11-Year-Old Becomes Network Admin for Alabama School

alphadogg points out a story about 11-year-old Jon Penn, who took over control of a 60-computer school network in Alabama after the old administrator suddenly left. Penn provides technical support, selects software, and teaches his classmates about computers. From NetworkWorld: "The first thing Jon found as he leapt into the role of network manager was that he had to map out the network to find out what was on it. He bought some tools for this at CompUSA and realized there was an ungodly amount of computer viruses and spam, so he pressed the school to invest in filtering and antivirus protection. 'These computers are so old they don't support all antivirus programs,' Penn says. The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh Start that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000."

But does he post to Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he says he's too mature.

The "old" administrator...

[The Living Fractal]

... was 12. He was ready for a career change after so long in IT.

Great...there goes my business.

[qcs-rf.com]

If any of our clients ever see this article, they're going to start hiring 11-year-olds and pay in comic books.

Bah

[Dachannien]

I'm not that impressed. I was maintaining a lab of 16 Atari 800's when I was roughly his age. If he were smart, he'd switch to a less virus-resistant platform - I mean, we never had any problems.

Re:Translation: 11-year old's parents get him a jo

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to screw up a Feel Good story with the facts, Sherlock! I'm surprised you didn't home in on the Microsoft Solution and bleat about Linux.

Re:Bah

[Dachannien]

he'd switch to a less virus-resistant platform

(That's less, by which I obviously mean more.)

Re:But does he post to Slashdot?

[EvilNTUser]

Bah. He has the whole school eating out of his hand and he didn't even TRY to install Linux. Corporate whore.

He's probably had sex too. Bastard.

Re:I'm sure a lot of 11 year-olds could do this...

[gardyloo]

Hmm... Maybe I'll check out Slashdot. Oh! There's a heartwarming IT story. [Pause. The sound of counting the technicians we have. Quick check of the numbers that we're administering.]
    "Hey, John? Can we get a list of all the 16-year-olds on the network? Yeah, thanks."

     

Re:Vista upgrade

[Peet42]

If those computers were running Windows 98 they could have 64MB RAM or less.

I'm currently running the Windows 98 SE upgrade on a Windows 95 laptop with 16MB of RAM. So far it's only been upgrading for 11 days, and has already reached 10% completion. (It's a Dell Latitude P133, fyi...)

Re:But does he post to Slashdot?

[jonaskoelker]

He's probably had sex too. Bastard.

Well, if you controlled the whole network, wouldn't you go to redtu... Oooh, you mean with one of these females I keep hearing about.

Yeah, he's a bastard!

Re:Goes to show

[tomhudson]

My last crop of interns at work were college juniors, and couldn't be trusted to make copies

That's because college juniors have to start with the basics ... making coffees, not copies.

And if you think I'm joking, we had a breaker reset twice Friday because someone plugged a kettle into the same circuit as several desktops and a server ... they learned that a watched kettle never boils /* grumble grumble */

"11 year Old Network Gets Admin in Alabama School"

[Dr. Evil]

I think they got the title mixed up.

Re:While these stories are interesting...

[TheLink]

Oh really? At the rate he's going I think he might be CIO of a multinational company soon.

Re:Baptist, eh?

[langelgjm]

Great, now they'll be getting a bunch of prayer requests from /.

"Dear God, please let my next emerge go without error..."

Uh-oh....

[happyslayer]

Wait until the PHBs hear about this one.

Network Admin: My job is hard; I want a raise.
PHB: Why? Your job is so easy, an 11-year old can handle it!
Network Admin: ...sputters incoherently...

Every IT manager will have to live with this nightmare, until the Jedi really start getting a headache.

Obi-Wan: I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

Re:Are they paying him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the good thing is that learning all of that network jargon is practically eternally valuable knowledge compared to, say, learning about the lessons of the second world war, or algebra, or how to "read good".

I rest my case.

Re:But does he post to Slashdot?

[amccaf1]

With apologies to the Marx Brothers...

Salesman: This network is so easy to administer, an 11-year-old child could do it!

Groucho: Great! [quietly, to his aides] Quick, someone run out and get me an 11-year-old child; I can't make heads or tails of this O'Reilly guide!

Bah, lightweight...

[Moebius Loop]

That's nothing, by the time I was 11 I had already been running all the networks in my district for 5 years, *and* I had Slackware on all school machines by 7! It wasn't until 12 that I began consulting for the Federal Reserve, although in retrospect I should have taken the NASA gig instead.

I would have started my career sooner, but for most of my Kindergarten year I was under contract to the NSA.

First Rule

[magunning]

The first rule of being a Network Admin is not to let others know that an 11 year old could do it.

Re:But does he post to Slashdot?

[jollyreaper]

Bah. He has the whole school eating out of his hand and he didn't even TRY to install Linux. Corporate whore.

He's probably had sex too. Bastard.

I didn't RTFA. Was it a Catholic school?