scripts.mit.edu

Does scripts.mit.edu publish information about who runs which websites?

We don’t go out of our way to make this information available, nor to
protect it.

There is no listing of websites hosted on scripts.mit.edu or their
maintainers. If we’re asked to by IS&T staff (e.g., IT Security or User
Accounts) or law enforcement, we will identify the maintainer of a single
website. We may also do so if needed in the process of answering a
good-faith support ticket about the maintenance of that website.
Otherwise, we avoid giving this information out to the public for the
asking.

That said, for multiple technical reasons ranging from the configuration
of our servers to the properties of various parts of Athena infrastructure
we build upon, it’s generally possible to determine the ownership of a
website with some concerted effort, including which users or groups have
the ability to publish the site and who was the original creator of a file
in a locker. Most of this is due to the Athena locker model itself, and
applies equally to sites hosted on other services such as web.mit.edu.

Most other MIT hosting options will also reveal the owner’s identity
publicly through Moira’s hostname registry. If you wish to have a truly
anonymous website, you’ll need to get hosting independent of the MIT
infrastructure.