When I first arrived at MIT, I was handed a book on "How to Get Around MIT." I was impressed with the section on hacking, which included the following story about the Harvard-Yale hack:

"DKE has tried to hack the game before, most memorably in the late 1940s when they buried explosive cord in a pattern that would spell out "MIT''. Unfortunately, Harvard discovered the hack and set up a trap. They arrested several students wearing coats lined with batteries. A dean, who had been informed about the hack after the arrest, went down to bail the students out. He pointed out to the detective that the battery-lined coats were only circumstantial evidence. At this point the dean opened his own battery-lined coat and declared "all Tech men carry batteries.''"

My point is that MIT presents itself as a place that defends hacking, and it has at least been lenient in the past.