP has been collaborating with other student

groups to host a week-long Divestfest on College Green that aims to promote student involvement and environmental awareness. On Oct. 30 and 31, the groups organized events throughout the day on College Green to garner student attention, and on Nov. 2, a panel discussion on divestment and climate change was held in Huntsman Hall. The Divestfest will culminate in a silent protest at a University Board of Trustees meeting this Friday. Earlier this semester, the group held a similar protest at a TrustSEE FOSSIL FREE PAGE 3 JULIO SOSA | SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER GEORGIA RAY, MIRIAM MINSK & ANNA LISA LOWENSTEIN | DESIGN ASSOCIATES

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International Affairs Association website hacked by Turkish group The IAA recently blogged about the Turkish president RAHUL CHOPRA Staff Reporter

A Penn student group says an international cyber organization hacked their website last month, replacing their homepage with a Turkish nationalist image. The International Affairs Association runs a blog called The Consul, which they said was recently hacked by a Turkish hacking group called Türk Hack Team. The website’s homepage was changed to a Turkish nationalist image with the quote “Attack Team, 29th October Operation” written in Turkish. “The 29th of October is called republic day in Turkey,” explained Ethan Woolley, a College sophomore and the Consul’s Chief of Staff. Türk Hack Team is a Turkish nationalist hacking organization

that has a reputation for reacting against perceived slights to Turkey. The group, which claims to have recently hacked a string of universities across the globe, rose to prominence in 2015 when it shut down the Vatican’s website in response to Pope Francis’ comments describing Turkish killings of Armenians in World War I as genocide. Woolley said Türk Hack Team may have targeted the Consul’s website because of an article that he wrote about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The article, titled “Washington, It’s Time to Start Worrying About Turkey,” critiques Erdoğan’s crackdown on political opponents and encourages the U.S. against leaving his authoritarianism “unchecked.” Domestic protests against Erdoğan have peaked in recent months as the president continues to intimidate his political opponents and crackdown on the free press. In the United States, Presi-

dent Donald Trump has been criticized for his warm relations with the Turkish strongman. The Consul’s chief of layout and College senior Ilana Wurman discovered the hack two weeks ago. Wurman, a former Daily Pennsylvanian design editor, said The Consul’s lack of cyber security may have enabled the breach. “Were not entirely sure what happened, but we didn’t have a super secure login,” she said. While concerning, Wurman said the hack didn’t appear to have caused any major damage to the site. “It seemed to be more to cause trouble than do anything substantial. It’s still a little unclear if they targeted us specifically because of the content or just because the site was easy to get into,” she said. Woolley agreed, adding that the hack was ultimately more perplexing than it was harmful. “In a weird way it was flattering, that they would go to the

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SCREENSHOTS FROM THE CONSUL

Türk Hack Team, the group behind the IAA website hack, is a Turkish nationalist hacking organization that rose to prominence in 2015 and is known to react against perceived slights to Turkey.

trouble to hack a student website at Penn,” he said. IAA President and Wharton and Engineering senior Santosh Vallabhaneni said cyber security

was never discussed prior to the hack, but now the group is bolstering the website’s cyber security protections. “We’ve beefed up security on

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our website. We added another layer of encryption to make it harder for people to hack in,” ValSEE IAA HACK PAGE 3