Student Faces 38 Years In Prison For Hacking Grades 645
the brown guy writes "An 18-year-old high school student named Omar Kahn is charged with 69 felonies for hacking into a school computer and modifying his grades, among other things. He changed his C, D and F grades to As, and changed 12 other students grades as well. By installing a remote access program on the school's server, Kahn was able to also change his AP scores and distribute test answer keys, and could be looking at a lengthy prison term. Not surprisingly, his parents (who have only recently immigrated to America) have decided not to post the $50,000 bail and Kahn is in jail awaiting trial."
A for effort? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cumulative... (Score:5, Insightful)
Summary is unnecessarily sensational.
I'm willing to bet the 38 years is if he gets convicted for all the charges, and doesn't get any concurrent sentencing - very unlikely.
Re:A for effort? (Score:5, Insightful)
Including breaking and entering, stealing, and how to receive stolen property.
Jail time, that will teach him (Score:2, Insightful)
What happened to common sense? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure the kid is an idiot, but does he deserve 38 years? That's insane.
Kick him out of school. Hold him back a year. Put him to work in community service.
People who think he deserves 38 years in prison for being a teenage idiot probably deserve to be in prison themselves.
What would 38 years in prison achieve? (Score:2, Insightful)
Surely a combination of barring him from ever entering an academic instution again, access to computers, heavy community service, etc etc would be more of an effective punishment then the state feeding, clothing and sheltering this guy for 38 years. I'm not being soft on the guy but it seems like if he had commited a violent crime he would have been looking at less time.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'm not going to argue that he's obviously talented, but that's the sort of talent that gets you thrown into jail when misapplied
Re:A for effort? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sensationalist? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:4, Insightful)
If he is guilty of those charges, he is a criminal. Those actions undermine society's trust in the system that if someone graduates from an institution and that institution certifies that the student did what the records say they did, they may or may not be qualified for jobs, further education, etc. While 38 years is certainly harsh, that is criminal behavior. Our education system is far from perfect but guys like this certainly do not help make it better.
I would much rather that he applied himself to do well in school and set a good example of what good behavior, studying, and hard work can do when working with the grain, not against it.
In these post 9/11 times... (Score:1, Insightful)
...priorities have changed. We see our government running rough-shod over the laws it holds us to, and we think, why must I follow these laws too? If the gov't can remove freedoms, liberties and rights in the name of 'homeland security' why can't I too bend/break the rules in the name of 'financial security' for my family?
Re:PUNISHMENT FITS THE CRIME (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is supporting him? No one is saying he did a good thing, they are just saying 38 years is pretty insane for changing some grades. You can get less time for killing someone. Or maybe even two someones.
Unsurprisngly DIDN'T post bail? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what so unsurprising about that. No parent wants their kid to spend time in freakin' lockup. Further, they can leverage $5,000 of real dollars with a bail bondsman to post $50k, so they just need to sell the kid's computer and scrape together a few thousand more to spare him potentially weeks behind bars.
Heck, banks will loan the money for bail, and I seriously doubt they get the loan-shark like interest the bail bondsman would.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know. If you are willing to break into the school's system to improve your grades, and generally compromise their data, I am not sure it is _they_ turning you into a criminal. I think, if you do that, _you_ are already over the line.
Re:What happened to common sense? (Score:5, Insightful)
38 years? 10? What's the "correct" number?
Remember that these numbers are thrown about by people who wouldn't want to spend a SINGLE NIGHT in prison.
Yes there must be consequences for his actions. But YEARS in jail? This kid isn't really a "threat" to society or someone who needs to be, what's the word they like to use now? - rehabilitated... It's just a dumb kid who needs to be taught a lesson. 38 years, or 10, or even 1 will probably break him and ensure that society gains yet another underachieving, useless supermarket bagger (if that).
Re:Unsurprisngly DIDN'T post bail? (Score:2, Insightful)
Better punishment (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd tend to agree with you, if we were talking about adults trying to take care of their families. Surely, there are at least SOME desperate people out there who feel like govt. has caused much of their financial hardship in recent years - and they have to "step things up a notch" to get back out of the hole they've fallen into.
But we're talking about a high-school student here. His biggest responsibility in life is probably his schooling, and *earning* his grades. I think it's a stretch to claim his cheating via computer hacking was motivated by post 9-11 events. Rather, it's the simple desire to find short-cuts to "get ahead by any means possible".
I agree with the people who say he probably "learned something" with his hacking efforts. I also agree that they're brining a lot of "trumped up" charges against him here. (Conspiracy charges? Uh, right..... His scheme SURELY was really all about undermining our government to overthrow it with his fake A in math!)
Nonetheless, they can't just let this go with a "slap on the wrist" either. Too many students spent a whole year of their lives working to earn those letter grades the right way.
Waste to throw him in prison for 38 years... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's 38 years under tax payer care. Honestly I say find a way to put him to work with the talent he has so he's not as much a burden and keep him under heavy watch as he does the work.
I don't know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What would 38 years in prison achieve? (Score:5, Insightful)
With all due respect but disregarding what good prison would do this kid as "complete ignorance" is ignorance in itself. The kid is 18, even if he saw just a year of jail time, you mix him up with all kinds of career criminals you end up getting out something worse than what you put in. Or you could belive the incarcaration industry that he will come out a reformed character. Tag him, limit his activities, get him to do community service that gives a net gain instead of the cost of sheltering and feeding from the state.
I'm not against prison, I just think there are more effective ways of punishing him.
Re:What happened to common sense? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know, the B&E charge shows quite a lack of judgment. If he'll break into a school to fix his grades, it is likely that he'll embezzle without hesitation, lie, cheat, steal, etc. each and every time that he thinks he can get away with it.
I'm all for making the penal system as improvement based as possible (after all, taking care of someone is expensive, and 'hardening' them is a poor outcome), but the news on the ground shows that there also needs to be a deterrent aspect (large numbers of people consistently act in a manner that shows no regard for society or others).
someone ratted him out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, so the kid is a greedy one, changing all of his grades to As ;)
But he is also not very socially bright, think about the other 12 kids for whome he changed the grades, someone was bound to talk. Or maybe a parent saw a dramatic grade change and called a teacher for whatever reason etc.
You just don't include 12 more people into your 'crime'. It's not a secret anymore after that.
Still, 38 years is just nuts. Make him pass the highschool exams again, put him into community service (with the other 12 kids by the way.) Also fine him for a few thousand bucks for the trouble and that should be that. His parents will take care of the rest of the punishment, I am certain.
Anyway, Khaaaaaaan! I suppose.
Re:Unsurprisngly DIDN'T post bail? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, if I'd actually done this (or any other multitude of crimes), my parents would have left my ass in jail to rot, too.
I know a guy whose parents kept bailing him out. It only made him bolder and willing to do more crap each time.
The only criminals are the ones running the school (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm at a loss for words. His misguided juvenile shenanigans could net him a longer sentence than rapists, murderers, pimps, drug dealers, etc. When I was a kid they would've hauled me into the office, given me a stern lecture, and encouraged me to use my skills in a productive & positive way.
This sort of outrageous over-reaction & immoral litigiousness only results in disdain for the legal system, law, and public institutions.
I'm for appropriate punishment in both cases (Score:3, Insightful)
For the juvenile hacker, maybe community service plus a few months prison on probation.
In case of the telecoms, it is important that lawbreaking is not legalized by the mere say-so of the government. Because this would seriously undermine all laws that are designed to protect the citizens from government harassment.
The "helping in good faith" should count as mitigating circumstance, but not get them completely off the hook. Let's say fines for those reponsible, plus also a few months prison on probation.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't "turn him" into anything. He's a criminal. Period. I could write it off as misguided teenage mischief if he had changed his own grades. Maybe even a grade or two for a girl he was attempting to woo, but he changed grades for twelve people, stole tests and answers and distributed them, and burglarized his school to cover up the fact that - even after proving he could steal test and answers - he was still cheating.
Where's the "talent?" The only thing he did was read someone's password to initially "hack" the system, and I'll bet $20 that the "remote access program" was something he downloaded from some site with a name like "Teh Supar-3v1L Bl4ck Haxx0rZ La1r!" Giving him a pass because it's a nonviolent crime makes as much sense as letting off anybody who tunnels into a bank because they were clever. He's not talented, he's a sociopath. He should be expelled from school and they should staple a copy of the police report to any transcript they send to a college.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:4, Insightful)
people seem to think that only crime with violence should be punished. punish them all. whether they physically break into your house or virtually, it is still a crime, even if no-one was hurt. That is why you can shoot someone when they break into your home in America. A law I really love and wish would be adopted in Canada. Too bad they can't find something similar when you catch someone hacking into your system.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:5, Insightful)
Thirty. Eight. Years. I am far from a bleeding heart, but my God, man! Imagine walking out of high school on your last day and realizing you're now 56. He'll miss the best 4 decades of his life. That's basically life in prison!
The pendulum's swung, and we have to get some sanity back into sentencing.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:3, Insightful)
Our education system is far from perfect but guys like this certainly do not help make it better.
So instead of just banning him from college or high school graduation, we make him a ward of the state costing us more tax money than he would have flipping burgers?
And when he does get out of jail, do you think hanging out with rapists, drug addicts, and murders is going to make him turn into a model citizen?
If we only focused more effort into catching true identity thieves who actually have stolen money and caused untold suffering on thousands of people than someone who cheated.
Re:My school server is just as bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Voila. The ball's in their court. If they ignore it then they deserve to get owned. If they fix the issues you can drop them a note saying congratulations. If they haven't done anything in six months send copies of your correspondence to the local news and watch the fireworks fly as Link Beefingham and the WHAX Investigative Flying News Squad descend on your school for a live, in-depth report on how the administration refuses to protect Little Johnny and Susie from child pornography, Chinese military hackers, and internet jihadists.
"Principal Landingham! Principal Landingham! WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?"
Re:What would 38 years in prison achieve? (Score:3, Insightful)
What if they simply sentence him to an additional three years of high school?
Re:A for effort? (Score:5, Insightful)
This kid is facing multiple counts. He's not facing 38 years for hacking his grades, he's facing a combined 38 years for over 69 individual offenses. Almost certainly, no single one of them carries a 21 year sentence.
Re:A for effort? (Score:2, Insightful)
Geez...didn't any of these people in charge watch Wargames or Ferris Bueller?
This is something kids do...smart kids usually.
Sure, you punish him when caught, but, you don't end his life. He didn't hurt anyone...he didn't even hurt the systems he was in. Give him a fair punishment...maybe lots of community service and keep him off a computer for a year maybe...but, he doesn't deserver to lose his whole future.
Obviosly A Talented Kid (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:4, Insightful)
Jail time is not the solution for everything.
Re:For those of you so against telecom immunity (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, let me try to parse this one out.
Or did AT&T help a kitten out of a tree or something?
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:4, Insightful)
A slap on the wrist may not be enough, but 38 years in prison? You just ruined this kid's life completely.
Why not just five years in a minimum security prison, with an emphasis on education? Rather than turn this kid into a hardened criminal by putting him in jail (where he will learn from other inmates) let's try to turn him around so he can be an asset to society instead of a liability when he gets out at age 56 with no life skills other than crime.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:3, Insightful)
What if he was 17? It's not as if he suddenly knows better at 18 than at 17. I was in... I think fifth grade when I was able to "hack" other students' accounts on our school system. This bizarre combination of logging out of Win3.11 into our DOS menu system, some sort of obscure series of commands, and then typing in the account name and no need to have a password. I never did anything with it other than feel special in being able to do so; still, even back then (age 11?) I knew that it wasn't really OK and that altering anyone else's files definitely wasn't. Granted I had a better sense of judgment than most my age, but even still he absolutely knew better at 18, and also would were he several years younger.
And Bueller didn't adjust his grades - that was David Lightman in WarGames (same actor though).
Re:My school server is just as bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like he was at the age where the contents of the sweater were more interesting than the sweater itself.
Re:A for effort? (Score:5, Insightful)
MOD UP (Score:5, Insightful)
This kid isn't a genius. He's not talented. He isn't some sort of super child that did this because he was bored in school. He's a stupid script kiddie. He downloaded a keylogger from the internet then broke into the school office and installed it. What a computer wiz. The kid's a douche and this sentence probably just saves the court some time down the road. And he won't even get 38 years anyway so quit whining about how long that is.
38 years, if you are a moron (Score:5, Insightful)
He is facing "up to" 38 years. That means that if you take all of the charges against him, and he gets the max prison term for all of them, he will be in jail for 38 years. The chances of that happening are zero. What is going to happen is that if the evidence against him is good enough where he (his lawyers) think that he can't win, he will just make a plea deal with the prosecutors. If he serves any time after pleading guilty and making a plea deal, it will likely be under a year. In all likelihood he will just get put on probation for a few years. Probation sucks, but it beats prison... and well, it is supposed to suck. It is a punishment, and punishments tend to suck.
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or we could fix the jails so that they aren't training camps for would-be criminals.
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:5, Insightful)
More accurately--the kid just ruined his own life completely. Taking responsibility for choices we make is all part of growing up.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:3, Insightful)
So if he's l33t at pwning n00bs, he should get an A in English Composition and Economics?
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of us were talented kids, even with obvious problems. We didn't all go and do illegal things, did we?
Being talented is not a "get out of jail free" card. The law should apply evenly to the talented, and the untalented.
If anything, being talented would infer more likely intent, and aggravate the charges. After all, he's talented, so he should have known better.
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:4, Insightful)
But you don't threaten to lock him up for almost 40 years, unless he's an immigrant...named Omar, I guess. An actor's or politician's kid from Beverly Hills might make the front page of the National Inquirer and that would be the end of it.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, IANAL, but my father is the Asst. County Prosecutor, and I have to tell you that the "38 years" quoted in the article is probably calculated by summing the maximum possible penalties for all of the charges, and then assuming that he's an idiot in prison, too, and never recieves parole or other sympathies.
First off, he likely will not be charged with every single charge and given the maximum penalty and be forced to serve sentences consecutively. Remember that a judge still makes the final sentencing decisions, and is likely to take into account the fact that he is only 18, just leaving high school, etc.
If he even shows a bit of remorse, he'll likely get more community service time than jail time, anyways. (Which is probably to both his and the taxpayers' advantage.)
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:3, Insightful)
The kid won't get any time behind bars, but he *does* need some. Not because the actual crime he committed was of great import, but because letting him get away with it without any substantial penalty will encourage him on to bigger and better things. This is the kind of guy that becomes Ken Lay or Bernie Ebbers.
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not just five years in a minimum security prison, with an emphasis on education?
Because if they really crack down on "illegal" immigration, the prisons will be our only source of near free labor.
This is what is wrong with the system (Score:5, Insightful)
We look at the crime, but not at the intention behind it. If we did, the same punishment should be meted out for someone who is caught cheating on his tests. The intended result is the same: Getting a grade he didn't earn the "legal" way.
Why is hacking a computer to fudge the grade worse than using cheat sheets? Why isn't anyone who cribbed his doctor thesis facing 40ish years in prison (which is, IMO, a worse offense than cheating with your grades, we're talking about a thesis that allows you to bear a title, which does hold a lot of meaning in some countries)?
Look at the crime, not at the way it was committed.
Re:My school server is just as bad (Score:3, Insightful)
I.e, he was above 5 years old?
Seriously tho, if you find a sweater more interesting than whoever is inside it, there is either something wrong with you or you've found some damn cool sweater ( Was it made of carbon nanotubes perhaps ? ).
It is a disproportionate punishment. (Score:1, Insightful)
He really did 38 years worth of damage to society by hacking a high school? Really? Whom did he hurt?
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:5, Insightful)
Criminals are not caught this way, amateurs are. This guy is clearly not a seasoned criminal and he should not be treated like one. I hope he does not get jail time from this. This is obviously just a kid making a mistake.
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:5, Insightful)
38 years in jail is way too steep, any jailtime would probably be.
But this is no where near "just a mistake". It is not a one-time break-in to prove that security is insufficient. He was deliberately and continously (34 times alledgedly) "altering public records", for his own personal benefit.
Even if your security is inadquate it doesn't mean that it's not a crime to break in, and even if it does, fraud is still fraud.
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems to me, though, that by devauling education to the point where a high school diploma is basically worthless and a college degree is equivalent to what a diploma used to be, as a culture we Americans send a message to everyone that the grades have no inherent value anyways, they're just another hoop to jump through.
Re:It is a disproportionate punishment. (Score:3, Insightful)
American criminal jurisprudence is not intended to be equitable, but punitive--it is civil courts, not criminal courts, that deal with issues of equity. And breaking and entering is a lot more severe than "hacking a high school."
If you're non-American, there's certainly reason to understand why you might not understand the distinction (though I'll bet a dollar to a stale doughnut that whatever country you come from has an almost identical system). And if you are American, perhaps Civics class was not the most propitious time to practice recto-cranial insertion.
Re:Better Summary... (Score:1, Insightful)
He has commited crimes. That merits punishment. If he had not commited those crimes, none of this would have happened. Ultimately he chose to have this happen when he illegally hacked into the school and altered not only his but also others grades. Nothing else is relevant. He IS a criminal, and the damage he has done is to everyone who depends on the system he defrauded.
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:2, Insightful)
The point, I guess, is that the law should not even suggest that such a sentence might be possible for a case like this. Even a couple of years in jail would be unjust and counterproductive (likely outcome: the kid meets some real fraudsters and learns how to apply his hacking skills to steal credit cards). A suspended sentence would be appropriate, to make sure he doesn't get tempted to hack anything else. Beyond that, the kid has basically punished himself -- no college is going to take him now, and he'll have a tough time finding employment too.
Kids are always going to try hacking school networks, and decades behind bars is basically never going to be an appropriate punishment for that. So we need specific laws that are dedicated to cases like this, and specify suitable punishments, instead of applying generic laws that were written with totally different scenarios in mind. That way, we could be reassured that the law will continue to dish out justice appropriately, and nobody will be able to defend inflammatory headlines like this any more.
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:5, Insightful)
38 years in jail is way too steep, any jailtime would probably be. But this is no where near "just a mistake". It is not a one-time break-in to prove that security is insufficient. He was deliberately and continously (34 times alledgedly) "altering public records", for his own personal benefit. Even if your security is inadquate it doesn't mean that it's not a crime to break in, and even if it does, fraud is still fraud.
No, it's not "just a mistake". But in cases like this, I think it's important to keep perspective. The effective results of his actions weren't particularly criminal. I mean, yes, what he did was technically a crime, but the effects of the crime weren't particularly different from if he had just cheated outright.
So probably (I'm guessing, because I don't know the kid or all the details) the guy deserves to be expelled, and put in a position where he really has to work his ass off to earn his way into any college. Community service wouldn't be a bad idea.
But I agree, jail time sounds like a bad idea for a situation like this. It's not just "too harsh", but you have to wonder what the effects of sending him to jail would be.
When your 18 years old, you still have a lot of time ahead of you, and a lot of learning-- for better or for worse. This guy probably still has the potential to turn it all around and be a productive member of society, but if you send him to jail, you're probably going to diminish that potential. Instead of learning to be productive, he'll be socialized to the jail environment, which means learning the wrong things, ie things that will actually make it harder for him to function appropriately in general society.
I think we should generally be cautious about sending young people (even over the age of 18) to jail, unless we feel that they pose a significant continuing danger or that they absolutely cannot be rehabilitated.
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't be too sure on the skills part of it; most school networks are ridiculously easy to break into. School districts can't afford to hire good IT guys, so they pretty much get the bottom of the barrel; I remember that I once got access to all the teachers' files completely by accident. Fortunately (for the school district, at least) I was a rather good kid and showed them how I did it.
Re:It is a disproportionate punishment. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some jail; around 6 months.
A far sight better than 38 years, which is more than some murderers get.
When this student commits another crime in an attempt to get ahead, such as stealing an identity, and when he gets caught, then throw the book at him. But right now? It's kind of immoral to punish someone in advance for something we think it possible that they may do, at least without ample evidence that they are in the process of planning to do it in a very specific manner.
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I think it is a shame that you get less prison time for murder than you do for hacking into your schools computers.