MIT used to feel like a nerdy public park with occasional lasers. Then two big forces made “open by default” collide with reality: (1) high-profile security/legal fallout (Swartz-era) and (2) public health + operational lockdown (COVID). After that, the baseline posture shifted from “walk in and wander” to “come, but through the front door with a name tag.”Here’s what changed and why:1) Swartz didn’t “cause MIT to hate outsiders,” but it did harden the perimeterThe Swartz/JSTOR case was a giant flashing sign saying:“Our networks and buildings are tempting targets, and ambiguity about access becomes a liability.”Even if most restrictions weren’t directly “because Aaron,” the episode pushed a risk recalculation:clearer boundaries around network access (who can plug in where, how guest Wi-Fi is segmented, logging, etc.)tighter norms around after-hours building accessless tolerance for “informal access pathways” (the classic: follow someone through a door and pretend you belong)Universities are very good at learning exactly the wrong lesson from painful incidents: they can’t fix the world, so they fix the door locks.