New developments

19.07.2013
Andreas Wenger again in the news

07.07.2011
Alex Reichmuth from Weltwoche obtained internal emails that show that Andreas Wenger tried to cover up the scandal with Victor Mauer's doctor title.

01.07.2011
New scandal at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) headed by Andreas Wenger.

13.02.2011
SonntagsZeitung published the article "Fälschungsskandal war kein Hindernis"

03.02.2011
Weltwoche published the article "Schwaches Zeugnis für den ETH-Rat"

Miserables Arbeitsklima, demotivierte Mitarbeiter, viele Abgänge. Die Geschäftsprüfungskommission bestätigt die grossen Probleme im ETH-Rat. Sie kritisiert insbesondere die Führung von Ratspräsident Fritz Schiesser. Von Alex Reichmuth

30.01.2011
SonntagsZeitung published the article "Parlament kritisiert ETH-Rat"

Neue Untersuchung gegen Fritz Schiesser

20.01.2011
Weltwoche published the article "Wenn Professoren herrschen"

Many different ETH employees complain about the same thing - ETH Professors are treated as feudal lords, no complaints from lower people are accepted by the upper management. The management of ETHZ and the ETH Rat as usual deny all the accusations.

Ehemalige Mitarbeiter beschuldigen die ETH Zürich, bei Machtmissbrauch durch Professoren untätig zuzuschauen. An der Hochschule herrsche Filz. Die Leitung der Hochschule und die Aufsichtsbehörde weisen die Vorwürfe zurück.

13.01.2011
Weltwoche published the article "Viele menschliche Tragodien"

Accusations of massive power abuse against a chemistry Professor Joram Feldon. As in the case of Andreas Wenger no reaction from the ETH upper management. Here is the subtitle-summary.

Ehemalige Mitarbeiter werfen ETH-Professor Joram Feldon vor, seine Macht massiv zu missbrauchen. Doktoranden und wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter seien ihm schutzlos ausgeliefert. Die Hochschule bestreitet die Vorwürfe.

06.01.2011
Weltwoche published the article "ETH unter Beschuss"

The author, Alex Reichmuth, interviewed many former and current ISN employees for his article. Their complaints are similar to those voiced by people interviewed by Sonntag's journalist Nadja Pastega in November 2008. Almost all the alleged cases of abuse described by Alex Reichmuth occured already after Sonntag's article was published. This means that ISN management did not correct its ways even after media exposure and my complaint to the ETHZ President and the ETH Rat.

The article subtitles give a good summary of the accusations.

Mitarbeiter erheben massive Vorwürfe gegen ein millionenschweres Bundesprojekt der ETH. An der angesehenen Bildungsinstitution sollen Inkompetenz und Misswirtschaft herrschen.

«Zweitklassige Leute halten die erstklassigen tief»: Kritik an der Personalpolitik am International Relations and Security Network (ISN).

Name of the ISN General Manager Henrik Gudat that the ETHZ tried to forbid me to publish was mentioned in the article together with ISN Director Andreas Wenger as a target of complaints.

29.11.2010
Letter from ETHZ Lawyer David Rosenthal

Rosenthal announces retreat. ETHZ is not against criticism after all! Amazing! Rosenthal writes:

As indicated already in my first letter, it is neither the intention of the ETH to silence critical publications, nor has it done so with regard to your website.

The first letter is still here. You can check the truthfulness of Rosenthal's statement. Was the first letter just an attempt to scare me? Or somebody influential told ETHZ management not to embarrass themselves in public?

The new letter of 29.11.2010 is here.

10.11.2010
Letter from ETHZ Lawyer David Rosenthal

Nothing interesting, Rosenthal demands not to use even initials of Mr. s. M. The letter is here.

My answer to Mr. Rosenthal is here.

25.10.2010
ETHZ tries to enforce silence code

ETHZ makes another shameful attempt to silence criticism. Shows how far the degradation of the management has come. I received a letter from Mr. David Rosenthal, a lawyer with a Zurich law company Homburger, who was hired by ETHZ to deal with my site, of course at the taxpayer expense. Ironically, taxpayer money is spent to prevent the taxpayers from knowing how their money is spent.

The pretexts under which Mr. Rosenthal attacks my website are the same customarily used by totalitarian regimes around the world to attack a free speech. As the World Press Freedom Committee puts it: "The charge could be 'insulting the president,' 'revealing secrets,' 'defamation' or something else. The real crime is that the journalist did his or her job. In such a situation, where a free press itself really is on trial..."

European Court of Human Rights stated in one of its decisions: "Freedom of expression ... is applicable not only to 'information' and 'ideas' that are favorably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population."

Mr. Rosenthal writes that "The ETHZ ... does in principle not object to people voicing public criticism against the ETHZ..." But then he demands that I do not use names (including the ETHZ!) and any details from which names can be identified. He further claims that all the ETHZ documents are confidential and demands that I remove them from my site. What then ETHZ would consider to be an acceptable way of "public criticism?" Perhaps a fiction story about a North Korean university, there feudal relations reign, complaints are not fairly answered, every document is proclaimed secret, and a manager Gu-Dat-Chen who ignores the directions given by the Great Leader? How is it possible to discuss openness at the ETHZ without names, circumstances and documents?

Mr. Rosenthal apparently subscribes to a rather totalitarian point of view that we are obliged to take authorities word for truth. He writes: "your allegations are incorrect. You know that your serious allegations have been investigated ... and have not been confirmed." Mr. Rosenthal does not he understand the difference between "proven false" and "denied." Anybody can read the answer of the ETH Rat to my complaint and decide whether my allegations were proven false or simply denied without any justification. Moreover, in the answer to the Nationalrat Interpellation the ETH has finally admitted one financial irregularity I reported, while previously all accusations were denied outright.

My detailed answer to Mr. Rosenthal is here

21.09.2010
Answer to the Nationalrat Freysinger's Interpellation

On 01.09.2010, the Bundesrat gave answer to the Interpellation submitted by Nationalrat Oskar Freysinger. The text of the Interpellation and the answer are here.

The Bundesrat did not make its own investigation, it asked for the answer the ETH Rat, the same entity we accused of producing an unsubstantiated denial instead of making a fair investigation. And the ETH Rat reproduced essentially the same unsubstantiated denial. To be fair, they added few details and even at last admitted a financial irregularity. We attempt to show here that answers given by the ETH are technically incorrect, incomplete, contradictory, and even comical, for example the statement about extreme difficulty and risk of getting data out of the database. Some highlights here. For details see the page Analysis of the ETH answer to the Nationalrat Freysinger's Interpellation.

"Informed in details" means informed about no right to be informed

Funny and bizarre again. Apparently in answer to my criticism that the written answer of the ETH Rat to my complaint is an unsubstantiated denial, ETH claims now that Dr. Schiesser "oriented" me in details during a personal meeting.

Even if this were true, the question arises why Dr. Schiesser was not willing to commit his answer to paper? What was Dr. Schiesser hiding and from whom?

But this statement is not true. Here is the protocol of my meeting with Dr. Schiesser made by my legal assistant. As you can see essentially the only information given by Schiesser were statements that I have no right to information. In my letter to Dr. Schiesser of 14.04.2010, I wrote to Dr. Schiesser about his failure to provide information during our meeting and he did not deny it.

Alleged technical reasons for developing new search engine

Das Ziel, lokale Datenbestände typengerecht zu visualisieren und die Daten direkt aus der Datenbank zu lesen, wäre mit der bestehenden Software "LASE" nur mit ausserordentlich hohem Aufwand und entsprechenden Risiken zu erreichen gewesen.

This statement is contrived and technically illiterate. Database is software designed for easy access to data. To get data from database into a search engine is a very easy task. What difficulties and risks are associated with getting data from database? This is absurd. And there is no difference between reading data from database into a Lucene-based search index or a locust-based one.

Is 850'000 CHF less than 230'000 CHF?

Das interne Audit des ETH-Rates kam bei seinen Abklärungen zum Schluss, dass die freihändige Vergabe des Auftrages für die Entwicklung des ISN-KMS zulässig erscheint, für das ältere Content-Management-Systems (CMS) hingegen eine öffentliche Ausschreibung notwendig gewesen wäre.

At last the ETH admitted at least some financial irregularities. This means that my complaint about CMS-KMS was at least partially correct and the previous answers given to me by Dr. Eichler and Dr. Schiesser proved to be at least partially false.

What is more important, the answer above raises more troubling questions than the one it supposedly answers. I have copies of financial pages from ISN Annual reports which show that there is a problem with ETH arithmetic. WTO and internal ETH rules do not require open tender for the amount below 230'000 CHF. For example in 2006 there was 850'000 CHF spent for the KMS, which means that at least 620'000 CHF were left after subtracting the outsourcing fees paid to Tetracom. The question is where did this money go. May be 10 or 20 thousand could have been spent for travel to Sofia. Where is the rest of the money, about 600'000 CHF?

Given that Prof. Wenger ordered to remove pages with the above financial information from publicly available copies of the ISN Annual Report and ETH Zurich refused request for access to the outsourcing documents made by me in according with the Federal Freedom of Information Act (Öffentlichkeitsgesetz), the case for an independent investigation should be quite convincing.

25.08.2010
Secrecy at the ETH continues

Switzerland has the Federal Law on the Transparency Principle in Public Administration, briefly the Transparency Act ( Bundesgesetz über das Öffentlichkeitsprinzip der Verwaltung, Öffentlichkeitsgesetz, BGÖ) which is designed to increase transparency in public administration.

In July I wrote a letter to the ETHZ President Eichler asking him, in accordance with the Transparency Act, to open for me access to the documents related to software development outsourcing to a Bulgarian company Tetracom. Eichler answered me on August 18, 2010, denying my request with the following formulation.

Es liegt auf der Hand, dass eine Herausgabe der von Ihnen verlangten Dokumente das Geschaftsgeheimnis verletzen wurde. Daher weise ich Ihr Begehren um Zugang zu diesen Dokumenten ab.
(It is evident, that publishing requested documents would violate business secrecy. Therefore, I deny your request for access to this documents.)

In short, documents must stay secret because disclosing them will injure secrecy. I am out of sarcastic comments.