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."
Not a good hacker. (Score:5, Funny)
He got caught - unlike me, because I didn't brag about it on a public web site...
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of a business school student who was caught hacking his way to president of the business school student body. He didn't verbally brag, but he arrogantly gave himself a landslide win - more votes than there were students. He didn't get prison but he didn't get his tuition back after being expelled.
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:5, Informative)
He didn't get caught because he bragged. Evidently, he was caught after he requested an official school transcript for a university he was applying for.
Of course, if you read the article, you'd know that.
But hey, who reads articles? This is slashdot.
slashdot effect... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not a good hacker. (Score:4, Informative)
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: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:5, Informative)
Let's take a look at the charges levied against the student:
34 felony counts of altering public record
11 felony counts of stealing and secreting public records
7 felony counts of illegal computer access and fraud
6 felony counts of burglary
4 felony counts of identity theft
3 felony counts of altering book of records
2 felony counts of receiving stolen property
1 felony count of conspiracy
1 felony count of attempting altering of a public record
And, as the article says, he's not just being charged with breaking in to the school's computers, he also put in a remote access program (which others could have used to do a variety of things with the school's network with). Then there's the fact that he broke into the principal's office to steal a test he did badly on. I think this individual, quite clearly, is a potential threat to other people. He sounds an awful lot like the sort of person who would do anything to get ahead; maybe in the future he could steal someone's identity to get a job or a loan. Do I necessarily think that 38 years is the amount of time he should do? No, but I don't think he'll do that much time either; he deserves to do some jail time though for his crimes.
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.
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.
A for effort? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A for effort? (Score:5, Insightful)
Including breaking and entering, stealing, and how to receive stolen property.
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can agree to that. When I has in grad school I was applying for a scholarship (because I could not afford the school) and was told I was beat out by a foreign student with much better grades than me. A month later they offered me the scholarship (and instructor in charge told me that the transcript they received was forged and the student did not have perfect grades). So what this Omar guy did was trivialize the grades of the students who actually got good grades and worked hard for them (possibly ruining their chances at getting into a great school). The real victims are other students not the government or the education system.
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:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Public Schools? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that should be funded by "state" taxes. Very little federal money funds the public education systems of various states and that money is generally earmarked for specific purposes outside education like the school lunch and breakfast programs.
When you look at the dollar amount spent on public education in any given state, the entire federal budget for education is generally a small in comparison of that. Take ohio for instance, It spends around 11-19 billion in primary and secondary education each year before any federal money is assessed. In comparison, the feds (NEA) only spent 38 billion on the same education. If that were divided by the 50 states, that's like 700 million or so per state and this isn't counting DC or outlying territories. When we look at the fact of some stated being poorer then others, needing more funding, it goes down even more. But for the majority of situations, federal funding is going to be only a small fraction of most every state's education funding.
I will agree that the school represents the government but for different reasons. These reasons are that the government has put their faith behind the results and reporting of these schools to provide legitimacy to them. The federal government has an interest in a state's credential too. When someone undermines that by purposely presenting false information or altering information certified by the state, then there is a reason to be concerned. In essence, I see changing grades as being no different then fake IDs or impersonating a police officer to defraud someone.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure about a figure but I suspect it would be significant because not only does the state have to do an accounting, but each district does as well.
I read a report a while back and I can't find it to link to now, but it said much of the same things. It went on to break down the actual effectiveness of every federal dollar which was astonishing low. less then 50 cents on the dollar. And of that, half had to be spent in specific ways which was tied to some other program which means if the state didn't
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.
Re:In these post 9/11 times... (Score:5, Informative)
Whilst I'm really not a lawyer, it's worth pointing out that the legal use of the word "Conspiracy" doesn't necessarily imply that it was a Government/Anarchic/Terrorism related thing.
As ever, Wikipedia has something to say on the matter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(crime)
"In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between natural persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement."
One of the comments posted to the story: (Score:5, Informative)
He's NOT a hacker!
Jun 19, 2008 08:21
He's just lazy and stupid.
First off, this idiot goes to the same high-school as me - Tesoro High School. The guy is a total loser who just wastes his time trying to act cool and trying to "party it up" cause his family is relatively well off.
The "38 years in prison" is just a tagline. He *faces* that much time in prison because of the 69 seperate counts of felony charges, but he'll probably get a fine and probation and that's about it. (Well, that and getting blacklisted from the major schools that he had no shot of getting into.)
Secondly, since when has installing a keylogger program on a computer been considered hacking? In which case, we're all "hackers" cause we installed software on our PC. He doesn't know the first thing about programming. He asked me to fix his spyware infested computer on repeated occasions. The guy would get others to do his work for him and pay them off. He even asked people to take the SATs for him! jeez!
Lastly, he's a lazy idiot. He got caught AFTER he was denied admission to the UCs (yes, he still got rejected with his modified transcripts), when he tried to appeal the decision and have more transcripts sent out - that's when the counselor noticed the discrepency. If he had taken the time to study for the SATs instead, he'd be in by now, even with his terrible GPA.
What a ridiculous world we live in.
Amit
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.
1 day your hacking grades the next day NORAD just (Score:5, Funny)
1 day your hacking grades the next day NORAD just to play a game.
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: (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, Funny)
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: (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
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Whoah, subtle ;)
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:5, Insightful)
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:A for effort? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A for effort? (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of a story about my father when he was back in school.
He had a French test on verb conjugation coming up, so instead of studing he spent much time making a clever crib sheet mechanism into his watch, so that he could scroll through the crib sheet.
Anyway, while 'preparing', he kept rewriting the crib sheet smaller and smaller to fit more stuff on it. Ironically, when he went to take the test, he already knew the material from all his recopying that he didn't even need to cheat.
tin foil hat alert (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A for effort? (Score:5, Informative)
This guy was actually at a really expensive private school, one of the best from an academic standpoint in the country.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yep, I hear ALL the students there are 'A' students! :)
Re:A for effort? (Score:5, Interesting)
A better list of charges (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the list of charges against Khan
34 felony counts of altering public record
11 felony counts of stealing and secreting public records
7 felony counts of illegal computer access and fraud
6 felony counts of burglary
4 felony counts of identity theft
3 felony counts of altering book of records
2 felony counts of receiving stolen property
1 felony count of conspiracy
1 felony count of attempting altering of a public record
Re:A better list of charges (Score:5, Funny)
"You said altering records twice"
"I like altering records"
Re:A better list of charges (Score:5, Funny)
34 felony counts of awesomeness
11 felony counts of 1337 5ki11z.
7 felony counts of pwning n00bs.
6 felony counts of acting as an electronics deity.
4 felony counts of extreme overclocking.
3 felony counts of proving the Goldbach conjecture.
2 felony counts of saving the world from the Covenant.
1 felony count of conspiracy to pwn.
1 felony count of actually winning a fight against Chuck Norris.
Re:A better list of charges (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, if he really was a "1337 h4x0r" he'd have only bumped up a few of his grades, not given himself straight "A"s.
Additionally, the trial would have gone something like this: "The charges are ... uhmmm, sorry, but we can't seem to find anything about this guy in our system, hour honor. [mumble] I *know* I saw it yesterday ...[/mumble]"
Re:A better list of charges (Score:5, Funny)
Here is the list of charges against Khan
34 felony counts of altering public record
11 felony counts of stealing and secreting public records
7 felony counts of illegal computer access and fraud
6 felony counts of burglary
4 felony counts of identity theft
3 felony counts of altering book of records
2 felony counts of receiving stolen property
1 felony count of conspiracy
1 felony count of attempting altering of a public record
</blockquote>
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Re:A better list of charges (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Here is the list of charges against Khan
No, those are the charges against Kahn. The charges against Khan are a lot worse.
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.
Jail time, that will teach him (Score:2, Insightful)
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: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.
Gun advocate response... (Score:4, Informative)
Warning: I am NOT a lawyer. I am just a self defense advocate and gun collector who has read multiple state laws on self defense and firearm laws.
It really depends on your state and jurisdiction, even in the USA.
It varies. Today, many states have an automatic 'fear for life/SBH' for an intruder in your house. In Texas, during hours of darkness, felony theft on your property may be responded to by deadly force. If they're in your house, you may respond with deadly force at any time.
This is varied a bit in that some liberal cities within the state don't like that, and aren't particularly caring if they follow the law - you get a fair number of self defense cases that they'll push all the way to court, even knowing it doesn't have a snowball's chance. Heck, look back at texas and the incidents in one county where the police entered bars and arrested patrons for public drunkeness. No fights, no noise complaints. Premeditated raid to do this. Their stated goal was to reduce drunk driving - yet they arrested even people who had rooms in the attached hotel.
Thus, I figure anything but the most blatant act of self defense will cost over $30k, possibly quite a bit more.
In my town - somebody breaks in and I shoot them. Likely result: A pat on the back.
Texas rural - same deal
Texas, Dallas - some runaround.
Lincoln or Omaha, NE - probably a few days in jail until they find that they don't have any real evidence that it wasn't self defense.
In Chicago or DC - murder and wrongful death charges, showy trial leading to aquital. After tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of lawyers bills. Or they'll drop charges after holding me in jail for six months without bail.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am a serious advocate of self defense, concealed carry, and all. By the same token - taking a human life is serious. Therefore I don't mind if somebody who has to drop the hammer on an intruder is arrested. What I DO want is a thorough investigation followed by a quick release when it's determined to be self defense.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:4, Insightful)
Jail time is not the solution for everything.
Re:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:5, Funny)
Of course it isn't. Unfortunately, we've outlawed all the fun stuff as "cruel and unusual punishment".
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.
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: (Score:3, Informative)
The pendulum's swung, and we have to get some sanity back into sentencing.
56 is the theoretical maximum, if all charges are upheld and if they are consecutive. Neither is likely. It's far more probable that in the end he will be convicted of only part of the 69 offenses, and that the sentences will run concurrently, in other words he'll face a few years in jail.
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:4, Informative)
Hey now, lets not let "facts" and "what typically happens" run into our outrage here. Clear and level minded thinking like yours has no place in this discussion. after all, we are trying to build outrage in order to get public sympathy behind him so he will get off with a slap in the wrist.
So leave your rash and insightful comments out of this...
BTW, you probably should define the differences between concurrent and consecutive sentencing. It's possible that he could be convicted and sentenced to all 38 years of punishment and serve them all in the time of the longest charge. If the longest penalty for any given charge is 5 years, then his 38 year sentencing could be over completely in 5 years.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (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 ca
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So if he's l33t at pwning n00bs, he should get an A in English Composition and Economics?
Re: (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 l
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But first there needs to actually be a trial. This kid will almost certainly only get probation when all is said and done.
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:Jail time, that will teach him (Score:5, Informative)
Also, he is an outright criminal. This isn't just Ferris Bueller slipping in to adjust his grades a little because he's too cool for school. Burglary, identity theft, multiple counts of fraud? Bueller? Bueller?
Re: (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
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: (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.
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.
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).
Kamp Krusty (Score:5, Funny)
They don't know the half of it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They don't know the half of it... (Score:4, Informative)
So sad, so sad. He means this WOPR [wikipedia.org]. On second thought I feel old.
Correction (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Correction (Score:5, Funny)
You mean KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNN?
(additional caps-filter dodging text goes here)
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: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: (Score:3, Insightful)
What if they simply sentence him to an additional three years of high school?
Sensationalist? (Score:2, Insightful)
My school server is just as bad (Score:5, Interesting)
First off, desktops are fairly locked down. But the server itself allows for RDP connections with any username (not just teachers or students).
When you're on any old desktop, you can only access your own network share as a virtual drive. When you're connected to the school server, you get:
-Any documents (class of 2006 or 2007, class of 2008-2011, teachers, ADMINS)
-Network shares with installer sources and keys in text files (e.x. Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Plus with VLK, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9, EasyGrade Pro 3, Houghton Mifflin Test Generator to accompany textbooks, etc.)
-Access to the attendance share (which is outsourced, but the administrative login is kept on said server in house)
-Access to backups from the other schools (junior high, intermediate, elementary)
I was appalled when I found this out. For ethical reasons (and the legal penalties), I decided not to tell anyone or anything. Mainly because in 8th grade, my friend got his computer privileges suspended for the year when we told the computer staff that you could get a command prompt through Internet Explorer, and he almost got a disciplinary record over it.
We tried to help them, and he got in trouble (luckily, no legal issues).(We'd send NET SEND messages to other computers - e.g. "Jane, this is the computer. That's a nice purple sweater you're wearing
Ever since, whenever I've found a computer issue, I've kept my mouth shut, because it's not worth the trouble.
More on topic...this guy has what's coming to him. I think 38 years is too harsh (maybe a couple of years and more punishment in probation), but his malicious intent and clear intent makes me have no sympathy for him.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sweater???? You took all risk just to send message about sweater?? Jesus!!
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: (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 ? ).
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?"
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: (Score:3)
No parent wants their kid to spend time in freakin' lockup.
You didn't have the joy of 'tough love' parents then. If I'd screwed up this bad, I'd have been declining bail.
Other than that, it's a matter of finances in some cases. That $5k of 'real dollars' to the bail bondsman is forfeit even if the kids shows up in court. If they're 'newly' arrived, they're likely low on funds, lack credit history, all that.
So the question becomes 'do we bail him out or spend the $5k on a lawyer to keep him out of prison?
Re: (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.
Better Summary... (Score:5, Informative)
The kid is also facing burglary charges because he stole a key to the school and used it to break in several times. The first thing to remember in this case is that it's not just a simple computer crime case, and that 12 other students also had their grades changed.
Further, of course the kid faces 38 years; every one of the small crimes he committed carry a maximum penalty. If you add them all up, you get 38 years. Obviously that doesn't mean that the kid is going to serve anywhere near that amount.
Now, I'm not sitting here saying that this kid should get 38 years. Far from it. But I do think that some jail time is called for. In addition to the burglary charge and the financial hit to fix the problems he caused, he hurt a lot of students. Consider this: For every one of the 13 kids who moved into the top 10% ranking, someone who had earned their spot had to leave. That student may not have been able to get into the college of his or her choice, and - far more importantly - may have missed out on substantial scholarship money. This kid wasn't just harming his high school through the added expense to audit records and security policies, he was hurting totally innocent fellow students.
I don't know... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
A missed opportunity... (Score:3, Funny)
I bet if he had instead changed some everyone's grades to "D-E-A-D-B-E-E-F" the judge would have just lold and put a "1337 Pwnage" into his permanent record instead.
Why, why, why?!?!?!!? (Score:3)
Jesus fucking christ people, why is it whenever a story like this comes out everyone jumps on the statutory MAXIMUMS. The kid committed *69* felony counts and it is possible, though highly unlikely, that the MAXIMUM jail time he could face for ALL these charges is 38 years. If you think hackers should face NO penalties for their actions then grow a pair, step on the sop box and say so but don't keep harping on statutory MAXIMUMS as if they are evil incarnate that you must rid the world of.
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: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.
Re:So now... (Score:5, Funny)
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: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?