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13-Year-Old Suspended For Hacking Commits Suicide
RichM writes: "The Times of Trenton (N.J.) has a story this morning about a gifted local 13-year-old who committed suicide after being suspended for 10 days from school, apparently for hacking into the school's computer system. Accounts differ, but it appears the school emphasized that what the child did was illegal, and he hung himself that afternoon, leaving a note saying he would rather die than go to jail."
I don't want to come out sounding cold, but if the kid did break in to the schools computer system, then he deseverd to be suspended. If he killed himself because he didn't want to get in trouble, too bad... He was probably screwed up in the head and would of ended up finding some other reason to kill himself if he wouldn't of been caught
The subject line is in Latin, roughly translated it means "after this, therefore because of this". I propose that maybe this unfortunate boy had more on his mind than just his suspension when he chose to take his life. Bullying, no friends, trouble at home, who knows? We cannot simply point an accusing finger at the school system without all the facts...
I do not say the following to add pain to his family but I would like to know how the conversation with his dad went between the school and home before his dad went back to work.
I'll bet that if anything he was upset that he had disgraced his family and he probably took some harsh words from his dad a little too seriously.
I don't know much about his culture but I believe that honor is highly valued and that fathers generally hold undisputed authority in the home. I'll bet his dad was overdramatic with his rhetoric and the boy took the ultimate solution.
Near the end of my grade 9 year, I got hauled down to the principal's office for fighting. I got a 3 day home suspension, along with the person I was fighting with, but about noon on the first day, the phone rang and I was told I could come back to school. Turns out someone had gone a little nuts on the server (idiot teachers would never lock it away securely) and didn't know how to fix it (the computer teacher, who was extremely competent, had quit for a private sector job about 4 months before). So I basically was back at school, not because the admin staff had decided the suspension was overly harsh, but because a bunch of teachers needed the computers for stuff their classes were doing.
And the person I was fighting with had to "suffer" through a three day home suspension.
On a somewhat related note, regarding this story: Jon Katz, eat your heart out.
You don't know that he hacked the schools network. And if he did, you don't know that it was illegal.
The article dosen't say what he did, but he still did wrong
The article dosen't say what he did, so we don't know whether an action he may (or may not) have taken was wrong.
"why?"
Why did the principal threaten him with jail time?
He was told he could go to jail for this. When I was a 13-year-old I was a perfectionist too and I know exactly how horrible this must have felt for him. He took a rash action, but that is not indicative of some serious psychological problem. That is indicative of youth and a culture of administrators who do not show caring but instead feel they have to punish, punish, punish.
Nonsense.
The principal didn't do anything wrong. And I'm sure that if he could have forseen this, he would have done something differently. I imagine this haunts him in ways I can't imagine, but for people to claim he is responsible for this tragedy is ridiculous.
I think what we have here is an overachieving youngster unequipped to deal with failure. By all accounts, he was a bright, intelligent boy with a variety to talents. This was probably the first serious trouble he's ever been in, and it shtattered his fragile self image. That's a pretty serious blow at 13.
I hope the family, and the principal, find peace.
I see. Is being told "don't run a password cracker on our machines" and continuing to do so "clear and convincing" enough for you?
From the police report: 'I asked Randal why he would need forty to fifty passwords and he said,
"I needed them in case they caught me doing it and knew they would shut
me down so the more passwords I had, the longer I could continue doing
what I wanted to do."'
Randal Schwartz KNEW he was doing something wrong, and he deserves to be punished, like any other violator of property rights. It's not like he's in for life or this is a capital offense or anything. Knowing a lot about computers is not moral justification for breaking the law.
You've been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh.
Here's how to become a full-fledged U.S. Citizen again: You have to pay several thousand $$$ to the government to even be considered (America: Just Like the Third World, but our bribes are structured). You need a lawyer too, with a retainer up front. But wait--you can't even get a job that pays more than minimum wage because of that little box that asks whether you have been convicted of a felony. So how do you come up with the thousands of dollars required to even roll the dice in the rights-restoration lottery?
So, if you are rich you will get your rights back and your record erased so you can become President one day. If you are poor, then you shouldn't have gotten arrested.
Sorry, I can't remember my nick from slashdot (it's been months since I last posted) but you CAN get a recognized black belt in taekwondo before you are 18. I tested for it when I was in 6th grade, which would put me being about 13 or 14. I tested in front of my master (black 5) and his master who was flown in from Michigan for our testing (black 9). He presented me with my black belt. I would only assume that if a Black 9 can present a red 1 with a black 1, then it is legit. When we turned 18, we didn;t have to re-test for our black one.
Life for me was hard through my teenage years. I was fucked by the judicial system in every way possible. I was tossed from home to home in social services, and actually went to jail for 3 weeks because I wore a very small ammount of black makeup to school. I'm not a trouble-maker. I had absolutly no problems with anyone in the school I was in at that time. Everytime I started building a life, it was taken away from me with a phone call... "Time to move again Nick".
It makes me feel like I need to vomit when I think about it. I too had been arrested and suspended from school for crashing some (about 10) computers on the school network (see note 2). My parents knew I had been in trouble before (see note 1), and they didn't want to hear my side of the story at all... They wouldn't even give me a ride home. I had to walk the 5 miles home crying. I almost commited suicide in my last year of highschool (graduated 1 year early). My way of dealing with school violence was to paint my face and die my hair. Then I didn't have to deal with getting my ass kicked because they thought I would fucking cast a hex on them or something. Beating were replaced with burning tounges which swung more frequently, but with less trips to the nurse, than ever before. I cried on almost a daily situation... I had some very possitive influences on my life when I was going though all this. The anger I felt (and still do sometimes) was enormous. I wanted to show all those fucked up kids at school the pain I felt. Like any half-way intelligent kid, I read the JRCB and I made bombs and spud guns... it was fun... just like the movies. I blew up trees and such, and generally had a good time. I had never thought of blowing up the school. (although if others had been in the news, I'm very sure that I would have done the same... thats what scares America.)
Well, I'm writing a book now. The story of my life and exactly how fucked you can get when dealing the govt agencies. They have rules and regulations that account for the common denominator. If I was a complete underacheaver with an IQ of 100 I would fit in just fine, but a smart kid gets shit on. Lets all get together as Americans and shit on every smart kid in the world... just because they want to live without constant tourcher.
I don't know what exactly happened between this other kid and the school, but when I got arrested this is how it went.
S = School rep
P = Police
M = Me
P: Why did you do it.
M: I didn't
S: Listen Nick, this is a serious offence. This is a second degree computer crime. You are going to court as an adult and you are going to jail for 10 years
M: *cry* but I didn't do it *sob*
P: I think he has had enough... lets call his parents
S: Just a few more questions?
P: ok
S: Do you worshp the devil?
Govt agencies use scare tactics whenever possible. They have power, and they abuse it in every way that won't get them fired.
I took a whole jar of pills that night, but vomited them up (otherwise empty stomache). I hope the poor kids parents are ok, and I hope we can bring some light to the chaos that is highschool society and govt agencies.
Also, as many have probably decided, this isn't very on topic for the most part. It is just SoC about my high school time. It it not a troll.
Thanks,
"Nick"
Enormous thanks to Karan, K.C., Chris, & Beau
If weren't for you, I would have been a corpse long ago.
--==--
A few notes:
--==--
1: they got a call from a local BBS sysop complaining that I'd been makeing extra accounts and downloading pr0n all night
--==--
2: They were driveless systems made to boot from floppy and login to a novell server. They used the login.exe program to do the login. Someone (they said me) replaced the login.exe with a custom QuickBasic program. Unfortunatly, QB programs needed msdos5, where the workstations all ran 3.2 or something. A funny situation I though being as it was only 3 years ago.
Everyone seems to be so puzzled about why the boy would take his own life over just a slight possibility, however improbable, of going to jail... he's an intelligent boy, he probably realized that there was only a very small chance if any that he might have to go to jail.
But a kid grows up in a family like that, where he's expected to always be perfect, supposed to be good, a model citizen... then he's caught doing something wrong, in his mind it doesn't compute. He doesn't know how to handle it, how to deal, how to show his face in front of his parents after being thus ashamed, feels he let them down. Even if he doesn't go to jail, he's thinking it'll be on his permanent record, how'll he ever get into college that way? And if he can't get into college, his parents will be eternally ashamed, he'll have no future, no point in living anymore.
And even if his thought process doesn't go that far, he's still panicking and doesn't know how to deal, easiest way out is to hang himself.
I was almost in the same situation once, but not even nearly as bad--I was in 8th grade, taking a geography test, and someone caught me cheating--I hadn't even meant to, I just had a study sheet that'd fallen under my desk, and in the middle of the test I noticed that it was there, and so I was staring at it and someone else saw me doing so and told the teacher. And everyone else in the class. It seemed as though everyone in the school knew I had cheated, people kept coming up to me and accusing me of cheating. I spent a good three weeks in an utter panic, crying, I was so depressed and panicked I seriously wanted to die.
I'd never been caught doing _anything_ bad. I just didn't know how to deal with it. I wasn't even punished for it or anything, my teacher approached me three weeks later and asked me about it, and I explained/confessed and then everything was all right, he didn't even dock my grade any.
But if he had chosen to fail me and/or talk to my parents, I honestly don't know what I would have done. Suicide was certainly floating around my thoughts the entire time. It's not that my parents ever explicited voiced their expectations about my moral behavior, other than the 'that person cheated, isn't he horrible' type of indirect voicing. But it was always implicit, I always knew they'd be terribly disappointed/ashamed if I were ever caught doing something like that.
I've never valued life all that highly, but I'm not depressed by nature, and certainly not suicidal. I'm a typically very happy person. But something like that just doesn't enter into the realm of possibilities that I could deal with. If jail were even a remote possibility for him, I can certainly see him deciding to take his life rather than deal with the consequences.
Damn straight.
Picture this, though - last week I had a near-death experience - in a fifteen minute period existence pulled a 180 and tried to kill myself but got frustrated because chose the wrong kind of knife, and was going to go get another but instead picked up a crane sitting there on my monitor, opened it up, and found a new sense of purpose, life... just from a short messaged written inside...
People think that suicidal thoughts, near suicides are not normal - they shouldn't be, but most of us have them at some point - most of us don't grab a knife and start cutting, most of us don't feel the wind rushing up the side of the building, most of us don't chase a handful sleepers with vodka... but some of us do. It's not a terribly far cry - it just needs the wrong timing with how you're doing, and your life to fall appart on you.
We somehow think that we're much less fragile than a 13 year old - but consider this; 13 year old kids run around and they take a lot of shit - adults haven't had to practice that in a long time. Real emotion comes by and suddenly we're suicidal. Adults are in the same boat as the 13 year olds - and don't forget it.
LLTD
District Superintendent John Fitzsimons must be the dumbest man alive. From the article; "We don't know why (he committed suicide) and we feel terrible about it," Fitzsimons said. John maybe you need to learn to read and comprehend.
I would like to point out that convicted felons can indeed restore their entire and full rights as citizens the very day they finish parole. A convicted felon can apply for his or her rights to be returned, the process does not take very long, and very few persons are denied. So you're a convicted felon? Keep your nose clean, be patient, and you can be a citizen again. Look it up in your lawbooks. =)
How does an innocent kid dying get turned into a "women's issue"? A KID DIED! Where was the invitation to quote rape statistics? Quoting rape statistics in jail, that was relevant to the kid (allegedly) being threatened with imprisonment. That was on topic. Criticizing that post because women also get raped is the kind of troll that turns men AND women away from some PACs and idealogies which claim to represent all women. /.
story
on a boy being suspended for the indirect reason of being a geek,
and that one didn't end in suicide. To turn this boy's death into
a soapbox for male bashing (funny how there's no antonym for
mysogyny) and to walk over this innocent boy's grave with your
blanket statement about lawbreakers is the worst kind of sin.
By the way, boys and men also get raped, sexually harassed, and sexually discriminated against. This includes boys and men who are NOT lawbreakers. This includes boys and men who are NOT lawbreakers but are IN prison (or reform school, etc.).
Did you mean to imply that only lawbreakers go to jail, or was that disinformation accidental because your school didn't teach about the same social injustices that my school taught? Or is not injustice unless it happens to a woman who looks and thinks like you? Innocent people go to jail too! Innocent people get raped in jail!
I'm not saying only innocent people get raped in jail or all innocent people in jail get raped. I'm saying not only lawbreakers are in jail and not only lawbreakers get raped in jail. This is about why the kid was afraid to go to jail. No one in the previous posts said to ignore the fact that innocent women also get raped. No one said it because it wasn't relevant!. The post which you trolled offered a reason for the boy being frightened by the suggestion that he may go to jail. 1 in 4 women get raped. That's a frightening stat. There's a 1 in 4 for chance that you will get raped. Do you think a 13 year old boy has a less that 1 in 4 chance of being raped in jail? Do you think he deserves to get raped for his crime? Do you think less of him because he's not a girl?
Reality check, when this boy was told he can go to jail, he probably imagined being locked up with adolescents or adults, not kids his own age. He probably imagined his chances of getting raped being a hell of a lot higher than 1 in 4. Reality check, if any of those 1 in 4 women who get raped ever exceeded the speed limit or forced their ways through intersections just as the signals changed from amber to red, she is more of a lawbreaker than this kid is. Try your post this way: "What so many women conveniently forget is that it worse to be kicked out of school, falsely imprisoned, and raped for a crime you didn't commit. Maybe we should try to think of innocent children before worrying so much about lawbreakers."
Would I be so upset over your troll if this boy didn't seem so much like I was at his age? Yes, I would be just as outraged by your post under his story and I would be and I would be just as shocked and heartbroken that his story happened at all. I was already shaken up by the last
Just so you don't accuse me of taking the rape of innocent women lightly, just a few months ago, I listened to a DA tell a friend that if she continues in her attempts to bring rape charges against her former common law partner, she will be charged under some kind of public nuisance law and her friends (that's me) will be charged for helping her. I can tell you first hand that DAs won't limit themselves to prosecuting lawbreakers, in fact some of them would rather prosecute the victim than the criminal. Is this DA a mysogynist? You wouldn't know it by looking at her!
I'm posting anonymously like you did not because I'm a coward (are you afraid of the truth?) but to leave you to guess my gender. Chances are you'll guess wrong. (Please, people, please don't post any questions about my friend's case, I won't even tell you which state. If I wanted help, I would "Ask Slashdot". We're supposed to be discussing Shinjan's story. I'm making this OT post to complain that an OT post was made under such a tragic story. Please stay on topic and honour the boy.)
Look at how jail is portrayed on TV, its a harsh brutal place where people get raped and beaten up daily. The principal threatened the child with the threat of being sent to jail. I've been talked to by my teachers, basically because i'm doing stuff they just don't understand. Why punish kids because they have a goddamn curiosity? Thats medieval thinking, and this is what happens when you try and confine people to your simple minded ideals. I doubt the kid did anything like changing grades, or malicious. People are naturally curious, but people are trying to curb this by outrageous things like the DMCA, an understanding of computers shouldn't be considered a crime. A kid gets his home busted into and his computer consficated because he wrote a program that circumvents stupid technology. A good kid, with a bright future is cut short because he was interested in how things worked. We look back on people like Galileo with awe, at how he wouldn't be silenced by the simpleminded religous zealots. He died for what he believed for, this kid died because he feared for his life.
> 10 days is a little extreme for that type of violation Depends on what kind of data he gained access to. For all we know he could have: - gained access to everyone's email - read tests - read/changed grades & scores - accessed student records - accessed school employee files - or even _changed_ student/faculty records And if the entire school district was networked, scale up the potential damage and/or invasion of privacy by a few order of magnitudes. For a website full of rabid privacy freaks, I'm suprised people are taking the kid's side. Having said all that, I'm _very_ suprised that someone considered so intelligent committed suicide. Makes me wonder if there wasn't something more going on. *shrug*
I have been (roughly speaking) in his position, and the one thing that saved me from his fate was someone who reminded me that there were other people like me who could help me through the rough times.
I mean, really. The kid was just as curious as anyone else his age, he went where he didn't belong, and got busted. That happens to a lot of people, I think. But when that kid feels like there's nothing left for him in this world, something is wrong.
This has nothing to do with a jail sentence. Depression amongst our youth is a very serious problem that is regularly ignored by parents and teachers. Knee-jerk accusations of computer games, music, drugs, and (yes) threatened jail sentences obscure the issue. People do not kill themselves because of an outer influence, they kill themselves because they can't handle the pain inside. We should supporting children, teaching them coping mechanisms, working on fixing the cause rather than blaming the symptoms.
When they finally learned that the injuries were done by a local school bully (there were witnesses)... THE SCHOOL ABANDONED ALL INTEREST IN THE STUDENT'S INJURIES!
Someone explain to be why schools are ready to send armed guards (like Elian Gonzales) to sieze battered kids from abusive parents yet have no problem with kids abusing and beating up other students?
So you forgot you were reading /. with the Oog cookie set, eh?
When I was in primary school, I run in problems with teachers on a regular basis, although I was by no mean a nasty kid. The problem was simple: some of the teachers came completely unprepared, other were simply incompetent, yet third simply had no interest in job they were doing. As a result, I was bored to death during classes, and started causing "problems". Some of these "problems" involved:
I guess you can imagine other types of conflicts along these lines... Mediocre teachers did what the medicrits all over the world always do, and tried to blame the kid for their failures. First they "found out" that I'm a halfwitt, and should be moved to "special school". Schools "psyhologist" agreed with this idea, but my mother (who happens to be a medical doctor) didn't, so she took me to children psyhologist. I solved all of the tests they could find in record time and asked for more, so that problem was solved.
There we were back in school (for some reason, schools psyhologist didn't cross my path for rest of the schooling anymore), it's difficult to argue with a letter from central children hospital saying "extraordinary inteligent", but this didn't stop few extremely stupid teachers from summiting my parents and bothering them with details of how "nasty" I was and such. After some time I learned that having an interesting teacher is a rare privilege, and learned how to ignore the boring ones while concentrating on other activities. By the time I went to secondary school, I was so well trained that I only got in conflict with chemistry teacher once-or-twice during four years i spent there. (OK, being in a "good" school helped)
I was lucky: My parents fully understood a problem, there were several inteligent teachers in the school who learned how to keep me buisy, and last but not the least important, my parents inscribed me on all kinds of out-of-school activities. Were it not for these three factors, I would have probably ended up doing something illegal myself: not out of any pressing need, or mischief, but simply because I would have been bored to death.
My advice to parents: don't let idiots ruin your kids life. Always double-check what teachers are telling you, especially in case one teacher complains a lot, while another one seams to be completely at ease with your kid. And, first thing to check in case you have a "problem kid" is how inteligent it is (don't trust your school authorities on that, search for independent expertise). If it turns out to be extremely inteligent, all you have to do is find out a way to keep it buisy. Punishments and such can only make matter worse.
Tell that to the 13 year old kid who murdered his baby daughter here in Ohio. I think he got out of being tried as an adult. He'll spend a few years in juvenile lockup and then be off scott free. Must be nice to be able to murder a human being and then claim ignorance of youth. I don't know, but I kind of draw the line with teenagers. I can see raping and murdering people, but hacking? Give me a break. As long as the school wasn't clueless he couldn't have done any permanent damage. They should've had backups of any critical data (yea right). He should've gotten 6 months of community service helping old people or handicapped kids work with computers. Find some constructive outlet for the kid's energies and skills, don't just write him off.
Although the Trenton Times doesn't appear to know this either, the
proper past tense for this is "hanged". You would say "He hung his coat on the hook" but "He hanged himself".
No, not much sense to it, but that's the English language for you.
I can think of at least one!
I first thought this was a joke but then realized this kid somehow figured it out in his head that hacking into a computer would set the government on his trail and sentence him to prison, a perception generated by many a web site news agency. What else does a 13 year old have to go on but what he reads on the internet?
When you read article after article day after day about the government trying to rule the world by squashing computer hackers into little bits, it raises a generation of kids who can think of nothing but how computer hacking is everything the universe is made of and when you're caught hacking into a school computer you've commited a crime against the government worse than murder, the government is going to send the armed forces after you, imprison you for life, and castrate your grandkids, when all you've done is hack into a computer.
Some people don't know when to quit hyping conspiracies and stop sending these kids home with nightmares for the rest of their lives. Thank God the media hasn't picked up burning toast as the next government conspiracy.
http://www.ww-p.org/
o ff ice&page=centraloffice/Staff.data&title=Staff
The superintendant's email address....
wwpsup@pluto.njcc.com
and a list of other email addresses.
http://www.ww-p.org/display.asp?section=central
And what's terrible, it's an IIS site (.asp) no wonder it was so easily hacked!)
Lets Pray for Shinjan.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Is it just me or are we seeing a serious loss of perspective here?
--
What if Microsoft used the suicide of a Linux user to advance the view that Linux was bad? Well the same thing is happening here. Anyone who kills themselves has serious problems, and the implication that just because a kid gets suspended from school, and commits suicide, means that the school killed him, is oppertunism at its worst. If you think that people should concentrate more on security, than on punishing people who break security, then so-be-it. But don't use the death of a clearly disturbed child to advance your view point.
--
True, rules should apply to everyone. However, judgements should fit the crime and the criminal.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
... then it's something that's on the books but not enforced unless you have a parent push or have a couple of teachers push the district (as happened in my school district when I was in 10th grade - some teachers managed to set up a gifted program in the high school that some people found worthwhile).
Usually, in the absence of a real concerted program, what happens in high schools is that IEP's are filled out by using a form letter with some suitably generic text that basically just says "we gave the kid a chance to take honors classes"; these forms are then filed away somewhere in case the state wants to check the district's paperwork. It may even be that no one in the district is aware of this requirement except the one secretary who files the form letters each year.
However, if you can write a decent proposal (won't help your particular situation much, but maybe some high school junior is reading this), you can usually mention this requirement to enough people to let you do an independent study instead of a regular class. (I was able to bargain out one period a day, a promotional copy of an AP physics text they had lying around, and access to a storage closet with a desk and lamp in it - it sure beat out the "honors" 12th grade physics that just barely got to angular momentum by the end of the year)
Don't kid yourself, though - it's not as though the school actually tries to meet the needs of the bottom 2% either. My district ran a program for the mentally retarded students from several local districts, and they basically just warehoused them.
I'm saddened to hear a gifted child would be so theatened by the very people he should be able to trust.
Kids should be guided. Bad acts should be turned to good. They should be told they have committed a crime and they will be going to jail "for years without a trial".
Ok this may not have been what the kid was told bit if he liked hacking he would have known what they did to Kevin M.
Strong examples (make by the goverment) lead to strong actions make by the public. Even kids get the message.
There are 10 type of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Hopefully people will see both sides of this issue; more than one party may be to blame.
It is disturbing that this kid may become viewed as a martyr among certain computer geeks. Here on slashdot it is not uncommon for readers to be all too quick in chastising "the system" for their actions in matters which affect geeks. If he did in fact hack maliciously then I have little sympathy for him receiving a fair punishment.
At the same time the boy may have been treated improperly by the school board. I have been involved in situations involving school administrators acting rash and grossly misunderstanding the situation. If they behaved too harshly then the school should take some blame for this incident.
Perhaps the boy had psychological problems or the school board had it in for him, maybe both. I'm sure there are many side to this issue (like any other) and I just hope people will remember to take everything into account before passing judgement on any one party.
Religions are by their very nature a screwed value system. They demand that you believe things which are neither provable nor logical, and worse than that, demand that you live your life by those non-ratifiable beliefs.
People should stop pointing the finger at the school administration (which thankfully in the US, unlike here in the UK, is refreshingly religion-free), and instead have a good look at parents. Hindu, Christian, Islam or Pagan, it's about time we stamped out this nonsense which is ruining people's lives.
There was a time when the world was ruled by religion- it was called the Dark Ages.
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
It may be many bad things, but definitely not theft nor burglary.
Theft is the intention to permanently deprive someone of physical property. It does not apply to IP such as grades or computer security.
Burglary is theft plus breaking a physical barrier (eg. picking a lock, smashing a window). Again it does not apply to IP such as grades or computer security.
Us spods need to fight this whole concept of "software theft". Theft permanently deprives someone of something tangible. Software is not tangible, and copying it does not deprive anyone of the original. Grades are not tangible either, and changing his own or others who have paid/asked him does not deprive anyone else of theirs.
an insult to academic integrity
Starting with the dictionary... :-)
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Of course in longterm.
Also explaining requires some understanding and knowledge from parents/teachers/... while scaring requires just strong words and/or loud voice.
hany
We're definitely not getting the whole story here. Something else happened or was going on, and that something is most probably the root cause of what happened.
According to the mother, he left a note, saying he'd rather be dead than go to jail. I'm inclined to believe this part of the story, as it seems something that a 13 year old kid would write, and I don't see why the mother would falsify it.
What's also pretty much unquestioned is that the parents WANT to blame someone. They WANT to be able to vent their pain at something/someone, and the school is a VERY convenient target.
Now...we have a kid, who "hacked" a school computer ("hacked" being defined by the tight-lipped school district, who doesn't say exactly what the kid did, or exactly how severe the infringement was), and was given a 10 day out-of-school suspension (a VERY serious punishment - in my district, even excessively violent kids who physically wounded shool staff were at MAXIMUM given 5 days (AKA: one school week) suspension out-of-school). We have no idea what the crime was, exactly, or why the school district thought it necessary to administer such a severe punishment.
We also know (from the kid's note) that SOMEHOW he got an inkling that he WAS going to go to jail for what he did. This is a bright kid. Gifted both physically and mentally. Beginning puberty (which means that what's going on in his head probably doesn't quite add up - hormones are tricky things) - and most probably very curious. A kid like that isn't going to take "If you were an adult, this would be considered a crime, and could possibly carry some jail time" as "YOU ARE GOING TO JAIL". It's going to take something a bit more blunt to put that kind of idea in the kids head. I'm inclined to think someone spoke too harshly, or used an indirect threat that got taken out of context in the kid's mind, in combination with the severity of his punishment.
Most probably that comment came from whomever handed down the punishment to the kid. (I'm assuming the principal of the school)
Is he directly to blame for the kid's death? Absolutely not. Did he contribute to it? I'm inclined to say yes.
What we don't know is if there were other factors that may have contributed to this. Things like how the kid's social life at school was - was he bullied? Hated by his peers? (or *thought* his peers hated him) Any number of things could have been going on that may have contributed in part to this.
While I feel it's wrong to blame the school exclusively for the suicide, I *do* agree that there is a case for partial blame there.
The situation most probably could have been handled much more delicately. A *short* suspension, followed by possibly giving the kid an active project with the computer network could have been a good start.
I feel for the parents and their immense loss. There's no way that anyone can know their loss without going through it as well.
I have a friend, one who rings late at night, is regularly depressed, and more than just occasionally talks about ending it all. I make time for her, because otherwise, she'll just be another statistic before the year's out.
There's no reason to do take your own life. If you're in the same boat, get some help now. There are many anonymous forms of help, so no one needs to know. But it's so much better if you can ask your friends and family for help. If they had an ounce of humanity in them, like me, they'll take the calls at 3 am.
It's never too late to ask for help. The numbers for places like LifeLine (it's a secular suicide prevention line) are found in your phone books.
Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program
Andrew van der Stock
You have to understand that this was a 13 year old kid and that he's going to take this kind of shit seriously because you can't possibly expect a child to have the perspective on this at all. Especially if he had never been in trouble (trouble being defined as having been sent to the principal's office and suspended) before.
When you talk to a 13 year old child, you are not dealing with an adult. Yes, they need to learn that what they did was wrong, but you don't throw something like fscking JAIL TIME in their face. That's just as tasteless as telling a 4-year old that if he doesn't behave you'll lock him in the closet with the boogie man. If you can't find a better way to reinforce the severity of the offense than to draw on the fear of an adult punishment, then chances are high that you don't understand kids... let alone have even a pale image of a clue as to what kind of damage you might be doing.
Is the principal directly to blame for the kid killing himself? No. But he certainly helped set up the stage.
I just hope this dork feels as sick now as he felt self-righteous when he watched the terror creep across the kid's face when he told him he "could" be going jail. Although the principal didn't kill him, he's got bad kharma like Shawn Kemp's got child support payments. When he lies awake at night at 3am staring at the ceiling, I hope he begins to just get an inkling of what his role was.
And I hope it's enough to convince to get the hell out of middle school education and into a situation where he can ego trip on pushing around people his own size.
What are you talking about? My school, and in fact the whole district, is just fine. As are many other schools. There is only a very small percentage of schools that make the news for stupid stuff like this. Besides, it's usually mostly the dumb kids' faults that things happen, nobody else's. This kid would have commited suicide the first time he had a bad thing happen in his life. If everyone did that, we'd all be dead.
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"When one seeks answers when none exist, it's understandable to extend blame," [school district Superintendent John] Fitzsimons said.
Turn the situation around however and it is music, movies, computer games and a lack of interest in sports that is at fault for anything a dejected teen does.
I genuinely consider this tragic, but I think the question needs to be asked:
Why is it that when a 13-year-old kid cracks your network he's called a script kiddie, but when he cracks someone else's and commits suicide, he's called gifted? I think if he was as smart as the article made him sound, he would not have committed suicide.
That he holds a black belt in TaekwonDo and would still take his own life is a little surprising to me, as well. I'm a TKD practitioner, and our tenets are courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit. Someone with a black belt is expected not just to memorize these tenets, but follow them as a way of life. Committing suicide flies in the face of all these tenets.
Surely an intelligent 13-year-old would have realized he wouldn't be jailed for his offenses, too.
I suppose these questions are all moot. The situation is as disturbing as it is curious. I get the feeling, though, that maybe something was left out in the article. Things just don't seem to add up.
Jason.
While this sounds like some teen angst joke, it ain't. While 13 year olds are completely capable of reason, many of them are so caught up in their emotional travails (something that makes it much easier for adults to manipulate them).
It's like a principle of mine, years and years ago. He'd do everything in his power to exaggerate the seriousness of an offense, mess with a kid's emotions. Then this jackass would call up their parents and make these kids give sobbing confessions about the petty, inane, totally irrelevant things their done "wrong".
And, as was pointed out, the way the media plays on the issues of violence and other social factors in the prison environment, is it any wonder than some kid with a lot of smarts, but very little in the way of LIFE EXPERIENCE would be willing to DIE to avoid that?
Note: I'm not saying I agree with the kid's conclusions. I'm just saying I can understand how he arrived at them.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This shows lack of comprehension. I used to (and still do) read similar texts because I enjoyed it, from about 3rd grade and onwards. If I was somewhere I needed to kill time, I usually tried (and try) to bring some technical/academic text (computers, science, business, ...) and some fiction - as what I want to read depend on my mood. However, all of it is for my own enjoyment, not to show off.
As to not showing interest in what other people are interested in: As a teenager, you are by necessity overfocused on your interests - because you have not yet got the background necessary to handle a spread of interests. There just hasn't been enough time to learn that many sides of how the world works to a sufficient level of detail (at least not with the amount of focus most of us are able to produce.)
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
You have read Atlas Shrugged. Something that everyone on slashdot should do, maybe they would stop playing victim. Trust me it's a lot more fun.
Why are people martyring this kid? he checked it in, he gave up. Listen I know there are a lot of kids on this site, and a lot of you think the world is stacked against you. No matter how shitty you feel, and how unfair the world seems at the time, killing yourself is ALWAYS the wrong answer. It gets nothing done, you are dead. If you feel like taking your, or someone elses, life talk to someone, if you think you can't talk to your parents or teachers, call a hotline, check yourself into a hospital, email me, ANYTHING but killing yourself. Remember when you are dead, there will be no more fun times for you, your family will never be the same. You never get what you want when you are dead.
Man, you people are lucky. My high school had one (1) Franklin Ace (Apple IIe compatable). 'Course I suspect I went through high school a few years before y'all did... ;-) Anyway, my teacher quit reading my code when I started using assembly... Direct writes to video memory were so much faster too...
Stephen L. Palmer
---Middle Earth
Stephen L. Palmer
---Middle Earth
Aha, memories: back in 5th form [IIRC] I got into trouble (not suspended, thankfully) because *another* student had a few weeks ago given me a copy of that great secret document: the list of IP->PC mappings on our school network. This student (not me) then proceeded to WinNuke [sent OOB data to port 139] a box another student was using...
Of course, when he got in trouble he in some way managed to mention my name. Ho, ho. So I got the dreaded person-coming-to-whatever-class-I-was-in to take me up to "talk" to the deputy principal. That guy was scared. He didn't know anything about IP (not surprisingly) or, it seemed, backups, and it seemed that my being honest and saying that yes I did have a copy of WinNuke and that list did not help matters.
Thankfully nothing (apart from this "talk") actually happened to me. It may have helped that I was known to various staff as a "good" student.
But I can see how this could have happened for that kid, at least potentially: perfectionism, pressure from parents to succeed, possibly some depression thrown into the mix too, and overly harsh treatement from school admin. Having said that though, the lack of detail on what he actually did is rather strange; he may have done something that really did merit that much punishment. Or not.
--
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
I'm no expert in the area, but if I'm not mistaken any decent private school will have at least that many certification requirements for two reasons:
AFAIK, certification isn't really that bad: if teaching really interests you, then there should be no question that it's worth it.
My $.02,
-"Zow"
I'll one up you there (nothing personal) - It was describing me perfectly up to reform school - hair & all. In fact, the other kids in High School called me Screech to tease me. Fortunately I found my revenge in sucess and not suicide: instead of reform school I went to college and these days I'm pulling an impressive salary doing computer security work for the government while working on my Ph.D.
Oh - and the hair grew out into a chic magnet in college (then I cut it off about a month after my wedding).
-"Zow"
I don't think anyone is arguing with what you've said here. Does that mean we can't hear about it?
You know what I do when I see an article I'm not interested in? I don't read it.
Pardon me for saying so, but that straw
seems to be made of NEUTRON STAR.
You ever been suicidal? You have strong opinions and you make some good points, but I dn't know if you're grasping the suicide part. The facts are this: He is dead, he wrote a note saying he couldn't face the consequences. He had other problems of course - we all do, myself included - he just needed something big to push him over the edge. Look hard enough and you'll find something in your life that could put you in the same circumstances.
>I personally think all the ... mentally unstable people ... should eat a bullet.
Most of us ARE somewhat unstable - the price of a strong intellect and years of introspection. Most of us set our lives up to account for this - fallbacks, etc... I'd advise you look around. Someone you know now will probably be dead in 5 years from suicide. If you're lucky it'll be someone really close to you, then maybe you'll understand why your view is wrong and his/her death will have done someone some good.
Frankly, I sympathise very much with the 13 year old child.
Young teenagers are very impressionable and I can imagine that his idea of prison, probably as portrayed on television, would inspire terror in him. Nor can he have had a clear comprehension of the insignificance of his crime as computer criminals generally go to low-security prisons instead of being shipped off into the maximum-security jungle of thugs, rapists and murderers. This just goes to show how television can distort people's ideas of life.
I can easily imagine preferring to hang myself than going to prison and being raped in the shower by muscular thugs and stabbed with sharpened toothbrushes.
Senior Year of high school. I was a honor student who was involved with the Academic Decathalon, a football player, on the track team, the editor of the school's TV news program and founding officer of the Computer Club.
We have two parking lots in our school. One close to the school (got to get there early) and one further away. I ALWAYS park at the close parking lot (because I always got to school early to hang with my friends, play magic and bull shit about computers). However, I went to a Pantera concert the night before, got in later than usual and parked in the far away parking lot.
Well, wouldn't you know it, that was they day they decided to let drug-sniffing dogs scour the parking lot. However, they only did the far away praking lot (I guess they figured drug users don't get to school early). I was called out of class in the morning and asked to report to my car. I had a pretty decent idea of why they might be interested in my car.
I get there and I'm asked to consent to a search and am told that if I don't consent they'll get a search warrant. I consent. I'm asked to unlock the car so a plain-clothes policewoman can search my car. Knowing that I had a bag of weed and a small bong under the driver's seat, I open the passanger-side door. The polie officer searchs the car including under every seat except the driver seat. She finds a stem, two seeds and a mostly burnt paper with resin on it. I am told to wait in the principals office.
I wait outside her office for 4 hours, in plain view of everyone walking by in between classes. Fun, I tell you. I finally get into the office and I am told that they found drugs in my car and that the school is a zero-tolerance school and the evidence will be turned over to the police for prosecution. I was also on indenfinte suspension from that moment. My parents were called and told the same. I was sent home. My parents yelled and screamed at me for a half hour or so and then sent me to my room (or I left, I don't remember). At this time I typed a letter on my Amiga explaining the reasons that it is fucked up that I would every have to go to jail. I said I didn't want to go to jail and it would be better if I were dead. I then swallowed three 30 count bottles of Tylenol PM (painkiller + sleep pill) and a bottle of something else.
I ate dinner with my parents. I had to go to the Senior Musical practice that night. I tried to get out of it but they insisted. I felt pretty drunk by the time I arrived. I fell alseep in the seats of the theatre before practice. Practice had started and at somepoint a teacher woke me up and said I didn't look to good. I said I didn't feel to good and thought I should go home. I remember vomiting outside the school.
I don't remember this part but was filled in on it later. I went to the school parking lot and fell asleep next to a light pole. Someone in my class was driving by, saw and recognized me. he drove up and got me into the car. He knew where I lived (I lived a mile away from the school) or I told him, but he got my home and helped me inside. I went to sleep on the living room couch.
I remember this part. My parents were away but they came back soon after. They asked what I was doing home early from practice. From this point on, I spoke completely in non-sensical sentences. I knew what I was saying didn't make a lick of sense (I was speaking stream-of-conscious annd my conscious was really fucked up) but I was still trying to act "normal." It was a losing battle. My parent's were convinced I was on some "heavy drugs" because I was, after all a "drug user." I had only smoked pot previosuly (ok, ok, I dropped acid a couple times too). I was sent to me room.
All I wanted to do was sleep. My mother came back up to my room and started asking "what did you take?" "Did you take anything at the concert?" She was convinced I had taken something at the concert and was having a flashback or it took a while to hit (24 hours!). To get her to shut up so I could get back to sleep, I told her that I took all of those pills (pointing to 4 empty bottles of pills).
That was a bad idea! She made me get up and go to the hospital! It was totally crowded, but she just went to the reg desk and slapped down 4 empty bottles of pills and said "he took those." I was brought back immediately.
I started vomiting everywhere, including all over a nurse (sorry!). They made me drink charcoal and pushed a tube up my nose and gave me IV. Since, by this time, it had been proably 3 or 4 hours since I took the pills, I ingested alot of it and there wasn't a whole lot they could except to put hook me up to all the monitors (critical condition!) They told my parents that there is a good chance I would die.
Well, luckily I didn't. I was released the next day. My kidneys went into shock and I had to take some medication for that.
So, I had a meeting with the principal and some pyschs the next Tuesday. I think they found out about the suicide on Monday. When I came in, I was now told that I would not be suspended or expelled, the police would not be involved and I would have to do is go to forced Psych sessions and "group therapy."
The only thing good about the Psych sessions was the Psych liked to play Civilization, so we spent the whole time exchanging stratagies. Group Therapy was weird. Those were people who did some hardcore shit.
Everyone except for one girl and one guy who they found an oz+ of weed had no disciplanory action taken against them. Too this day, I'm convinced it's because of my attempted suicide. I guess they didn't want one of their best students to have killed themselves over a few branches and seeds found in their car.
In the end, the suicide was one of the best things I ever did. I began a 100% turn around on my personality. I used to be a depressed and loathsome individual. I did alot of soul-searching and becamse much happier and certainly no longer suicidal. I finished highschool, finished college, and now work as an electrical engineer.
What greater good is being fullfilled if I were to have been expelled or gone to jail because I smoked pot? My being caught didn't cause me to stop either. Though I am not currently smoking right now, I smoked on and off all through college (only stopping 3 months before internships for drug tests).
Anyway, same story, different law.
Oh yeah, I had hacked into the dstrict computer shortly after that. But that was only because the Psych's office had the phone number and his username to the district computer in his office. My friend guessed his password, it was money! (Thanks Jim!)
---------------------------
That's not what I meant.
This, and many of the other postings regarding this issue, are perhaps a bit misled, and if anything I think your campaign would be taking a bad situation and making it worse.
It's a classic trait of humanity that we try to simplify whatever happens so we can pretend that we can easily "fix" it. Kid opens fire on a local high school: It must be Doom. Ban Doom and therefore we're all safe and can feel safe and sound again because everything is all right. Kid commits suicide after being caught committing illegal acts? Blame the people who caught them. Kid commits suicide after getting D on test? Damn that murderous teacher! Kid commits suicide after getting caught hacking into school computer? If only computers weren't in the classroom this would never have happened! BAN COMPUTERS FROM CLASSROOMS!
The reality is that such simplifications are ridiculous and distract people from actually caring about the wide-ranging and hard to comprehend issues behind something like this. Just as the general readership of Slashdot would laugh when presented with the standard knee-jerk "ban violent video games" after an outburst at a school, they should see the same thing in this. Sure the kid was a "hacker"...whatever. We know nothing of the kids family life, his friend situation, whether he was really depressed about a big zit, whether he was hacking to try to get requitement for his love, etc. Suicide, which is generally an act of incredible cowardice (yes I know this is insensitive, but you know what kids: It's true. There is no honor in suicide. People feel bad for a couple of days and then they move on, but you remain 105% dead. If you wanted to point to something as the cause of teen suicides point to boohoo sessions such as what many of the memorials here on Slashdot are doing). Probably the biggest "fantasy" teens have about suicides is that suddenly everyone will realize how great they were and will talk about how they miss them, blah blah blah (ala a million teeny shows). I think probably the greatest suicide reduction technique that we as a society could introduce is to immediately bury them in unmarked mass graves and immediately ban any mention of them or their name [see 1984]. I would wager suicides would drop through the floor.
If we could only hug and coddle all kids who fuxxor up, it'd be a brave new world of kids who never feel sad or lonely, etc. If we made a world where teens could do whatever they wanted without regard with no ups and no downs, and no responsibility for their actions, it would be a completely lost generation.
This posting I'm writing might cause 10 kids to go slice their wrists. The inevitable goatsex followup might cause 15 more to go jump off cliffs. Yet the only ones we can blame for our actions are ourselves, and as intelligent young adults teens are the same way.
Cheers!
Yeah, because the fact that Telsa patented various radio systems (patents 645,576 and 649,621) at the same time, along with John Stone, Oliver Lodge, and guy who's first name I can't remember Fleming, is completely unimportant. Let's just pick the guy who got famous by setting up a company and say he did it.
While the idea the Supreme Court ruled Telsa invented the radio is false, the idea that they ruled Marconi didn't isn't false. Almost everything Marconi did was either already done by Lodge, Telsa, Stone, or Fleming, and most of Marconi patents were invalidated in the 1943.
And, yes, this was another example of Tesla getting at least partially screwed and making no money from something. But it certainly wasn't entirely his invention.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
any bets on whether the parents sue the district or the principal?
got more of a reaction than he bargained for.
The bully must have leaned too hard, built a heavy (big) house of cards on this kid's imagination and had him convinced he was ruined and had brought shame on his family.
Unlike a American tough who would have told him to use the guilt trip ticket as a suppository, the kid, a respectful caring and curious Indian, used the ticket on a one way trip.
Somebody needs to find a new career before he fucks up again. Maybe as a prison gard?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
--
Hackers always seem to forget this side of the story. He was explicitly told not to persue what he was doing, and he continued. Chargind him with a crime might have been a little overboard, but its not like he diddnt do anything wrong.
They knew my friend and I had been using them heavily, so we were blamed for their failure.
This whole story sounds like someone is trying to be exonerated in the court of public opinion, good thinking, you stupid little criminal.
If in fact you had exposed the evil principals charade, by uncovering the secret logs (what a crock!) why did your parents stand by and let you take the 120 hours of community service? Your parents seemed sufficiently outraged. Bullshit!
You know what you ought to do? Send a letter to 2600 magazine detailing just why it is that we should feel sorry for you, or better yet, send it to Phrack magazine. I'm sure there'll be a shoulder you can cry on there, girly-boy.
We took shit for years from teachers
Cry me a fucking river. If you weren't stupid, and hadn't got caught, you wouldn't have had to take shit from nobody. But I guess that's to be expected from a Mac luser.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
2) because she was already planning my submission of the hours video taping as hours of community service when we were still in that guy's office. She's pretty crafty.
Bullshit. This is totally an adolescent fantasy.
But when something broke, someone had to be the fall guy. Guess who got that honor...
If you didn't know what you were doing, as you've admitted, how do you be so sure that you weren't the ones who caused the problems in the first place? This is just another teenage oppression fantasy. You poor child. You've had such hard life. Here's my pity.
Normally I wouldn't waste my time on people like yourself, but this post hit a nerve.
It hit a nerve because you and I both know that I was dead on correct. If I were wrong, you could ignore it. It stings because you know I called your bluff, and now you're back-peddling, making up more BS about your mom coming to your defense, and how she planned all along to bill the school for your unjust punishment. Take a step back and listen to your story from our point of view. It sounds like total bullshit, like something a little kid would make up when he was caught in a lie.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Funny... my parents, knowing that suspension from school is the root of all the troubles in this world, just made sure I didn't do something to get myself suspended.
I concur. Too many people on this board just pipe right up and say it was the schools fault. The relationship he had with his parents goes far and beyond any single punishment that principal could dish out. If he killed himself out of fear of a jail sentence, well, that says a lot more about his relations with his folks than it does about the school. There was some seriously screwed up values in that kid's head. He didn't learn that from school, that's for sure.
The people that raise you have more influence on your values than all of the other people you'll ever meet in your life as you're growing up.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
It's not when "someone" hacks into a computer, it's when a kid cracks into a computer. Immaturity leads to curiosity which leads to cracking.
I don't recall seeing people justifying malicious cracks by adults with the intent to deceive or steal. This kid was 13.
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You take take your rules and shove them up your ass if it results in a kid killing himself.
End of story.
--
Having known someone relatively well before he checked out, I can say that you don't really know why people do it. You think you do, and people go on and on about why he/she did it. Others come in from afar and get passionate about why it happened and muddy the waters and raise tensions. In the end, after the dust has settled,passion has cooled, and we have had some time to adjust to the loss, we find out we really still don't know why they did it. The sad part is that teenagers frequently don't know what they want to wear tomorrow, let alone whether or not they want to stay and make a go of it. Long before they know what the options for life are they opt out with incomplete data.
How can you write gold code in this level if you still don't know many of the system calls yet?
You must be the change you wish to see in the world - Ghandi
Theres one thing people are forgetting here: the principal. If he is in any way human, he probably feels like an utter piece of shit right now, as he is directly responsible for the suicide. In fact, he basically killed him (metaphorically speaking). I bet that right now he is feeling ever so regretful that he ever uttered those fateful words. This will probably serve as a warning to other administrators who threaten such things. Hopefully...
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
would you say the same thing about the contractor (or whomever)? They should have known to use unbreakable glass because it is clear that a kid would break it with a brick and commit suicide after he was suspended for it. Perhaps the SCHOOL (not to be confused with system) administrators are to blame for not being reasonable, though there aren't enough details to come to that conclusion. But even if that were the case, it's totally unreasonable to expect them to know what would happen.
exactly.
12-13 yrs old a kid knows good from bad.
What they do not yet grasp is the full impact of long term consequences. Their physical makeup is changing both structural(Height, weight, breasts, etc) and chemical (testosterone and other hormones).
These massive changes are already messing with a kids mind. They are on the bleeding edge of freedom. Fighting to prove they can stand on their own, but still needing someone to back them up when they falter.
I know cause I have been there and Now, 18 years later I have my own 12 yr old who is quite clearly going through the same hell I went through.
Fortunately for him I still remember quite clearly what Jr.High was like and what it still is.
Rather than just dumping a generic punishment on him I make for damn sure the punishment fits the crime. If he breaks something and tells me about it immediately, we talk it through and it gets fixed with me taking on at least half of the costs (the FIRST time it happens, second time he eats it all).
If he hides it and I discover it later, he eats the whole cost. BUT WE STILL TALK THROUGH IT!
He understands that when he is upfront about any issue I will take him seriously. HE also knows that if he asks he will get an appropriate answer and explanation. Not always the answer he wants to hear, but an appropriate one. Not that bogus "Because I said so" that ignorant adults in leadership roles tend to use. If he acts with out asking, he will be on the raw end of an appropriate punishment and he will have to Talk the whole issue out until I feel that he really understands the issues.
Sure he storms around the house when he gets mad about something. I did the same thing at 13 yrs old. Heck I even broke a few doors and windows. (I ended up fixing them while the scrapes on my hands were still raw too. Thanks Dad I did learn something.)
Every day he gets more and more responsibilities and more closely feels the true consequences of his actions. Some good, some not so good.
If he were to hack into his schools computers I only hope I would find out first and together we would seek a lawyer. Yes there are legal ramifications. But, I would be there to hold him up. I would be there to explain that even though it might suck now, maybe even for a year or two, life is longer than that and things will improve eventually.
Contrary to what most educators say, School is NOT LIKE THE REAL WORLD. When you are an Adult and on your own, you have the freedom and ability to remove yourself from uncomfortable situations. Schoolchildren are a captive audience that are forced to be there day in and day out not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for 12 long years.
As a 13yr old, a year is a long way off.
As an adult we have a better grasp on the realities of time. I only wish my sense of time was like my kids. Then maybe I wouldn't be feeling as old as I do now at the end of this somewhat disjointed post.
ramble ramble ramble
comment directly in my journal
You are entirely on target. This sort of thing happened to me in school more than once and no one bothered to understand what was going on. I was more than once pretty certain the end of my life was at hand.
My 9-year old son told me it he could not take a baseball and glove to practice with during recess because it was prohibited under zero tolerance. Some kid got suspended....
In the absence of any better suggestion, that was the most plausible theory I was able to formulate. And in some sense I find it more disturbing than the prospect that he was driven to despair.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Score:5, Troll. From the article:
The district's disciplinary policy considers the severity of the infraction and is not one of the district's "zero-tolerance" policies, he said.
Having once been a (Indian) kid dragged to the principal's office for hacking back in early high school (slithered out of a three day suspension by offering advise on how to beef up their network security to keep the malicous ones out), I can sympathize with the overwhelming weight that comes crashing down on your shoulders when the "heat" decides to grill you under the hot lights. It would be foolish for me to claim that I know what went through this young man's mind, but clearly he must have deemed the fallout from his actions too severe to overcome. Being a bright young man with high post-secondary aspirations, no doubt he perceived the scar of a ten day suspension on his record -- much like a prison record -- as something that might hold him back from getting where he wants to go in life. I think back (was it that long ago?), and don't recall suicide crossing my mind, but I can definitely see where such thoughts might have started.
It's sad. It's painful to hear about, especially within a community of other hacker types. I'm sure this story hits home for more than just me. However, I think it's important to realize that none of us are going to be able to crawl into the mind of this poor soul, and as such we're stuck with passing judgements with a VERY incomplete story. My condolences to the family.
--- [DrPsycho] Coping with reality since 1975.
-DrPsycho - Coping with reality since 1975
Just to let you all know, last year I was assigned by the school district to "break" into the SASI database and find out as many of the holes as I could. The way SASI is generally run is there are shared read/write directories on an NT server which can be accessed after logging on at a certain security level. Depending on the system, this can be done solely on the client side... (example: on the windows login screen, loggin in with a teacher loggin name, hitting ok with out a password entered, and when it asks for the correct password, pressing cancel) Once you gain rights to access those shared folders, all you have to do is open the files in Excel, and although generally cryptic, you can eventually find out everything about a student. There are much worse things that are stored within the SASI db, including police records, and even complete health records of all students and all teachers. The authors of the SASI program have been notified repeatedly by the techs in our district, but no patch to encrypt or hide this data has been released. Chances are, he gained access in a very simplistic way, and found some files which have large liability issues, and was therefor suspended.
Another time he left a box which had a ticking sound in it. The principal ended up rushing the thing into the middle of the football field thinking it was a bomb. The person saying this was laughing about it
This remids me of something that happened when I was in highschool, prolly around '95 or so...
Someone in the library typed "THIS COMPUTER HAS A BOMB IN IT" at the C:\ prompt, and then left the machine.
Me and a friend had walked by the machine, seen the message, and didn't really think much of it.
Until they evacuated the library.
So, by now, me and my friend[1] are ROFL at the principal, vice principal, and librarians milling about trying to decide what they were gonna do.
So, naturally, we get noticed, and questioned.
They think we're psychos or something, laughing about a bomb planted in the computer.
After explaining that we'd seen the message, we didn't do it, how to get rid of it ("cls"), and that there was NO THREAT, they let us go with a stern warning [2].
And then re-opened the library.
I think the SA was out of town so there was
nobody to explain to the utterly clueless admins that it was just a DOS prompt...
Nobody, that is, aside from the students.
Funniest thing is that by my senior year I was prolly the most trusted[3] student in the school...
Even was given r00t on the Netware servers at one point...
C-X C-S
[1] Also nerdy...fuck, we were in the library after lunch, is there really any question?
[2] Good thing this was pre-columbine. They prolly woulda had us arrested. Especially considering this was in Littleton, about five miles from columbine.
[3] In a network security sense, anyway...
When your 13 you dont really think about your actions before you take them. He was probably just very curious, and didnt think what he was doing was being malicious. Even a malicious action at that age isnt really thought about. I am sure they scared him well to death. I know they must have told him he would rot in jail. They should have left the legal stuff out of it and said "We are suspending you, your parents will have to think of a good punishment"
I am sure he got "We are suspending you, and filing a lawsuit. Your going to go to jail for a long time young man. This is a fellony!!!!"
You know they did.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
So schools should consider not suspending rule-breakers because it might hurt the kids self-esteem? If a 13-year old is so mentally unstable that he kills himself over a suspension, it's probably best to keep him out of school and get him to a psychologist.
It's time to quit coddling kids like this. We already have enough problems from protecting kids egos at the cost of discipline as it is: not holding back failing kids anymore and letting them go on to the next grade; giving trophies to anyone who competes, instead of anything special for the actual winners; constructive math bullshit where if a student "discovers" that 2 + 4 = 7, the teachers won't come out and tell the kid that the answer is wrong, etc. Of course, the people who do the coddling never stop to think that if you never teach a kid how to deal with adversity, then the first time he faces it, even if it's something as minor as a suspension (I was suspended three times in high school), he might just melt down and kill himself. Wonderful work, guys.
Cheers,
Our wonderful schools have again enacted their true social purpose. The dissident have been eliminated with speed and efficiency.
Or: Why I do not support state controlled schools. (Local control would be different, but he who pays the piper calls the tune, and the states [at least California] have pre-empted taxation authority.)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Amen. It's times like this that you remember that ideology's never as important as the individual. My younger brother committed suicide just last December. Bright boy, but was hiding problems with depression. The only commonality I can see between my brother's case and Shinjan's is that they both spent, in their parents' eyes, way too much time on the computer. My condolences to Shinjan's family, and the staff and students of the school this fellow attended. This kind of thing's never easy. We should be offering our support to their community, instead of judging him and his peers. (That having been said, I do believe that his parents have a right to know what the infractions were. The least the school could do is that. His parents need to grasp onto these things in order to heal, and accept.) James
I've seen this pattern over and over. It exists from grade schools to (to a lesser degree) universities. And students aren't always the victims, either. When I was in high school, two of the years there we had an excellent principal who got along well with the students. The school board canned him mostly because he didn't do enough suspending of students (he tried more to work out problems).
School administrators also tend to be ignorant of understanding the facts. I once was brought to a disciplinary hearing, and even found out they had already decided I was guilty. I was accused of breaking into the school's IBM mainframe because I happened to have in my file area copies of internal system files that didn't have public access. I told them I had bought them from IBM directly. Their response was that they had specifically made an agreement with the IBM office that they worked with not to sell the system to any students (I never verified that this was true or if it was even legal). But my receipt was from an IBM office in a different state, which I happened to reside in. At least they knew I won that round (and I won then next 2, but that's for future stories).
The fundamental problem is that among adults who like to be in a position of control over other people (that describes a lot of people) there are some who find they can best satisfy their need for control by controlling those who are less able to fight back, such as children. While I still believe the majority of teachers, and quite a lot of administrators really are there because they genuinely want to help provide a good educational experience, I do see time and time again cases where administrators are screwing students over with a rigged "judicial" process and very limited means for review or appeal. Mere accusal in many cases is all that it takes. And there is a pattern to those that is very top heavy in the school systems, particularly in high schools. Too bad the schools can't pay decent salaries and attract more decent people.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
And this shit happens, too (in case you haven't been reading the news the past several years).
Part of the problem is that we (schools and parents) often do nothing at all for the incremental problems kids get into, then suddenly lash out when it "goes too far". Then the kid is surprised because he only pushed the envelope a tad bit further in his mind.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I don't mean to offend anyone when I say this, but how many competent IT people are going to be working for a public school salary?
/. for many, many expressions of that sentiment.
I'm not crying insult, but that question begs another:
"I don't mean to offend anyone when I say this, but how many competent teachers are going to be working for a public school salary?"
Many people do many things that AREN'T entirely motivated by the size of their paycheck. Look at any of the MS vs. Linux stories here on
--
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I think you missed the part about "intelligence != success". You may be quite bright, sure, but that doesn't mean much if you can't stay focused, or follow orders (believe what you want, but very few people start out on the top, and thus have to learn to take orders from superiors). If you can't work well with others, your intelligence level doesn't matter one bit in anything outside of an academic research context. Grading systems have their problems, but this is not one of them.
Greaaat. Katz is gonna have a field day with this one. I can see the "first in a series" bitchfest from here already.
You're The dread pirate Roberts, admint it!
We had something called Gatekeeper. It loaded as an extension, so all you had to do was hold down Cmd to turn extensions off and pop Gatekeeper in the trash, reboot, problem solved :-)
I bet you a large chunk of cash that his parents had him under immense pressure to do well in school. Maybe he wanted to be like his bro, cause they kept holding him up as the golden child. When he got suspended...who knows, scared of what the parents would do maybe, and offed himself.
Blar.
Wow, look at the misunderstanding on this one (vague) sentance...
If the "computer people" are in drugs, or guns, or whatever, yeah, treat them the same as everyone else. But when they treat someone who sends a big email the same as a kid with a gun, there's something wrong.
And why the hell can't they get the advice of someone who knows something (there are probably 10 other students readily available, for one thing), rather than just making assumptions when they don't understand the computers? Not that that always helps, i once drew the attention of the campus network security bastard, who decided to delay reinstating my network access for an extra week because he didn't like the tone of my voice when i called him about it (after he didn't follow the written notification policy in the first place, but that's another story).
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perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
It's easy to get up on a moral high horse and challenge people to "do something". It's a bit harder to find constructive suggestions.
Tell me, O swami, what exactly should we do? What's the solution to the problem? How can this be fixed?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I'm afraid that when it comes to "teacher having a hard time" versus "children not raised and disciplined effectively" I know where to cast my vote for priorities. Apparently fewer and fewer people agree.
Ironically, both problems share causality in complex ways. Teachers have difficulties with poorly-raised children. Teachers' unions usurp more and more parental responsibilities. Vicious cycle continues.
Parents, take your children back from the public education system. If you love them.
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
So sad that this response is a common one. People who think that teaching discipline and responsibility means being harsh and "tough on crime" are wrong... I think they really need to think it through a little more. It's just too pat and easy to claim that more punishment is needed, especially when it's other people who get the prescription.
Imprisonment is a horrible punishment. If you've never been to jail before (even for a day) you really can't imagine how it feels. It's not just depressing; it creates despair and despondence. The prospect of spending time in jail is terrifying, and for a 13-year-old it's simply ridiculous.
The schools obviously hadn't communicated the entire sitation to the parents, which is classic in our current public education system. The public educators want to parent your children your place. That they fscked it up in this case is the least surprising part of this story.
The right thing to do in all cases of misbehavior is to teach the criminal to respect the consequences of his actions. That respect can only be taught by forcing the subject to repay the damaged party. If the school suffered from his intrusion he should have been made to make restitution. Simply threatening him and leaving him no ability to "make it right" and recover his good standing was exactly the *wrong* way to discipline a child. There is no such thing as a "debt to society"; the child should have been faced by the damaged party and asked to apologize and given the opportunity to make restitution.
Sadly it's probably the most common method of "parenting" used by schools and prosecutors. After all, it's not *their* kid... why should they demonstrate care for his well-being? Sensitivity for his age? Credit him for being a hard worker and a fast learner? Those are for Real Parents, after all... bureaucrats couldn't care less.
You're absolutely right that coddling takes place, and that it prevents a productive work ethic. But you should hesitate to replace coddling with an equally-destructive policy of nasty threats and shaking fists. Are you a father? I'd think that any father could understand this.
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
Sorry to feed the troll, but what an asshole of a comment.
Didn't his parents notice what? That he was sitting at home, for all of a "few hours" just after he was "suspended"--not expelled--before committing suicide?
You asked, "I really don't understand the intent of posting this article on slashdot. How does it apply to anything?" and yet it's clear from your comment that you didn't read the article (or if you did, that you have absolutely no reading comprehension skills).
Why don't we try rephrasing your queries so that they apply to your post: "How can anything you posted apply to anything?" given that you didn't even bother to read the accompanying article. "I really don't understand the intent of posting your comment to slashdot."
Was it your extensive, intuitive knowledge of the particulars of the case allow you to make the judgment, "The poor kid was disturbed and unstable, so he did something silly"? Because he committed suicide, he is "disturbed and unstable"? You might reasonably argue that, but you certainly don't provide a substantive account. And a 13-year old committing suicide is "silly"? You think maybe somehow your factually bereft opinion is significant, what, because you're utterly ignorant of the particulars but you're what, a CS major, male, a student? Because you're projecting your own disturbed, unstable character onto others to compensate for some other perceived lack in yourself? It's all just idle speculation. The difference is, you're directing your speculation on a dead 13-year old who can't defend himself.
i don't believe his intelligence had anything to do with it. i think his emotions took over when he heard the jail thing. he probably has heard something about what jail is like, and i don't konw about you but when i was 13 i wouldn't have wanted to have the possibility of being raped in the shower thrown in my face for hacking into a computer system. 13-year-olds aren't rational all the time. they may know right from wrong, but they're kids. i'm not saying he should have been let off easy, but if it's true that he was threatened with jail, then i could see how he could be depressed enough to think suicide might be better. not all intelligent people are rational about everything all the time, especially kids...
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
Then, surely, you, by failing to take action, are in some way, if only slightly, 'profitting' from this action (in that your time, which you could spend relaxing/earning money/having fun/etc., which is arguably a profit of some sort on your part), and thereby profiting from harm caused.
Does this mean that you consider it ethical to profit from the suffering of others?
James F.
Here's a state directory of the district. Principal Mayer was mentioned in the article, as was Superintendent Fitzsimons.
Here's the WWP Web Site which is running IIS on Windows 2000. What do you suppose the administrative computers are using?
Maybe those of us with the experiance should offer to do some pro-bono work for those schools (or other non-profit/low-profit orginizations) that could use our expertise?
Lots of other "professional" jobs have this sort of a requirement as part of their membership, or at least encourage it.
I'm not saying that this would solve the problem, but perhaps it could help.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
That's minor!?!? If you consider invading someone's privacy or vandalism minor, I'd hate to see what you consider major.
It's one thing to determine that a hole exists, but as soon as you exploit it you've crossed the line and need to be punished. Why do so many people have problems with this concept?
I am hesitant to assess blame in situations like this. I am sure there will be posts here placing the blame on:
Maybe all of the above played a part, who knows. It seems to me that Shinjan became a young kid who lost his sense of perspective about what is important in life. I don't expect 13 year old kids to have much perspective, but I would hope that every child has somebody in their life that would instill in them an *unconditional* sense of self worth.
The last sentence used to sound like pop psychology drivel to me, until a friend ended up in the same situation. Now I feel lucky because I don't take that kind of thing for granted anymore.
the difference between doing an action to something, and doing an action to someone. As well as the state of mind when such an action took place. What types of behaviour do you wish to encourage, and which to subvert?
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+&x
yea, schools here have a history for treating kids like kids and not prosecuting them. And before you draw too many criticisms of my comparison, remeber that the same number of people are dead in both cases.
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hmm, lost my first response, thanks windows.
There's also a big difference in punishing a child like an adult and not not punishing them at all. When I was in Jr. High, fighting was a 3-day suspension, now hacking is a 10-day suspension with possible criminal prosecution? Treat kids like adults and they make adult decisions, which they are totally unqualified to make. Teach responsibility, not fear. My guess is that the school wanted to put the fear of them into the kid, and it looks like it worked.
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+&x
"When one seeks answers when none
exist, it's understandable to extend blame,"
Fitzsimons said.
Where was this guy after the columbine shootings? How come we didn't hear opinions like this from school administrators when it was video games, music, movies, the internet, etc. that so many less intelligent but very loud people were looking to blame?
This kid killing himself sounds to me like a case of terminal stupidity. Either that or he was sheltered by his family and therefore unaware of how things actually work here in America, even though he was born here. I've seen that kind of thing myself in people whose parents are from cultures that are vastly different from ours. The parents try to raise the kid as if they're still living in Bangladesh, which is a mistake. Its amazing just how effective parents can be at information control when they're really committed to it. Holy roller christian types are much the same, the kids don't grow up and get a clue about how things really are until long after they've left home. Some never get a clue and go on to do the same things to their kids.
So here you've got a kid who is either not too bright, or completely clueless and thought he was going to end up in a cell with Bubba. So far the evidence points to the latter, in which case I blame mom and dad for not raising him to be more street-smart.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
They SUSPENDED him! They didn't have him arrested, beaten with a stick, or even expel him from school. They didn't do anything that hasn't been done to just about every kid with even a millimeter wide streak of rebellion in him.
In other words the school didn't do anything wrong. If the kid is such a mental case that he off's himself over a two week suspension then maybe he was a "special needs" kid in need of special psychotherapy.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Want to know more about these kinds of places?
m
http://www.teenliberty.org/An_American_GULAG.ht
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
No, you've missed what is probably the most important reason: the administrations believe, rightly or wrongly, that "zero tolerance" policies which allow no discretion will insulate the district from lawsuits which allege discriminatory enforcement.
I think this is a red herring. For one thing, zero tolerance policies create the inevitable temptation to treat some people who are valued to highly with the full severity we envision for less important malefactors. Some pigs are always more equal than others.
You're the first person I've actually heard pitching zero tolerance because it insulates people from lawsuits. Leaving aside that fact that is not true, it is also true that non-zero-tolerance policies can be demonstrably fair. If that were so compelling an argument, zero tolerance would be applied to everything from cutting class to smoking in the lav.
Perhaps if you have heard others arguing this way, then there is an element of truth to what you say. From what I can see, zero tolerance as a strategy comes up when somebody feels the need to show they are doing something but can't think of anything better. Better to be hard working but ineffective when it comes to job review time than lazy and ineffective.
Ask yourself -- is what people mean when they say "zero tolerance" usually consistent with things like "due process"? or "thoughtful response"? Of course not, because what zero tolerance means is not it's literal sense of "every infraction will have consequences" -- which is perfectly compatible with a sane and measured response. What it really means is that every infraction will be met with action more notable for its conspicuous vigor rather than its effectiveness or fairness.
In fact, if you are truly incompetent, throwing some innocent or relatively harmless people to the wolves is a sign that you at least mean business (see -- war on drugs).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Even if they believe it will lead to the same end?
From the article:
But district Superintendent John Fitzsimons said school officials followed disciplinary policies in this case, and although teachers and administrators are grieving the loss, they aren't responsible.
So, it appears your position is the same as the school superintendent's. While I agree that teachers and officials cannot be held as primarily responsible for this child's death, I do think that they partially responsible. Having a "zero tolerance policy" doesn't absolve people of the consequences of their actions.
Zero tolerance policies exist so that people don't have to excercise judgement. Think of all the questions that zero policy sweeps under the rug:
Excercising this form of judgement is the moral responsiblity of every person who is in a position of power of another.
"Zero tolerance" -- on computer cracking, drugs or whatever other issue -- is the preferred policy of people who don't want to think about an issue or who are uncomfortable with the messy world of real people with real problems. It's no wonder that schools systems take this position on cracking, given their usual lack of comptuer sophistication. It's easier to wish it away under "zero tolerance" than to come to grips with it.
So -- to what degree are the officials and teachers responsible? There are degerees of culpability. They are certainly not as responsible as if they handed a loaded gun to a suicidal teenager. But if indeed the policy in indeed "zero tolerance", then the policy setters will have mandated that the people who ought to have known Shinjan best, the circumstances of his infraction, his potential reaction and the dangers involved, these people are not allowed the time or scope to use their judgement to find an appropriate form of discipline. Depending on the policy, they might not have had the leeway to mitigate the results of their actions, say by bringing the parents in for a conference first -- even though by bringing the parents in they would have been able to enlist them in changing his future behavior. The only reason I can think of for sending a child of this age home without this kind of consideration is if he presented an immediate danger to other people.
For what earthly reason would a policy exists that ties the hands of people know know the particiants and situation best and prevent them from taking the most effective action at their disposal? There's only one reason ever for "zero tolerance" policies: because it is administratively easier for the policy setters.
Therefore I believe the policy setters bear a grave moral responsibility in this matter, one which would well justify their resignation or removal. The people who enforced this policy may or may not bear some responsibility -- it depends on the circumstances. If they routinely mitigate the official policy with their personal judgement, and in this case it simply went awry -- well nobody's judgement is perfect and I feel sorry for them. If they slavishly followed a bad and immoral policy because it was easier for them, then they are responsible too.
I know this sounds harsh, especially since I am advocating a humane attitude towards people who have done wrong. But, I think that you can advocate humane and just treatment of offenders without erasing all personal responsibility. It's the people who can't conceive of a middle ground where there is both justice and mercy that advocate either zero tolerance on one hand or absolving people because they feel bad on the other.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I am from the area and have plenty of friends that graduated in the late 80's/early 90's from WWP. That district has been anal for years. Granted, they have some of the best schools in the county (Mercer). They also have quite an educated demographic to choose from. Why isn't anyone questioning the parents here? Did the parents put any pressure on this bright child?
Jose Menendez put ungodly pressure on his two boys. Look what it got him and them.
--mp
That would be vandalism. The schools have to make punishments stiff in order to DETER students from vandalising school property. If you did it and only got 1 day, then more kids would trash the computers. If you make it not worth their while, then you've accomplished order.
You got 10 days. Live with it.
--Mike
Damn, what a day to NOT have moderator points! What you've said is right-on in my opinion. This was a kid, a bright one, and he was probably a bit introverted. They might not have overtly threatened him but you'd better believe that they implied the threat even if they deny it.
When I was about that age something was stolen from a classroom that I was in. They called everyone in and asked them to write down who they thought did "it". Guess who was supposedly fingered? Yup, I got a trip to the office and they all but used a rubber hose on me. They claimed to have recognized handwriting on some of the notes as being from responsible students, promised me all sorts of things if I would simply confess - the works. I didn't do it and stuck to my guns, I left there a complete wreck and my teacher th enext period was very concerned. When I explained what had happened he stuck up for me and when my parents found out they went BALLISTIC and also stuck up for me. Come to find out later they had given the SAME treatment to several other students.
Never found out who it was that took the silly thing and it was never brought up to me ever again. I understand exactly how this kid must have felt and now some 20 years later I remember EXACTLY how it feels to have an adult threaten\intimidate a kid.
He might have actually done something wrong, heaven forbid, but if so why won't they tell the parents EXACTLY what it was? Is it because it's so flimsy and silly that they know what the result will be? 10days is pretty serious and would certainly have put a black mark on the kids school records - and they can't tell them why? why didn't the parents get a call BEFORE the kid was called in and suspended? Why weren't the parents a part of this process and only called in after the decision to discipline had been made? Why weren't they there when the kid was interviewed about something so serious they took him out of school for more than a week?! The parents apparently suspect that other incidents had occured that they've not been told about - why is that? Shouldn't they know as much as the school where their kid is concerned?
Something stinks here, the whole story has yet to come out IMO. Someone should really be digging into this and I hope it's the parents armed with lawyers because in this case it may very well be warranted. I wouldn't simply shrug and let it go - someone else's kid could be next and I wouldn't stand for that if I were in their shoes.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
First off, I'd like to say that I think it is unfair to load all the blame on the school. However, for those of you criticize him for doing a "silly thing"... Do you remember what it was like to be thirteen? Do you remember being a teenager? Part of being a teenager is being unstable, he didnt have to have problems in order to do something like that, 30 thousand people in America commit suicide every year, do they all have problems? The truth is that when you are thirteen and have never been yelled at before it will scare the crap out of you. This is a kid who go nothing but praise his ENTIRE life and to have to deal with a 10 day suspension (can you say "goodbye ivy league"?) is heartbreaking. When you're a teenager losing your girlfriend of two weeks is a huge ordeal, imagine this. Thinking logically, yes its a very rash reaction, but the bottom line is you dont think logically all the time when you're a teenager. I'm not saying we should exempt children from the law, but we have to keep that in mind. Adults all too easily forget the feeling of every emotion seemingly swallowing you whole and thats not fair at all. Ever wonder why "kids these days" always seem to be rebelling? Maybe because they cant adults who can empathize with them. I'm well aware there are plenty of adults that can help kids get through those times, but the sad truth - and yes im stereotyping - is that there arent too many of those adults in school authority positions. Do you really think kids feel safe talking to their guidance counciler about their problems? Before we condemn people for "silly actions" we have to try to see things from their perspective.
"I don't like this deep shit about crazy crap"
Now that's another question entirely. The principal may have used the "right" weasel words to make the threat of criminal proceedings "clearly" nonexistent, but most 13-year olds aren't going to hear the conditionals, they're going to hear "We could have you arrested for this.". That's exactly what the principal expected him to hear, and wanted him to hear. Was it wrong of the principal to make a threat that he knew to be false, but also knew that the student probably wouldn't realize was false? That school district is probably fortunate that I won't be sitting on the jury of a wrongful death lawsuit.
>engineers that disobey the laws of mathematics
>and physics.
Reality check. You're talking about two different sets. A: The Laws of Nature. B: The Laws of Man.
Set A is apparently immutable, therefore conformity is pretty mandatory. Set B is clearly mutable and sometimes corrupt, therefore conformity is neither mandatory nor virtuous.
It could be argued that often these "bright kids" are smarter than the conformist administrators that pass judgement over them. Giving them absolute free range might not be a good idea, but neither is forcing them to adhere to an obsolete status quo.
>IMHO, the American school system is going down
>the shit hole. Yuppie parents are coming in for
>every little thing that happens to little Johnny.
>They say nothing when he parties and goes out
>with a different girl every night. But let him
>get suspended, and they will be the first ones in
>the school, yelling about their son being singled
>out.
Reminds me of our high school's Student Body President who was caught breaking into the school, with intended valdalism, and had his lawyer daddy get him off with a few hours community service and a virtual gag order on what actually went down that night.
Parents who support their kids when their kids are making a moral stand rock. Parents who support their kids when the kids are being pricks are morons.
And schools that give pricks a slap on the wrist but vehemently attack student freedom of speech have their priorities totally out of whack.
Maybe it's just because I've been out of high school too long, but I'm a bit shaky on the motivation for suspension here.
I pretty much have the impression of suspension as being a action taken in response to violent or disruptive students -- that is, they are interfering with the safety of other kids, or interrupting class, or in some other way directly mucking up the educational process -- so that they need to be exluded from the classroom for a time to ensure that other kids have the opportunity to learn. In fact, this seems to only way to align preventing someone from attending class with the mandate of the public schools to provide education to all.
I don't see that here. I don't see any activity taken by the student _in the classroom_, or which disrupted the classroom itself or other student's ability to learn.
(Then again, I also don't understand the use of fines as a punishment for speeding, because I don't see any direct practical connection between the driver's actions and his financial situation. Fines should be only appropriate for crimes involving MONEY, say, fraud.
In the way-back-when, 1981, I was suspended from jr-high for hacking into the school computer and changing the grades for my friends and myself. The result was that I was suspended for two weeks and my Father was called in to school for my disciplinary review. During the review I had to explain how I broke into the system. The high point of this was when the principal suggested that I be thrown out of the computer class I was in and my Father suggested that I be advanced to the next class as I had proven that I had skills in advance of the class I was in. On the way home my Father joked about my breaking into the school's system, made me feel like he was not going to kick my butt then explained to me that I was not allowed to do it again or he would kick my butt. The irritating part came three months later when after I had explained how I broke into the system to some of my friends and they did the same, using my exploit ... not my fault that they didn't patch the hole or change passwords ... The school in its wisdom chose to expel me from school. They would not believe me when I told them I did not do it, nor would they believe one of my friends when he came forward and admitted that he did. It was only after he broke into the system with a teacher watching that they would believe him. When I petitioned to be let back in the told me no, even after getting them to admit that I did not break in the second time. Their reason for not letting me back? I had told others how to do the same thing.
What is my point you ask? Did I know that their was a risk / reward balance to what I was doing? Yes I did. Was the punishment in line whit what I did? No, I got off to easy. Was the way that my Father handled the situation good? Yes, I did do it again. He also bought a second computer for me so I could build and break security on it (two TSR-80's I was the envy of the block) was the way the school handled the second break in good? No, they went for the easy out and didn't do their investigation to see who the real perp was. Is the school staffed by people that are human and want to do the minimum that they have to do? Yes, just like most places I have worked as an adult. Are the schools to blame for this? No, it is not the job of the school to be a parent, it is the parents job to be a parent. It is the schools job to teach how to add, subtract, read, write and use our minds. Does that mean that they should not have rules that students have to live by? Hell no, why should it be different that the rest of the world?
__ Fast - Cheap - Good Pick any two
I konw it is bad form to reply to your own post mut I ust make a correction ... I forgot to use a 'nt ... oops
What is my point you ask? Did I know that their was a risk / reward balance to what I was doing? Yes I did. Was the punishment in line wiht what I did? No, I got off to easy. Was the way that my Father handled the situation good? Yes, I did'nt (== the missing 'nt) do it again. He also bought a second computer for me so I could build and break security on it (two TSR-80's I was the envy of the block) was the way the school handled the second break in good? No, they went for the easy out and didn't do their investigation to see who the real perp was. Is the school staffed by people that are human and want to do the minimum that they have to do? Yes, just like most places I have worked as an adult. Are the schools to blame for this? No, it is not the job of the school to be a parent, it is the parents job to be a parent. It is the schools job to teach how to add, subtract, read, write and use our minds. Does that mean that they should not have rules that students have to live by? Hell no, why should it be different that the rest of the world?
__ Fast - Cheap - Good Pick any two
First I want to extend my deepest condolences to all who are directly affected by this tragedy.
I have a twelve year old brother who in his quest to be just like his older brother, has taken on a quite impressive knowledge of computers, networks and programming. I start to question myself that if in his child like curiosity had he done something similar, what would his emotional response be?
In 7th grade our class was introduced to the Basic programming language, an hour a week. Of course there being more kids than computers, I was one day assigned to the main server to use... go figure. As I worked on my assignment I mistyped a line number for a "goto" statement and inadvertantly created an endless loop. As can be forseen the server locked up and all kids were kicked out of their assignment. The teacher who had no idea what was going on assumed I did this on purpose. For the first time in my school career of being a straight A student, living up to my parents expectations, and fear of becoming less then the best, I got in serious trouble. Sitting in detention that day, I felt emotions that no 12 year old should feel. I had thoughts that not only scared me but would scare anyone else as well.
Do not blame the beautiful innocence of a childs curiosity.
Blame socities ignorance. The same soicety that does not realize the group of gifted children that are being brought up in this technologically advancing world. If we can not come to realize that the emotions of a child are amazingly fragile, we are doomed to repeat undeserved wrath upon them. This common thread also expands to the increase in school violence.
Don't assume, become aware.
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
WTF makes this any different than any other kid? This happens every damn day.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
this is in danger of degenerating into the pit of wallowing self pity that was hellmouth.
first off. the suspension was not a direct cause of the suicide... if the kid takes time to write a note, its not a spur of the moment thing. might have been the straw that broke the back, but no more. suggestions of mail bombing the district are ludicrous.
secondly. was this an "out"? its common for people in high stress high risk occupations (and you geeks out there know what i mean... gotta keep that 96% or else you are fucked...) to look for an out. ever played sick on the day of a big test? ever slowed down enough to not make a final so you wouldnt have to face the crowd? sometimes failure while not trying is better than the hideous prospect of trying your hardest and still failing.
ever had a father who wondered just where the plus was on the A when you brought the report card home? have you ever been good at everything, and never tried something new for fear of it being the one thing you cannot do?
the main problem being that very few children are taken seriously when they appear to be stressed out of their ever-loving tiny minds. jimmy? stressed? hah, if i only i had his easy life as mom shuffles reports brought home from work. he's only a kid. its just a phase.
Isn't it just Matthew Broderick who's seen hacking into the school computers?
That sucks for Schwartz, but this is about a kid in school. It's a bit different. The school would almost certainly not have prosecuted and gotten him in court, and if they did, this kid was what, 13? Now a 13 year old won't go to jail for this. He may be put on probation, but in most cases wouldn't his record be wiped when he turns 18 anyways?
I read the article, and from what I can tell, the kid was bright and non-malicious. He appeared to be hacking for curiousity (the classic reason). I'm sure that he would have fixed the security holes. Hell, the "tiger team" approach is one of the only reliable ways to audit the security on a system. The school administrators were brain-dead.
Disclaimer: I'm not un-biased. I had completed all the computer coursework that my Junior High offered in a month. Obviously, I should have been allowed to learn programming (home computers were not an option back in the early 1970s). But I was forced to sit there and do nothing as punishment for not wanting to go to gym class. Rational school administrators are the exception, not the rule. Most are secret facists who get into a job where they can exercise autocratic control over people who do not have the rights granted to adults.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
It's possible. The computer at a school is going to attract hacking attempts from students. It's been going on since computers had first been put in schools. The student hacking into the school computer is part of our culture - see films going as far back as War Games. "Just Say No" works about as well with hacking into school computers as it does with drugs. No administrator could reasonably claim that they didn't expect that hacking attempts would be made.
Yes, but I'm talking about a civil tort rather than a crime. And if the store owner doesn't take reasonable steps to minimize the threat of thefts, the insurance company can refuse to cover the losses.
I don't want to open an entirely different discussion, but if you were talking about a gun, in most places the parents would bear some part of the responsibility.
If the administrators of this computer system maintained reasonable security procedures...they have nothing to worry about. But I'd bet it will come out that passwords haven't been changed in years, dormant accounts haven't been deleted, security patches haven't been applied, etc. If that's the case, the parents have a case for the system being an "attractive nuisance".
Terorizing a student is not an effective replacement for good security.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
The point is that they had no interest in furthering my education in areas where I had displayed true aptitude. Instead, they showed that all they were interested in was in trying to make everyone the same. Gym class was a hell-pit of bullies, and as the administration had no interest in diciplining the bullies (generally, the ones who were good at sports) so instead they forbade me from doing what I was good at. As a result, I didn't get my hands on a computer for nearly a decade. If I had started hacking on that old IBM 370, I have no idea where I would have wound up.
These "educators" showed that "education" was far lower on their list of priorities than submission to their will. That is sick.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
You act as if "the rules" are things handed down by God. Rule are just the expressions of people, and yes, rules can be wrong and flawed. Punishments, likewise, can be wrong and flawed. Bad rules should be broken.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
There's a legal concept called an Attractive Nuisance -
It applies to things like swimming pools, but it should equally apply to things like computer systems so poorly maintained that script kiddies (or larval stage hackers) can easily crack them. If a pool owner is legally responsible for some kid drowning because the gate on his fence was broken, the school district should be liable for a computer system that multiple 13 year old kids have broken into. This is as if several kids have drown in the pool.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
At the risk of appearing Troll-like, one has to ask -
Why don't they fix they damn holes before they kill another kid?!?
I mean, seriously. How incompetent are the IT losers working at the school district that they've been hacked several times? Why don't they take a more progressive approach like - gosh, I dunno - making the punishment a 2000 word report on exactly how you broke in and suggestions on how to fix the hole?
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Why's that? Doing at least two of those at the same time was required for our past Presidential Election. Since it lasted what a month, all 3 ended up being a daily thing. Drive to work, drink at lunch while watching the lastest up-to-the-minute report on the 2000 election, drive home, waller away in pitty and dispair while thinking of the dumbass at the helm of nukes and drink/cry yourself to sleep.
--
--
Your point that we don't seem to know what he did in the system is more important than you think. Most ./ers are familiar with stories of overreaction on the part of the authorities. Hell, I got fired from a temp job for changing a screen saver - only to hear them tell it, you'd think I had been hacking. Rot in hell Siobhan McComb! Those of us who work and play with computers often find that others treat them like a primitive idol - a mixture of fear, reverence, superstition, and a sense that these things are too powerful for humans to control - objects of religion. We, on the other hand, treat them as magical objects - you just have to know the right incantations (some readers will note my use of religion vs magic does not imply superstition on the side of magic - read Frazer's The Golden Bough).
It may not be a have been a heavy news item, and I wish there was more info on what the kid did (you can bet the school system is being tight-lipped about it now) but it's not irrelevant, either.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
"kid decides to go ahead and kill himself because of the POSSIBILITY that he may be suspended,"
No he did not kill himself because of a possiblity of suspention. He was told he was going to jail (I probably figure he was also told that he would be raped in jail because that's what adults seem to use to scare kids straight but that's just conjecture). If he was told he was merely going to be suspended then he would not have written a suicide note saying he did not want to go to jail.
The problem with your reasoning is that you seem to think that every act has ONLY one responsible party. In this this case you have decided that the kid has 100% responsibility for the suicide and the adult who scared the shit out of him unnecessarily is 0% responsible for this event. Unfortunately life is not that simple. Every act and every person has thousands of forces acting on them all of these forces are partially responsible for the resultant action. I think it's prefectly reasonable to say that the school shoulders some percentage of the blame here.
This act is especially troublesome considering that the principle and the teachers of the student had some responsibility to judge the mental stability of the student. They are supposedly trained to detect suicidal teens.
I figure the parents will sue the school and win a big money damages and the school will be more careful the next time they try to scare the shit out of some 13 year old. Too bad nobody had the insight at school to prevent this in the first place.
War is necrophilia.
The kid wrote on the suicide note that he would rather die then go to jail. I wonder how he got the idea that he was going to jail?
War is necrophilia.
Once again it was the responsibility of the teachers and the principles to judge the mental stability of the person they were talking to. If you are unable to judge the mental state of your students, if you are unable to communicate properly with your students so that they understand what you are talking about you should be fired. If the result of your gross incompetence is a dead student then you should be sued and have your life ruined.
War is necrophilia.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The surrounding situation is that the school uses Novell Netware for the school's network, and they don't have it locked down well at all. My friends were simply 'bypassing security' (as the school administartion put it) by making shortcuts on floppies at home to C:\ and bringing 'em to school so they could use the drive, and then putting them on their network shares for easy access - that type of thing. One or two of them also put some MP3's on their network drive so they could listen to them while they worked - perfectly legit. (The problem errupted when one idiot not associated to me shared their MP3 folder on the network, but that's another story for another day).
I got the lowdown from the system administrator, who is a typical linux hippie BOFH. He's essentially there for the paycheck, and doesn't care about the school's network since nothing important is on it. (That, and he wants kids to learn and experiement - thus, the lack of 'security') Basically, a stupid witch of a 'teacher' that baby sits the computer classes saw that a couple people were sharing files over the network - namely MP3's - and shat her pants, and went to yell at the sysadmin.
Bad goes to worse, and all of my friends that are still in HS (about 20 different ppl) and both my siblings, a brother and sister, are called to the office.
Everyone got their network access restricted (I think - I know that some of them did, at least), and the guys got the basic 'you are a thorn in the side of civilization' berating - even though they're not bad people - I don't think any one of them has a criminal record, most are good students, many are the 'good' kids, and all are outstanding human beings. They might have also gotten detention, I'm not sure.
On top of that, both the females (my sister and one of her friends) were told that the administartion wasn't 'too worried' about them, since the girls were not 'challenging the authority and rules' of the school - even though they'd done the exact same thing as the guys. I'm guessing the discrimination was due to the fact that the guys all generally dress 'punky' or 'gothic' and the like, while the chicks have more of a generic chick look to them - not 'preppy' but more current in style than the guys. That, and both the girls are very attractive. Given the male administration, I can draw several conclusions.
The truely hillarious thing about the whole situation is, the administration didn't have a clue what really happened. It turns out that pretty much every one of my friends has the netware admin passwords (4 admins), as well as having one or two backdoors to the bloody network. They could easily bring everything down and get even.
But they haven't, and that's what's hillarious.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
>Are you a father? I'd think that any father
>could understand this.
Are you a teacher? Ask any teacher (Certainly in the UK & Ireland) about what it is like teaching these days. It is getting to the point where teachers have *zero* recourse to disapline a child. Due to stories like this one, senior staff are afraid to back up teachers when it comes to detention, suspention & expulsion. Many kids lose out because the teacher has no way left to deal with the disruptive elements.
My experience as a teacher allowed me to peek into the workings of schools and the motivations of poor administration that leads to such horrific events such as this. In a culture where we allow our children to be raised by strangers, it is remiss to not take ownership of the shortcomings we may have. Principal Fitzsimons stated that "extending blame" would be unjustified while excercising due process which has produce the results of school shootings, mass murders and unmetionable suicides is just revolting. Given that this is a crime against the intellectual elite, the murder of hacker progeny, and that there will be no actual justice served by anyone upon this system, it would seem that this would be an opportunity for noster pater veratis to mete heavy justice upon this place.
? Que, yo me preocupo?
It just croggles me that on the same page, this school has a brief blurb about a student who made "insensitive" remarks.
g e= news/510200124618PM.txt&title=Community+Middle+Sch ool+Incident%3Cbr%3E
http://www.ww-p.org/display.asp?section=news&pa
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
How can you accurately and with a 100% success rate, judge who's "on the edge" and who is out to break something? I don't know about you, but I went to school, and kids would try everything they could to break the rules for personal gain. If half the kids in school knew how to, they would do exactly as this kid did, with the intent to steal tests. change grades, and the like. As anyone who knows computers (and others know they are talented in this manner)have experienced, people come up and ask- "Hey, can you break into the schools computers? Can you change my grades?"
How are they going to go easy on this kid, when most other kids would see an easy time as a slap on the wrist, an excuse to be smarter and not get caught next time. some kids, you must be hard on, or they don't learn. Others, if you're harsh, they kill themselves. It's hard on the school Administrators.
I can say this from personal experience. I, too, broke past meager security at school, out of curiosity. Not destructivly, Witout any intent of harming one byte of data. And I didn't. No matter how much I expressed that, it didn't stop the school from choosing the strongest course of action. It scared the hell out of me when they took my fingerprints, read me my rights, and dragged my ass into court. Myself and my two friends (whom were also involved) were ordered to pay restitution, and a deferred 30 day jail sentance. All in the name of exploration. I didn't kill myself, and the thought never entered my mind. However, I now know a _lot_ more about the specifics of law and computer crime. I know closer where the boundry lies, and this has helped me in the long run.
Now, I'm an adult, in an IT job, and my experience has given me the direction I needed to focus my abilities and realise one simple fact. "You can Explore without Breaking Laws." I break into my own network every month, from outside computers, testing my own security. I watch Bugtraq, and apply several of the suggestions to the network I'm employed to keep mantained. I didn't kill myself.
There are, IMO, several reasons for getting bad grades in school:
1. Not as intelligent as other people; not getting the help they should be
2. Not caring about school(or anything else) do to depression/mental problems
3. Too intelligent for the level of courses that the school offers, the student become bored in classes and does not pay attention because it is too easy for him/her.
I'd say that this kid fell into category 3
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
"But changing grades is an extremely serious offence."
No, murder is. And do you know how many people get suspended sentences/get off for this crime?
And its 8th grade. Do you know how subjective they make those grades? How much will your 8th grade marks mean to you when you are 30? Its minor.
"He seriously got off very easy if all he got was a 10 day suspension"
Thats exactly what scared him into suicide. He thought that there was/deserved more punishment and that his life was runined.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Let's think about this.
The kid is 13 years old.
He's a hacker, and (I am guessing) has something of a romanticized view of hackers and the "freedom" connected with them.
He's being threatened with jail, i.e. loss of personal freedom.
He's also probably been the target of harassment at school. (Again guessing, but it seems logical.)
He's a bright kid. Into information. Probably reads/watches lots of news.
Probably has heard about prison rape.
May well have been the victim of bullies who have threatened him with something similar (a fate many of my computer-geek male friends suffered at approximately that age - fortuantely, it stayed a threat).
Probably has a general idea that prison is a scary place to add to that.
Jail, in his eyes, would NOT be a straw. It would be a one-ton load of bricks, if I'm looking at this at all accurately.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Firstly, condolences to this child's family, friends, teachers and schoolmates - this would be hard to deal with, no matter what relationship you had with this boy.
I can see the school getting the blame from some people for this - which is a bit unfair. What this kid did do was evidently illegal - stressing the point I would say was done more to emphasise that he shouldn't do similar things again, than to push him into the kind of depression that leads to suicide. Being so smart as to know what he was doing, one must wonder how he didn't already know it was illegal, or at least morally and ethically wrong, and really, being 13 is no excuse - if he's smart enough to hack into the school district's systems, then he should know the ramifications of being caught, and the likelyhood of it happening.
It does appear that the suspension was the limit of the punishment that the school intended on carrying out on the boy - the real trajedy here (apart from the death) is that the boy appears not to have been clear on this himself. It is important, *especially* so with children, to be very clear when indicating the future direction of actions to be taken in response to someone's actions - the boy, from his suicide note, felt that he was going to be sent to prison - when the worst he appeared to be destined for was a negative mark on his school record - this obviously wasn't made clear to him, and his suicide was the result.
A very sad day when someone, gifted as this boy was or not, commits suicide, especially when it's at least partially due to a lack of understanding about the situation.
I am betting that there are going to be a plethora of posts in here blaming the school districts for what they did.
The point is, he hacked the schools network (illegal). The article dosen't say what he did, but he still did wrong, and the district was justified in punishing him. No one had any idea that such a drastic reaction would ensue, but it did.
All we can really do is pray for the family and his classmates, who right now have nothing more to say than "why?"
~~Dan
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
Someone at that school probably tried a "scared straight" routine on him. You're going to go to jail son. Do you want that? Do you want to share a cell with Bruno?
He was 13. Probably wasn't even to the age where he learns to distrust a lot of adult claims as bullshit. Now he's dead and it's a dead boy's word against a school official.
I hope the principal or whoever uttered that false threat understands what they did...
The fact that this kid hacked his school network doesn't mean he had a future in programming...
The article didn't state what he had done, other than to state 'he hacked the school', it would be interesting to know the extent of his actions.
I would wager that worse crimes are happening in that school everyday. I would like to know how this would have been handled if the kid was the big blond quarterback type.
Kids these days have it no better than we did growing up. Despite the amount of geek chic hype you read these days, kids like this are constant targets - and not just to other students. Imagine your 40 years old and you teach basic computers to 13 year olds. this kid would really wreck your day.
Just my thoughts..
Ok, my first reaction was that this was a tragedy that could have been avoided if the school (and this whole society) would get it's head out of it's ass. It's unfortunate that "great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds". I'm still burning from the Columbine/Hellmouth/etc. fallout.
But the second reaction I had was: was this yet *another* kid that was pushed too far by his parents? I don't know if this has anything to do with being Indian. Perhaps it does. My father was Indian, and I suppose understandably from his dirt poor background growing up in Calcutta, he was constantly pushing his kids to do well in school. I was his first child, and only son, so that came down pretty heavy on me. Again he wondered "why-I-was-always-on-the-computer".
It seems like it could be that this kid was already pushed too far, and the "disgrace" of being suspended pushed him off the edge. So yeah, the school needs their heads kicked in...I wouldn't mind seeing people lose their jobs or being sued (although I typically hate frivolous lawsuits). But parents, and perhaps some of you Slashdotters out there are parents, need to be aware that you can't *always* push a kid and take no outward signs as everything being "OK".
Somehow you have to clue in successful kids that failing once in a while is OK. Otherwise you're just setting them up for a big fall.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The most immediate images to spring to mind are trains and furnaces...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
"But this young man did violate school rules and regulations and he understood the severity of the rules he broke...." - Dist. Supt. Fitzsimons
The kid was 13 years old, do you really think he had a grasp on the consequences? Do you think that before he decided to break into his school's computer systems, he honestly thought he might go to jail for what he was doing?
This angers me because it's the parents role to teach kids right and wrong, and as such, I think that unless someone is in serious danger, the parents should be contacted before action is taken against a 13-year-old. I think that Shinjan's parents should have been the ones to first discuss with him, his 'crimes' and their consequences. I mean really, where did the kid get the idea that he was going to go to jail?
Shinjan's parents hoped those accomplishments were only the beginning (my emphasis added).
fer cryin' out loud, that alone is more than most people accomplish in 12 years of school, and this kid was only 13. add the problem of having to be as good as, or better than his brother, and you've got one hell of a lot of pressure on a 13 year old kid. his father said "my life is meaningless now"; would he have said the same thing if his son had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, or been caught with a gram of pot? probably, since either of those things would be considered a failure by the kid's parents. yes, this is tragic, because someone died who shouldn't have, but I don't think the school district deserves all of the blame. I might have done the same thing living in an environment like that.
Karma only matters to me now and zen.
10 days is a little extreme for that type of violation. It's a max of 5 days in our school district and you have to do something seriously bad to come close to that. IE. threaten other students, offer "plans" of the school (like where good places to plant bombs would be). A kid was writing virii in compsci class and I think all he got was a 3 day.
The G & T program *is* the 'special needs' program for the "top 2%."
If your friends were in the G & T program, or if they were allowed to take high school algebra in 8th grade, then they already had been identified as having special needs (under the state mandate, anyway).
A good friend of mine 'finished' all the math and science her high school had to offer by her junior year. Her parents used the state 'special needs' mandate to force her local school district to send her to the local college for half of each day so she could continue learning math and science. (The 'local college' was a little school named Princeton...) Her parents had to fight for it with the local school, but they won.
Gifted And Talented programs, and similar 'accomodations' of various sorts, exist all over the state and it's no coincidence -- the schools *have* to make special accomodations for the special needs of these special kids.
I'm willing to admit that I may had some of this wrong now, but back in the 80s, that's the way it was.
-Mark
Yep- Murray Hill doesn't exist. It's part of New Providence and part of Berkeley Heights, and even through I say I lived there, I was in BH for tax purposes, but in "Summit" as far as ZIP codes were concerned. I was referring to Governor Livingston Regional High School and Berkeley Heights.
As I just posted to a reply above, the "Gifted and Talented" programs *are* the 'special needs' programs for smart kids, and SHS has 'em, too. My friend's mom taught English at SHS for many years, and I know she refered to "the gifted program" more than once.
And I believe the "gifted" programs are all funded under the state "special ed." mandate.
-Mark
Aside: Way back when, my high school had the highest aggregate SAT scores for any public school in NJ, to a large degree because it was in Murray Hill, NJ, home of AT&T Bell Labs (now Lucent). About half of the kids in town were raised by parents who were professional scientists and engineers.
And perhaps unsurprisingly, our little town of 13,000 also had the highest teen suicide rate in the nation. For a couple of years, the valedictorian of the graduating high school class never actually made it to graduation.
A 13-year-old is still just 13, no matter how good he is with computers; the school should have treated him as a 'special needs' student who had done something wrong, not as an independent and emotionally mature adult, or as a criminal.
-Mark, hoping the next kid makes it through OK
I'm pretty sure radio was invented by Marconi, though I believe there are some who would argue Tesla should get credit. I fear for your daughter's history education if you "correct" the textbook's version with, "I'm sure that's wrong 'cause I think I read something different on SlashDot." As for praise where it's not needed, I think that's almost impossible when it comes to child education. Undeserved praise may be a problem though. In the case of the math games, it sounds like it may have been, and you did the right thing. Celebrate her accomplishment, and the work that went into it. Awards in the subjective areas like the arts are another matter though. The goal of childhood art education is not to mold "prize winning" artists. The idea is to introduce children to the arts, and to let them realize that it's something anyone can do. You may not be great at painting, drawing, singing, dance, whatever. But they can still be enjoyable, enriching, fulfilling things to do.
Interesting, I've considered it before, myself.My conclusion? Um, don't.
This is a very unfortunate story, and it sounds like they were throwing a lot of scare tactics at him, the "you'll never get into college now, kid" act. I HATE that, and I still believe it when they tell it to me, regardless.
Hello, you're talking like he's 8.
Give 13 year olds some credit. No, I'm way older than that, but I'm sick of hearing that he's dumb repeated over.
Neat, just like in Wargames. Which password crack?
Yeah, rules can be wrong. But you don't solve the problem by working outside of the system to break them. You solve the problem by working within the system to change them. You show understanding and compassion for the needs and reasons for having the rules and then you illustrate to the authorities the reasons against having those rules and show why they do more harm than good.
--
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
The boy didn't have to kill himself. Had intervention occurred early enough, he could have been helped and turned into a very productive member of society. Rather than just leave kids like this to the dogs, assuming that if they kill themselves they aren't worth shit to the human race, you should try and help them out. Ignoring the problem takes us a step backwards in our advancement. If you are such a supporter of advancing the human race, you would help out, rather than blindly walk by.
--
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
From the article, written by Staff Writer Karen Ayres:
> He hung himself in the family home only hours later.
You'd think that a staff writer for a newspaper would know that the word is "HANGED", not "HUNG".
> Maybe those of us with the experiance should
> offer to do some pro-bono work for those schools
You start offering IT services for free and soon Microsoft is going to realize the profit potential of providing these services. They'll issue a propaganda campaign against the dangers of pro-bono IT work. They will claim this stifles IT innovation and announce that legisltors need to be educated so that they understand the threat.
Warning: Rant that is probably partially off-topic.
Everytime I read a story like this, or stories about another school shooting I keep coming back to the same thought: Everytime they tighten up the rules after some incident it only gets worse.
Kids (males especially) from 12-17 have a natural instinct to assert thier independence. It's part of becoming an adult. Most of the things they do, and I did in my time, are just plain stupid, but the punishments have gotten so far out of whack it is ridiculous. There is no release for this aggression now that won't have them end up under a jail somewhere. Short non-scientific comparsion:
- We used to toilet paper yards on halloween, if we got caught we had to clean it up and do yard work for the victim. Nowadays a kid would spend a night in juvie, have 30 days community service and have to pay a fine.
- Graffiti, same deal, clean it, plus some you didn't do as well. Today in some cases it's a felony in California.
- Get caught with a beer, if you were driving you were screwed, if not, pour it out and the parents got called. Today, no license till you are 21, then you might get it if you are out of juvie in time.
Teens are already in enough of a pressure cooker. Every new zero tolerence policy that is applied like a wet blanket making shooting a spitball the equivelent of shooting a stinger missle down the hall only makes the pressure go up a few psi. If we keep this up it is only going to get worse. More kids killing themselves and each other.
I don't care much for the phrase "kids will be kids," but at those ages we have to stop treating them like criminals for petty little annoying shit. And before you troll with "well murder is just annoying" save your typing, we know the difference assholes.
If this kid broke into the school's system he should have received a punishment more suited to the crime. 10 days? I'd like to know the specifics of the whole deal. No disrespect to foo's post earlier, but it smells funny to me, and I don't believe those accounts. Sounds too much like a warped rehashed rumor.
--ninjalex
Banned from moderation 01-27-2002. Fuck you too
It's a shame such a young person ended his life, but one can hardly blame the school suspension for his suicide. The fact is no matter how gifted or talented he was, the kid broke the rules and he needed to be punished for it. Even if he had no idea what he was doing (which I seriously doubt), he was breaking the law.
The thing that bugs me reading the comments on this story is that there seems to be a lot of people with "me too" stories about how they were unjustly punished for similar crimes. When we read a story like this we can't let our emotions or sympathies get in the way of our reason.
According to the quote:To me there is no moral conflict here... if someone breaks a rule they should be punished (within reason), and I think that a 10-day suspension is perfectly reasonable for hacking a school computer system. According to the information in the article I have no problem with how the school handled the situation.
magic chef>HE IS DEAD.
>IT IS YOUR FAULT.
Quite frankly, you make me sick. How could you POSSIBLY know the cause of this kid's suicide. Just because you can identify with one facet of his life doesn't give you the right to judge the administration of a school that was merely disciplining a boy for breaking the rules. By jumping to rash conclusions like this, you only make the problem worse.
magic chef
you are an idiot.
have a nice day.
What a load of bullshit. If you believe that crap, you obviously understand NOTHING of the Hacker Ethic. There is a world of difference between a curious 13 year old hacker and an evil corporation.
Who's privacy do you think this kid violated, exactly? And how does this have anything to do with cookies or GUID's?
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Please use this responsibly. This princepal already has a great deal of stress, and probably some guilt, and does not need a bunch of semi-informed people accusing him of being responable for the kids death.
As tragic as this situation is, why does this story warrant posting on Slashdot?
Think about it people. The only reason it's here is because the boy was suspended for cracking the school computer systems. It's not here because someone cares about the fact that he died, but so that we can all blame the big people in authority for driving the little geeks to their deaths.
Who cares why he was suspended! I'm upset at the loss of the boy's life!
T
_______________________________________
Is that an African or European swallow?
A large number of north americans (Canadians as well as Americans) have a very low view of felons because all they see on TV are the worst 2% or so. They never see the guy who went to jail for not having his tax receipts for his business from 4 years ago, or the person who speeds excessively on an empty highway to get to a client's location or else he'll lose them, etc.
A _lot_ of people go to jail for things that you and I either have or would do. These people should _not_ be looked down on the way they are.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
WHY did I do it? Because I loved networks and wanted to learn how they worked. When I got control, I didn't do anything particularly malicious (no mark-changing, etc), but I poked around at all the administrative functions. This was far enough back that I hadn't yet had a home-network to play with.
The point is that nobody got hurt, I changed everything back, and I learned about networking. I'm glad I don't live in (the USA in general actually) a draconian system like that. Inquisitive kids should just get a good strong slap on the wrist so they never do it again, but making an example of them in this fashion is just bad.
Do you really believe that the administration did something wrong? If so, what are you basing your opinion on?
If the kid had thrown a rock through the school window, the punishment would most likely be the EXACT SAME THING. Suspension, with a comment about the illegality of the act. How much milder should it be? Who's responsiblity is it to discuss the act and the ramifications of it?
Geek and Hacker are not elite status' that kids get awared because they are intelligent. The ONLY thing that makes this a tragedy is that the only solution the kid saw was suicide. But when there's no other indication of suicide, then perhaps no-one is to blame.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
That's sort of the point of his statement. If you look at the next sentence, you see that he criticizes this action. In my school, the kids who are the larges disciplinary problems have become friends with the administrators (I assume the administrators feel this is a good thing, that in befriending the child, they can fix him). This just serves to alienate the people who are not offenders. I get no recognition or respect from the administration for performing well academically, besides a form letter given to honor-roll students, but the troublemakers get personal attention, and as a result more freedom in the school. That doesn't make sense.
Yes! That guy!
Our school uses a system called FoolProof on both Macs and PCs...it's a pretty decent program, but I've never spent too much time trying to circumvent it. We don't actually use the computers enough to want to...they're all there, but constantly being used by people learning how to type in Word.
Yes! That guy!
Dear God! Now the friggin lunatics on /. are blaming MS with killing kids! There are some people obviously foaming at the mouth here. Get a life.
I agree, and allow me to make another proposal: there is a big difference between a well-considered, rational decision and a rash, emotional one. This kid killed himself within hours of being suspended - he surely could not have thought things through. If you saw someone making any other sort of badly thought out decision, whether it's to wash your driveway with water in freezing weather, go up and pet a bear cub while mommy's not around, or hang yourself over a school suspension, are you (the fellow who said he wouldn't have intervened) saying you wouldn't say anything in any situation where you saw someone do something stupid?
I believe the software your refer to is called "AtEase".
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.
Ya, let's all spend millions of dollars psychologically evaluating every kid who does anything wrong before punishing him, for fear that he might snap and do something crazy like kill himself.
Not to take away from the tragedy, but didn't his parent's notice that the kid was disturbed, after he was sitting home, expelled from school?
I really don't understand the intent of posting this article on slashdot. How does it apply to anything? Because he was a hacker?? You think maybe something similar has happend in the past, for a different crime?
The poor kid was disturbed and unstable, so he did something silly. Not the fault of anyone, because it could not have been predicted.
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Are thirteen year old kids usually noted for being emotionally stable? Isn't this something an educator should consider before making threats?
You're right. I suggest not punishing kids at all, or informing them of the consquences of their actions, until they are at least 18.
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
The point is that for years the school system has been administering schools with the same "zero-tolerance" blanket policies. These policies are not just or right. The policies punish students for hacking with suspension, the same as a bully would be punished for beating up another student.
Instead, consequences need to be administered based on circumstance. When a student hacks into their school's computers for the sake of a challenge or mischievous exploration, they should not be punished with suspension. Instead, they should have their energy channeled into something productive. They should be told "Good job, we can see you thought a lot about this, worked on it, and completed your goal. However, you have to understand that it was destructive. So, tell us how you did it! And then help us write software that will be better then what we have."
Potential in students should not be destroyed with suspension.
It has now gotten to the point were the school system in not only responsible for destroying potential, it is responsible for destroying life.
Hackers will make great engineers and teachers.
Kids who run meth labs will make great chemists. Kids who deal cocaine will make great managers.
The back button on my browser is broken... so I would appreciate it if everyone would put a "target=new" into their link
30,575 dead.
Shinjan one of them. Tied a rope from his head.
Genius. Computers. Genius Programming. Creative outlets, nothing but another challenge.
These are the words that you constantly shun.
Because you are a school, a euphemism for prison.
The boy was gifted, the boy challenged himself, and completed his goal.
You punished him, rapped him, and then sent him home.
His life had meaning, a future, and pride.
From his family, friends, and the world death is now were he hides.
And you revert the blame?
You say its not your fault?
You wash your hands of the blood, while the public protests and shouts?
Zero-tolerance for hacking?
What about zero-tolerance for ignorance?
What about zero-tolerance for the death of the innocent?
HE IS DEAD.
IT IS YOUR FAULT.
But you cant even comprehend what I speak about.
You should have praised him, congratulated him, and patted him on the back.
And yet shinjan has died. Just for knowing how to hack.
Children must push their limits.
Smart people want to challenge themselves.
Schools: ENCOURAGE THE PASSION OF COMPUTERS.
The back button on my browser is broken... so I would appreciate it if everyone would put a "target=new" into their link
but if the info from foo22 is true, i feel no blame towards the administration. if the kid is changing grades, and selling access to other people to change THEIR grades, this is not some kid that was curious. that is a very very serious offense, which warrants 10 days suspension, and also warrants the comment about how it'd be criminal if he was an adult. this isn't harmless looking around, this is changing vital database info. If this is true, the administration, i feel, has no blame to be placed on them. I'm sure they all feel like shit, but they aren't responsible.
Crow
The result: stress. The fact (if this is true) that he was trying to hide some lower grades fits in very well. I have seen children become phychologically broken because of too high ambitions/expectations from their parents (all meant well of course, but still). When I read his father : "I worked so hard to bring up good children in a good school district." and his mother: "Rita eagerly displays a pile of medals, ribbons and trophies showcasing their son's many talents." I can't help but suspect that this might be such a case.
Then, after the "disgrace" of being suspended from school might have been unbearable to him to face his parents (most children would just talk to their parents).
This, like all other "interpretations", is just guesswork. But I don't think it is good to be so quick to blame only the school; this could and should also be a lesson for parents. Don't push your children, be very careful with too high expectations. Children need time to just play, just waste time, must not always be on to accomplish something. And they must know that it is allowed to fail (sometimes) and that getting lower grades is no disgrace (as long as your not performing way below your capacities for years in a row).
As a child the school offered me several times to skip one or two classes. Instead I did not (my parents opposed), so I lost some time. I played a lot of stupid games, 100% inproductive time. I didn't have very high ambitions. So what? I did what I liked, I could be relaxed and in the end it all doesn't make a difference. Yes, I might have finished university 1 or 2 years earlier, I might have gathered somewhat more capital at this point in time. Would I have been a more happy person? Surely not.
I shake my head when I read stories like this, or read elsewhere about parents having such high expectations for their children. I know that mostly it is good intentions (not always, some parents use their children to get social recognition or pride for themselves, alas) but they don't realise how much harm they do.
I just want, once, someone to stand up in the middle of the school assembly, or PTA meeting, and recite this little piece: You have killed a person. A person who never drew one drop of blood from you is dead, and its your fault. Someone whose biggest real crime was doing something you can't, you just broke his neck as easily as snapping the spine of a chicken for Sunday dinner. If you looked at the autopsy photos, you'd see a disturbing similarity between the rope burn patterns and your fingerprints. You are a murderer. I hope you enjoy the sobriquet, because it should haunt you until you, yourself, die. The worst is you didn't have to kill this soul. You could have listened to it. You could have tried to figure out why it was seeking what it found. You could have stepped aside with your mighty ego and tried to figure something out. You could have elevated it. You did none of these things. Enjoy your dreams.
-- Riding the Winds of Fires Lit in Ancient Days
The school had a rule, the kid broke it. Parents are responsible for teaching their kids not to break rules - law. Now that their son is dead, they still won't accept responsibility and pass it on to the school district. People need to take responsibility for their actions...
--
OliverWillis.Com
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
But aren't schools supposed to help children? Aren't they supposed to assist their development?
If they're not supposed to do that then aren't they supposed to let the parents know when there are problems?
Hindsight catching up with us again... It's those damned gifted kids being all "weird" again.
I think everyone has a responsiblity to help those who can't help themselves, especially 13 year olds.
Standard? The only standard is that no politician would want/dare to be seen as 'soft on crime' by introducing legislation to stop trying 13 year olds as adults. When kids are sent to adult prisons the sentice may as well read 'Life at orally and anally recieving semen.' The average life sentence should be about 6 months from incarceration to the prison AIDS ward...
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
Yes, in fact I have very seriously, including a brief institutionalization. I do understand what I'm talking about. I also know many other people that have been in similar situations, and have discussed suicide in general with very capable professionals. I do stand by my statements and believe that this child *must* have had serious emotional problems prior to this incident. He may have had trouble discussing them with his parents or others to the point where even in his suicide note he felt uncomfortable expressing them.
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Ignore your rights and they go away.
Well, yes it does... it also makes sense to have an implement a strict security policy for both the users and the network devices, so that such incidents would be impossible. But you know, things don't work out that way. Are most school networks secured the way one should be, or even at all? In most cases no. I've never gone to a school where there were proper firewalls in place.
As far as fiddling around being the best way to learn, I agree. I learned a lot fucking around with my middle school's Xenix network when I was 13. I learned a lot fucking around on my public library's SVR4 server when I was 13. But you know what? You also learn that when you get caught, you don't cry about it. You accept the consequences.
In any case, it's not okay to shoot someone who's wearing a bulletproof vest because it's properly protected. Who knows, maybe the school's machines were locked down properly, and they logged him doing a portscan or something.
Oh, and he'd learn a whole lot doing irrepairable damage to the filesystems or databases, but that knowledge is hardly is worth the price.
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Ignore your rights and they go away.
Some of you people have got to be kidding me. When I was in the sixth grade, I screwed around with my middle school's network. (If anyone reading this goes to Half Hollow Hills middle school, I'd love to hear from you!) You know what they did? Why, they suspended me. And guess what? I deserved it. You can say whatever you like, but the way that the administration is going to see it is that you're screwing around on a network that contains very important data. Being told be the kid that he knows what he's doing is bullshit to them. What if he had screwed up and fubared the all the grading data or the attendence records? Suspension isn't an excessive punishment for potentially endangering all the data on the school's/county's/state's network. Very real damage could be done.
As far as suicide, that's bullshit. No one kills themself over a suspension. Find a therapist or a psychologist or a counselor. Ask them if they think even a chronic over-achiever with strict parents would do something like that over a suspension. In fact, I'd like to know why the journalist didn't. People who end their lives invariably have a history of emotional instability. And believe me, that can be hidden from the most intrusive of parents easily.
So, in conclusion, this article is bullshit. An unstable kid did something stupid, got punished for it, and that along with whatever else he was dealing with was just a little too much. Maybe a week from now those parents will find the kid's journal or one of his friends will come forward and tell them about what his feelings were *really* like.
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Ignore your rights and they go away.
A friend of mine had a foster brother who was caught stealing things from one of the neighbors. The local Sheriff, apparently having heard about the success of the Scared Straight program aimed at juvenile delinquents, proceded to describe to the young man what he was in for if he entered prison. The young man committed suicide at the age of 16.
Seastead this.
Bullshit.
Even if the school system had the full authority of the old docrine of in loco parentis the school still has the responsibility to report to the parents anything that they consider a serious disciplinary problem. To withhold information from the parents is an unethical usurpation of parental authority and, indeed, was a contributing factor in that young man's death.
Seastead this.
Reading this, i would love to blame the school for this childs suicide, to say that the principal manipulated his fragile mind, but that just isnt the case.
For a kid to kill himself over somthing like this (which really isnt that big of a deal in the long run), that kid has to be unstable to begin with. This just brings it out, but it would have happend eventually even if he hadnt been caught and/or suspended.
Seeing things like this always breaks my heart, because many times, extremely mentally gifted kids really lack *vital* social skills that allow them to be successful, and sometimes,(like i think in this case) a certain grip on reality that prevents them from doing things like this.
When I was in HS a few friends and I took BASIC for an easy A. After we finished our projects in the lab we'd play around on the computers (old Mac Plus's). We'd get around AtEase, run NetBunny, Try to hack the AppleTalk shares, etc. We were bored and curious. We never deleted anything and when we'd get cought we'd get told to cut it out and undo everything. Now a days we'd find our selves suspended and probably charged with a computer crime.
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
But don't you see? This is all part of his plan! He's deliberately killed himself to set up the notorious Slashdot DDoS! I say they expand his supension to *twenty* days to make it clear that the school doesn't tolerate this.
However, one day my mom got a phone call saying that I had sent a death threat to the teacher in charge of the email accounts. I was sent to the Principal's the next day, and I was interrogated by the teacher, the assistant principal, and a police officer.
Needless to say, I did not write the email. The idiot teacher kept the passwords to all the accounts (which we were not allowed to change) in a black notebook in his room, which was easily accessible by students when the teacher was not present. In short, any student out to get me (and there were probably a few being that I was a computer geek subject to occaisional ridicule) could easily obtain my password and send an email from my account.
Thankfully, this was way before the whole spree of school shootings, so there was no paranoia among the school staff. I actually was able to proove to the assistant principal and the officer that anyone could have sent that email. Because of the fact that anybody could obtain anyone else's password, things were resolved in my favor. The next year, IIRC, school email was no longer available.
Had this happened within the last two years, I can envision that I probably would have been suspended, or even expelled, and that I might have even faced criminal charges due to the school's own stupidity. I feel sorry for high school kids today, because if they are even accused of something like this, they will probably get off much worse than I did, even if they never did anything at all.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
IMO this is due to pop culture's perception of hacking. If I told people that I was hacking some code people I know would swoon at the thought of my 'illegal' behaiour.
The school threatened the poor guy and got all up tight and crazy about it and scared the crap (and life) out of him.
That's a real pity. Maybe they should have got a clue about security instead.
My worst crime at school was programming stuff when I should have been writing essays. Ooops. A week without computer access. But even with that black mark against me I still had the root password and was responsible for adding new users and resetting passwords. Props to my old school.
I don't understand these schools.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
I thought God invented the electromagnetic spectrum, or at least Maxwell. =)
--- even the safest course is fraught with peril
No one can get a recognized blackbelt in Taekwondo below 18, unless it's just a pre-approved(Read: pseudo) blackbelt given by his trainer for his good work. But it's not a real blackbelt.
In your club maybe, but I received a black belt Tae Kwon Do at exactly the same age as this kid. I went to the same official gradings as everyone else, and had to perform the same sparring, patterns and breaking as any adult had to.
I also had a lot else in common, such computers being my primary interest. I used to hack into the school system, along with one of my best friends. I never really knew why I was doing it, there was no need as I had a computer at home, but I was just curious and wanted to see how far I could get.
Kids don't worry about breaking rules at that age, apart from the obvious killing and stealing the whole concept of 'illegal' is abstract - what matters is what your parents will tell you off for (and police only 'spy on you' on behalf of your parents).
I also got into similar trouble at the same age (but for buying an illegal weapon on a school exchange - I just thought it looked cool). There was talk of police and suspension/expulsion. I remember being totally bewildered as to why I was in trouble as I hadn't caused anyone any harm. Fortunately for me the matter was dropped.
However, I can imagine committing suicide in if I was in that boy's place. At 13/14, everything is the end of the world. If a girl doesn't want to go out with you it's the end of the world. If you fail your exams it's the end of the world. If I received that maximum suspension time and there was heavy-handed talk of going to jail (especially with Hollywood portrayals of brutality in jails) then I would have seriously considered 'opting-out'.
And contrary to many other comments on here, I don't believe you have to be 'unstable' to commit suicide. Even since a kid, I've always believed I own the rights to my life and it is up to me if I decide to take it away. I don't believe in any god or after-life, but I do believe I have a simple logical choice: whether to take that option and if I do then when.
Anyway, I feel sorry for the family of the child. Through no fault of their own, it sounds like they really send their child to the wrong school. Instead of the teachers trying to channel a teenagers natural mischief into something productive, it seems this school neglects its responsibilities to the child and merely tries to eliminate 'troublemakers' (succeeding quite literally in this case).
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
"He said if (Shinjan) was an adult, hacking into the computer system could be a crime."
I found that line pretty disturbing. Just about anything a kid that age does in middle school is a crime when done by an adult. Bullying in middle school is ignored, but if an adult had done the same actions it would translate to a mugging or assault. But schools typically look the other way regarding this kind of terrorizing. So suspending the kid for 10 days just because 'it would have been a crime if he were an adult' seems a bit extreme.
I suspect it had more to do with the 'loner hacking on a computer' scare that's going around these days. It seems like perhaps the punishment didn't fit the crime. Expecially because the youth was so scared that he killed himself afterwards.
My sympathies to his family and friends.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I noticed everyone is blaming the kid or schoolboard/school but no one has commented on what the parents have done. Where were these people?? Were they at work ignoring the kid all together. I think that society has lost the fact that parents should be educating their children on the basic life facts, like right and wrong and acceptable social functioning. This is not the schools job. They are to teach kids how to read and write, do math, and other subjects but are not responsible for 'parenting' them.
It's ironic that you cann't drive a car, build a pool on you own property, get a cat or dog with out a proper license but you can inflict pain on another human by creating them at any time even if you aren't adiquate to care for it.
And to think I've been hacking my school's system..... Disturbing.
Interesting. From the mother's own lips comes the same apathy as the parents of the columbine (and other) killers.
So, what surprise is it that suicide or homicide is the price to pay for "closing the bedroom door" on the modern teenager? Hell, you'd think we'd be learning something by now.
<---[singularity sig]
you're right. "no cracking" is a bad rule. How dare me. psh!
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
If you're going to break the rules/laws, be willing to suck it up and accept the punishment, and think it through.
Don't accept any sympathy from me... take responsibility for your actions.
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
There is definitely more to this story than we are being told by this kid. Granted, there's more than a few pointy-headed school administrators in this country, but a 5-day suspension for unwittingly sending an oversized email sounds way too severe.
What would have destroyed me is the 10 day suspension - several of my classes had required attendance and you would lose a grade for every 3 days of unexcused absence (suspension counted as unexcused absence). That would mean the best possible grade I could achive would be a D - I can't even imagine what I would have done, but at that age I'm sure I would have "broke" mentally as grades meant everything to me back then.
...what too often happens to the great majority of kids damaged by our school systems that don't go the way Dylan and Klebold did.
That's pretty much what I figured too. But nota bene: there are states in the union where it wouldn't have been an empty threat.
Remember the kid in Florida who got life without parole? He was 13, too...
-- Support Ometz le-Serev.
We don't hold minors responsible for their actions, dumbass. That's what "minor" means. It's the same reason we don't let them vote or drive cars or buy whiskey.
If I had to take a wild stab at it, I'd guess that whatever administrator actually told the kid he was being suspended decided to really put the fear of God into him. Great job, Mr. Chips.
he wasn't stable enough to handle it and made to decision to kill himself
Have you known lots of stable 13-year-olds?
-- Support Ometz le-Serev.
For someone who claims to be in the top 2% your spellings are rather sloppy.
At the intersection of computation and biology.
I have no idea if you really know the situation are not, but if it is true that he hacked into the school's grade system, changed his grades, and sold access, then he definitely deserves to be punished to the absolute fullest extent. That definitely deserves suspension, or even expulsion. Not only is it theft and burgluray, but it's an insult to academic integrity.
From the article, and from the rest of the comments, people made it out to be something minor like reading teacher's e-mail or crashing the network. But changing grades is an extremely serious offence. He seriously got off very easy if all he got was a 10 day suspension (his own self-imposed punishment notwithstanding).
Why is it that some of the most insipid, ignorant, heartless people on this planet are always in a position to pass judgment on the lives of those most qualified for those same posts? This kind of crap pisses me off to no end. I think it should be a requirement to call all the underappreciated, socially aloof kids in each school in this country to a meeting, sit them down and then explain to them that, while they are indeed the most promising elements of their generation, they will need to endure the barbs and general stupidity of many of those who would otherwise drive them to violence -- against their own selves, or others. How many times have we seen this happen before, and when will people learn?! Grr..... it almost makes me want to go down there in person, with a sledgehammer in hand, and rip their precious little system to bits. I couldn't hack my way through a moistened towelette, but I could certainly do more justifiable damage to it than that poor kid ever did (or intended, for that matter).
Have it occured to anyone that perhaps _nobody_ should be put in prison together with a bunch of violent criminals and drug-addicts. The worst will always prevail over the weaker, so over there you've got yourself a nice little school for bringing up thieves, murderers, rapists and una-bombers. The mind-set that prison should be a pure revenge from society is medieval and only enhances the problems. Often, the guards are bought and paid for and therefore just as crooked and perverted as the inmates themselves. I know crime-victims want the inmates to suffer, but in the long run it will only creates more victims and prolong the suffering.
I'm not arguing with you, mind you. Perhaps you agree.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Haha, nice flame. I doubt you even bothered to check out the story.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
So, just because you know stuff others don't, you "fuck things up"? Just for being curious and explorative? There's a big difference, but of course ignorant people wants to stay ignorant so they can feel safe and comfortable. Never mind that ignorant people are easy to abuse without them even knowing it. They'd like to push down other people, than improve themselves.
Not that _I_ think that's the issue here. More likely pressure from parents to be perfect above all. As far as I could read from other links, he changed his grades. "Why do you think he did that?", people should ask. But again, they just want to stay ignorant and rave about what _they_ think is important.
Btw, when a kid choses suicide over prison, something is terribly wrong.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I'm going to fly right off the handle here.
My deepest and most sincere apologies to the whole family if this bears no relation to their own tragedy but:
Friend of mine committed suicide a few years ago. Young guy, bright, over-achiever and successful in everything. -- except when he finally met something he couldn't deal with, to his previous standards of success. It wasn't any big deal; it was the sort of thing I screw up twice a year and don't think twice about, but for him it was something new, big and scary. So he shot himself.
Now in my friend's case, an awful lot of both why he'd been such an over-achiever, and why he'd found it impossible to deal with this one crisis, was pressure from his parents. Not much, not "Give me 20 or it's off to Military College with you" pressure, but just the pressure that was so concerned with "doing well" it had never taught him to cope with doing badly.
As for the 'crime'(?), I exposed their waaaayy bloated ignorance. "Where was this?", you say? Some backwater school district? Library?
Yes, a library. A university library. UWM's library. I'll paraphrase the first and second letters I got.
You are a pronography nut(huh?) viewing 'objectionable' materials, and have been running a business(lmao, not then tho..) off the terminals of the library, punishable for 1 year loss of access.
You, you eeeeeeevil curmudgeon, are eeeeevil becuase you dared to use our machines(not true, they are property of Student Gov :P) for purposes other than stated. You have raped our precious hard drives of room(untrue, if they really cared a rats a$$, they would have cleaned all the FOUND.00X files cluttering megs worth!), and accesses the operating system. Your access denied for TWO years...
I took the first letter to two experts, a journalism prof, and computer security for campus. They both said it was a letter of intimidation, and if the staff could have proved anything, they would have come after me for real time. Slap on the wrist.
I feel for the kid, the admin peeps didn't even state their part of responsibility, throwing the book at a bright and talented kid, all they could do is fear and loath him. Why not tap into that kind of talent? You don't 'Own' him? Control? WTF?
This is now my rant, check out if you want to.
I think we as taxpayers, however insignificant we are, should have a right to say how our money is spent. Mind you, I don't demand access to public payed for service revolvers, not being an idiot, but at a machine that is paid for my use, I want to use it as I would any other terminal available to me. The staff wishes a 300Mhz P3 to be: a rolodex, calculator, and typewriter. Uhhh, couldn't you have installed a 8086 and done same? What's up with that? A $3000+ machine into that crap? Whos money you been spendin' here? Nah, I'd rather repair the dammage and get something I want done. Sure, there are online utils that I could use, but why waste their server, when I can use something here, and not tie up Net resources? It makes sense to both me and the comp. prof. I asked. He said I did nothing wrong, technically, but they wanted a social engineering solution for a technical problem. They singled me out, censored me, discriminated and smear campaigned me, last I checked was illegal. They made me out to be some child molester, after which, noone would entertain any possibility I might be innocent.
Nope, I think this kid understood something of the pariah effect, I don't think we'll be keeping our best and brightest at this rate, sigh...
This mind intentionally left blank.
The KKK a bunch of sheetheads? You decide!
Yes, people who spend alot of time in front of the computer tend to take everything extremely literally. I've seen it in other people and I've seen it in myself. It tends to fade when you lay off for a few hours/days or so but it also seems to get stronger and more ingrained if you're on the computer for, say, 14 hours day after day. Maybe one of our witchdoctors will write a book about it some day. It's really remarkable when you think about it. It's like a kind-of-temporary dementia/autism that's invisible inside computerland (where nothing has any significant reality outside it's literal meaning anyway) but pretty obviously glaringly fucked up outside of it. Don't expect your computer friends to notice.
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
It sucks when a kid thinks, what ever he did was so bad he has to kill himself.Maybe if schools where more like schools and a little less like jail .Kid's would stop killing themself and each other.
The thing is, he WAS NOT going to be sent to prison, or even a juvinile detention facility. Was simply suspended for computer cracking. If he hadn't commited suicide, he could have been back to school today.
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Perversely greped and groped by PowerPenguin
Yes, he was getting C's and D's, but he was also smart enough to crack the system. The grades would seem to be from a lack of effort, not inability to measure up.
Perhaps his parents didn't give him somethoing that he needed. My parents didn't give me things I needed as a kid, either. The still don't understand me very well, and I'm almost 30.
The only person to blame is the kid. He is old enough to understand his own death, and decided to carry it out. Leave it at that.
> and no innitative to try new things, when you didn't push him in school to try out many different activities. How can he/she find out "what they enjoy" when they aren't pushed to try new things?
If you push a kid to do new things, you almost ensure that he will have no intrest in them. Read some Psychology, or Mark Twain. That which we choose to do is play, while that which we are forced to do is work. Pushing a kid into new things is a wrong thing to do, and the worst way to make him well-rounded. If you want to lead, lead by example. Even being offered a reward for doing something we already enjoy reduces how much we enjoy it.
> Sitting at home playing Nintendo doesn't count.
It does. I know this because I did this, too. I challenged my parents to push me and crack down on me. Though they were concerned, they didn't force me into or out of anything, and I got tired of trying to tempt them, and bored of wasting my time. I started doing really fun stuff like gardening, calculus, and programming. They, of course, were thrilled.
Using their own intrinsic motivation is the only way to motivate someone for good - it is the only long-term solution.
"Suspension is shucking off the responsibility"
I loved getting suspended, it's the best. Think about it, no school, no homework, the works. If you like to sit infront of a computer all day, then why give the day to the kid so he can hack other things. What would have been a good punishment would be to be in school, doing something productive like deleting windows from all the computers in school.
Here's my major beef. They apparently had a "zero-tolerance" for "hacking" or however they chose to put it. My questions are : Was this actually posted in several visible spots where it would be noticed? Also, did they bother to divulge what was considered such behavior? I mean if you browse around and scout a network. Check what ports are running. See what versions of the software are on there. Pretty much everything you can without actually modifying anything or running an exploit of sorts. Couldn't that (according to them) be "hacking." If a computer gives out that information freely from commonly used commands then how is that possible? For me there are for too many questions that need to be answered before a reasonable solution (not place of blame) can be found.
.--bagel--.---------------.
| aim: | bagel is back |
| icq: | 158450 |
( o ) one could say I'm rather baked
One sentence that the boy's father said and a blanket statement about his parents' religion is not sufficient reason to blame them for his suicide.
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Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
My father was a public high school teahcer the entire time I was growing up, and the flavor of both of your posts reminds me of all the kids in school who could never believe that teacher are REAL people, with REAL lives and families of their own. Yes, they DO go home and eat dinner and have hoobies at night, a fact which surprisingly few students EVER think about. To your comments I would say that 1) it is not public school teacher's place to "raise and discipline" YOUR children effectively, just teach them. Sometimes it is impossible to teach tho, with half the parents screaming there is not enough discipline and the other half crying that's there's too much, their poor child has been traumatized. Not ALL public teachers are that great, or even know to teach the right things, but in my experience MOST of them are people trying to do something good for the community and world they live in. They get paid abysmally, so they're certainly not in it for the money. However, going to PUBLIC schools I was able to get for myself an outstanding education (as good as my friends who went to boarding schools and private schools) and my parents didn't have to go into horrible debt to provide it. Public schooling is a cornerstone, and I beilieve one of the great priveleges, of living in the US, and altho the system needs help, she ain't dead yet, and neither should she be.
I know what you mean about this middle school philosophy tho - the one that says we shouldn't worry about actually teaching them anything between the ages of 12-14, because they are too hormonally fragile and need emotional growth capabilities instead. Come on, the kids just laugh at all that touchy-feely crap behind the counselor's backs anyway and are happy they have less homework.
ooky
wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world - gd
Not every article posted on slashdot is interesting to all the nerds. While we are involved in tech in some part of our lives... tech is a broad topic. so it is silly to whine about how it doesn't fit YOUR definition of what should be on /. with over 600 comments it looks like it is newsworthy to some of the nerd community.
I like these type of articles. While I somehow survived my teen years as a lone geek in high school (yes, suicide crossed my mind once or twice). I'm interested in the issues that face the young geeks today. I'm now a mom to two kids who were on the computer before their first birthday. What can i do to make sure they survive the trials of being a geek. I don't want to make the mistake this kid's dad made.
Faith
You haven't mentioned one big reason that I think is fairly common. People have different kinds of minds (artistic, scientific etc.) and they learn different subjects with different success.
Myself, for example, at school I easily understood basics of nuclear physics, and I had no doubt why helium is unlikely to react with anything else. However I couldn't bear literature, touchy-feely stuff, what some fictituous persons might have thought and other junk like that. If a teacher asked me about some novel I couldn't tell anything coherent, unless that was in the novel (that I surely read).
I had similar issues with grammar classes. Teacher required everyone to memorize hundreds of numbered rules (how to spell words, how to compose sentences etc.) I never did that - mostly because I didn't need those rules :-)
In England, two kids of 8 and 9 kidnapped and brutally murdered a child of 2, by stoning him to death with bricks.
They've been in jail since then, and are now up for parole, whereupon they'll be released into the world under new identies.
Try the bastards as adults because they committed an adult crime.
I'm not apologising for my comments, but I'm sick of how screwed up the world is. You break a law, you suffer the punishment. If you are treated badly during this time that is a different matter entirely. Why is there such leniency on this site for people who break computer based laws? A law is a law - I live by them so why shouldn't you?
(It's monday morning and I'm tired and pissed off)
Ho, ho, ho. Thanks for the intelligent comment. Made it all worthwhile for me.
It was kind of funny. I walked into class as I always do, and the teacher told me to just wait right by the door and not to enter the class. He then proceeded to call for an administrator and had me escorted down to the office for the paperwork. My parents were called and they didn't understand it, but they were on my side;
My guess was that I was suspended because the teacher was upset that he could not resolve the problem technically, and as he was "outsmarted", he would just punish me with a suspension. Since there was no rule on the books that related to such a matter, they treated it the same as if I had spray painted the walls or some other act of "vandalism".
I've not really minded it at all. I'm actually proud of the fact that I've never gotten in trouble for anything in school except this one act. At least this act was as a result of my skill and not some other delinquent activity.
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Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
For a kid who's been raised in a fairly happy, loving family, having to tell your parents who've raised you and provided you with so much that you've failed them and yourself is probably one of the worst parts of the punishment.
Its when an irrational, emotional, deeply ashamed and confused child believes that suicide is the only option that we've failed.
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Silence is consent.
The first part of the comment obviously refers to the fact that the father feels his life is meaningless without his son.
The second part sounds to me like he was saying that he aimed to raise his child to be the best person he or she could be in the best schooling environment around. These arn't exactly bad things to aim for.
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Silence is consent.
Mr Alston, your a tosser. You and little Johnie just bend over and let Kerry Packer fuck you and the whole Australian IT industry in the ass.
Your stupid pr0n laws, rediculous gambling laws, corrupt ASIO power extensions and ironically copying the DMCA has demonstrated to anybody remotely connected to IT what an A grade shit you are.
The sooner your kicked out the better.
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Silence is consent.
I can tell you that our school system (for the record, I am on the School Board) greatly appreciates all our volunteers (esp., since the state legislature insists on meddling with our budgets).
If the administartor truly did put the fear of god
into the boy, than that was surely a contributing factor, but what I haven't seen discussed is the father's actions -- what kind of dad would just go back to work and leave their kid home along after that!?!
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
So what made you think that being some kind of intelligent computer kid would give you exemption from gym class? No wonder they made you sit down and do nothing!
<grub> Reading
When I was in HS I had a good teacher, that would let me hack away, I still remmeber him, to bad he has passed on (the only teachers funeral that could be held on saterday and have both alumni and current studens attend)
I have so cool storys about him, when I was in 11 greade I and 2 of my friends had this thorey that he has a X-hacker (we belived he had missel codes at home, he refused to conferm or denie it)
Well I guess not all schools can have a mitch.
Mr. Schwartz recently gave a talk at Oregon State University about his case.
Just to clear up a common misconception, Mr. Schwartz is still allowed to vote. This right is only suspended for those who are actually serving time in jail.
I'm not a lawyer, but this answer came straight from Schwartz himself.
This guy's son died and all he can think of which school district his son attended? No wonder getting caught hacking seems so terrible to this kid--dying may have seem better than getting in trouble with his dad.
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
Essentially, the cops made that up. America, land of the free...
f.
f.
In my school district in monmouth county, nj, its max of a 3 day out of school suspension. I also live maybe 15-20 mins from west windsor and it sad that the suspension caused the kid to commit suicide. On another note my school found my friend a "treat to public saefty" last week for looking at hacked web sites on attrition.org. He was suspended for 2 days pending a psychological evaluation. New Jersey schools really need to go after the big things not a little incident that computer data was messed with.
"We Dont know WHY he did it"
Let me tell you why. You morons told a young boy who has been forced to achieve by his parents that he was going to jail. To increase the drama you threw him out of class for 10 days. Yes, school is nothing more then a job with alot of short whiners for you people, but for the whiners its everything. You have crushed this young man, and promised him it was going to be worse. We dont know why, lets start with the note,
"I would rather die then go to jail" , I think that speaks for its self. The school didnt tie the rope, but they were the instrument of his death. If he hadnt been lied to about jail, and if he had recieved a more sane punishment he might have reliazied how useless the school is, and that their opinion didnt matter.
We are on the crest of a complete loss of control on our public schools. With zero tolerance, and uneducated educators, students will soon enough learn that the school only has its power becouse they yeild to it, but rather they cant throw the inter school into juvinal hall, they also cant suspend everyone. The students should stop regergitating facts and start to learn a thing or two, All they need to do is form a union. You see when the students strike, the schools ada falls to 0, and they dont get paid. 0 ada scares the teachers more then any thing else. The great thing is that ada is an average, so a few days of 0 attendance and they are screwed for months. If the stundent really want to remember their friend, they should stop crying about his death to school counlsers, and start striking until there is a studnet review/apeal board of all punishment.
He's trusted by them, despite breaking into their machines for years? In my opinion if he'd been told about this for years then maybe, just maybe, he's not a reponsible and trustworthy individual?
Now, what happens if he does trash the email system.. either by plan or accident? Maybe he gets bullied in the classroom tomorrow, and then there's the nice temptation to read the bully's email and act on it..
In my mind no one should have access to servers, especially the email servers, until they have proven they can take responsibility for their own actions. You do this by not breaking into other people's servers.
This is just the geek version of giving someone advanced driving lessons for car theft.
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I'd have to disagree here. If he were an adult, you would certainly have a valid point, but 13 year old kids do not necessarily think like adults. They tend to make rash decisions without fully comprehending all of the possible ramifications. In this case, I believe that he may indeed have been an otherwise 'normal' well adjusted teen who was simply overwhelmed by the apparent possibility of incarceration. Of course, it's also possible that he was on the brink of disaster, but definitely far from a certainty. I guess what I'm saying is that, by adult standards, nearly all 13 year olds have some psychological problems. We really shouldn't lose sight of what a volatile time it is in a person's life.
Implying that the school should know that a 10 day suspension and possible threat of jail is going to "cause" this kid to commit suicide (regardless of what he did) while tacitly accepting that even the parents had no idea it would happen is beyond comprehension to me.
Please take your sensationalistic hate inspiring statistics and and find a nice hate website to spread them in. Personally I suggest going to NOW, they won't require any evidence and will make you feel warm and fuzzy for spreading rhetoric. The truth shall set you free and ignorance brings comfort, can you break free?
My apologies to all. As many have pointed out, the article did not say that the student had been punished under a "zero-tolerance" policy, but rather the opposite. I misread that section of the article.
I still stand by my comments on "zero-tolerance", even if they are less applicable to this incident than my misreading of the article suggested.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
Let's face it. Good kids are going to screw up. What these zero-tolerance policies do is to remove from the authorities any power, responsibility, or incentive to distinguish between the hopeless, incorrigible fuck-up and the kid who stumbles.
The kid committed suicide because he didn't want to go to jail. Does anyone doubt that there are school districts where he would have gone? I don't; not in the least. It's probably part of some district's "zero-tolerance" policy that was oh-so-popular with the voters, and it's still popular until some poor kid gets in trouble and kills themselves -- and even then, not a single person stops to think, "Gee, hey, maybe sometimes tolerance is a good thing."
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
As a teen in school, my father used to demand that I get an A+ on every class. I once came home with a report card in which I got two A's, and the rest of my grades were A+'s, and he angrily demanded to know why the A's weren't A+'s. As a high school senior I got a D in calculus. My teacher called my father to explain to him that because it was an AP course I was being rushed to complete 9 months of course material in 6, and that the class was very advanced, that really I was doing as well as could be asked of me, and that me getting a D in that class was equivalent to an average student in an average class getting a B. My father threw a two hour screaming fit at me anyway and spit in my face and grounded me.
I didn't kill myself.
In no way do I want to imply that the kid in the story we're all discussing was or wasn't under terrible pressure, or should or shouldn't have killed himself. I am saddened by the story. What I want to point out is, people react to situations differently.
Maybe 999 out of 1000 people in his situation would have gone home and had a good cry and faced the music at school the next day and got over it. Maybe not. Yeah, I think telling a kid they're in for jail time, when you know they're not, is really deplorable, and so is pushing your child to excel or else. However, we have to recognize that lots of kids grow up with these lousy occurances in their life and go on to have a career and more or less forget about it.
So, I think laying this death at the feet of the parents, or the principal, is just wrong. There's no way anyone can really predict how people will react to what they say, whether it's rude and deplorable or warm and friendly. A high school principal is not a fortune teller. This may well not have been a preventable incident. We'll never know.
He might have to do time in some sort of "at risk" program or community service unless he had 2-3 prior convictions. In that case, he'd probably end up in a juvie lockup. As for what juvie stuff carries over, some states are thinking about keeping juvie records on file after 18 if you raped or killed someone as a juvie.
Just because you work in a school doesn't automatically imply that you have better than a room temp IQ. Noone seems to understand that little fact these days. So as a result, the kids get messed up, the parents are confused about what is going on in the schools, and the governments who set up the regulations for the school are seeing no pressure from anyone to remove the rotten eggs from the system. As time goes on a teacher with limited abilities is shifted around to less critical classes, and maybe moved into administration in time. And then you have people who are as bad at admin duties as teaching duties.
If you were the guys running the school and had a competant lawyer on the scene, you would by all means STONEWALL. When the civil suit comes up, claim you can't talk about it for legal reasons (like the fact that you don't want to lose the case, your career,lots of money or go to jail) Public appologies are as good as admissions of guilt. Its a big billboard saying SUE US FOR EVERYTHING WE HAVE OR EVER WILL HAVE.
Rich and the powerful, eh? Don't you mean the lying and the cheating? If no one has skills, how can they be of use? Mindless sheep sitting there doing nothing? I'd rethink your reasoning
My parents are not the bext expert on me. I am, if anyone.
Contrary to what most educators say, School is NOT LIKE THE REAL WORLD. When you are an Adult and on your own, you have the freedom and ability to remove yourself from uncomfortable situations. Schoolchildren are a captive audience that are forced to be there day in and day out not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for 12 long years.
I like this remark. Its insight comes from the irony within. I can remember being told many times in school that the best way to deal with an ugly situation is to remove yourself from it for a while; and, stay away until you've cooled down. What happens when the problem is the school?
Our comments won't change the fact that what is said in the article itself is what stands and what should stand, and they won't change the fact that we really don't need to know about it. I hate to sound insensitive, but it really seems to me that this is just another story about life and death. Consider it for a psychology or philosophy book, or for a good story perhaps, but news? Let the family grieve for their son without the publicity.
I'm serious, it is the parents fault.
You're all stuck in your high and mighty 'don't reprimand the genius' bs that you refuse to lay blame where it belongs: with the parents.
They pushed him, and pushed him, and pushed him. And he broke.
This is not he school's fault.
His parents were responsible for indoctrinating him in the conventions of society, of following rules, and of dealing with disappointment. They failed.
Don't give me any of this crap about how unfair it is the punish kids for screwing with computers, that is IRRELEVANT. He didn't get kicked out of school, or sent to juvenile hall, he got suspended, not a too-harsh punishment in reality.
The kid overreacted because his parents were laying some brain-washing mumbo-jumbo on him thick and heavy, and he couldn't take it any more.
This is Darwin at his best, culling the herd of another mentally unstable person, even if this instability was caused by bad parenting.
Don't even dare to flame me for my remarks about bad parenting, I am a parent, and what these people did to their child disgusts me.
As for the tragic story at hand, if he did change his grades a sell acces, I think that, at least in this case, the administration was fully in the right, and maybe a little lax in their punishment. I think he was wound a little tight, but it really isn't for me to judge.
Smart people scare the "masses" the same way that religon scared pagans. The only way to respond is to get defensive. But as soon as these people realize that there is more to life than throwing a footbal 60 yards and fucking the head cheerleader, then maybe society will evolve a little more. Either that, or we need to get more intellectually gifted (note: I didn't use the word geeks. I feel it is a derogatory label) into positions of power and decision making.
I was referring to the fact that they are scared of the unknown, so they get defensive and lash out.
The Church supported all of Galileo's early work, and it was the actions of jealous SCIENTISTS that brought about his condemnation.
In an early (1597) letter to Johannes Kepler, Galileo wrote that he thought that Copernicus' theory was correct, but that it would be better not to publish because the establishment would not accept it.
Twelve years later, Galileo made his famous observations with the telescope and published "The Starry Messenger", which he submitted to the Vatican and for which he received approval and support.
Then the scientific establishment started complaining, claiming that breaking with Aristotle was a heresy. They enlisted the aid of the Dominicans to denounce Galileo, but he continued to publish with the express permission of the Church. For instance, "The Assayer", is explicitly dedicated to the Pope.
Galileo's fall came at the hands of the scientist Schreiner, who managed to force a trial under the Inquisition. The head of the Inquisition supported him, and simply gave a reprimand, telling him to keep to objective facts. The scientific establishment was not satisfied and managed to get another trial, which is quite complicated in its course... The end result was a sentence of house arrest in a lavish home, exactly where Galileo preferred to do his work.
In fact, it was from house arrest that he published his "Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences". The Church has since apologized for even this mishandling of the case.
In conclusion, it was not simpleminded religious zealots that persecuted Galileo, but rather simpleminded establishment scientists who had everything to lose in a scientific revolution.
I highly doubt your mental state is so iron clad. I HIGHLY doubt it. The human psyche is a very fragile thing, and everyone has their breaking point. Most North Americans won't come close to reaching it, since they take for granted their luxurious lifestyles. Have you ever had to deal with children starving to death? Or have you ever had to clear away dead bodies so you'd have a place to sleep? I have. Although these things did not push me to any 'breaking point' they sure opened up avenues of thought that my mind had never before ventured into. The human body is a machine, unlike any other. It has a mind, and this further has emotions. These are open to manipulation, from all manner of sources. Some people just can't fathom how good they have it in life...
Karma: Good. I'm hoping in the same way as pizza is 'good'...
sorry, but IMHO fattening up one's high school portfolio just to get into a prestigious college is just pathetic. no freakin kid of mine is gonna be an overachiever. children should be taught to do what they enjoy, to find pleasure and meaning in activities. jumping through hoops in school makes for a dull life of more hoops jumping when we become adults, hence dispicable career-obsessed yuppies with not a shred of human dignity left in them.
the father went back to work at his tech job? didn't sit down to talk it out with the boy? uh,... i see a viscious cycle of the meek overachieving child with no singular personal creative thought whose identity is built on trying to please others. not good. not good at all, hence the tradegy and the parent's bewilderment and inability to find answers.
Well, the views of certain idiots is that extreme punishments will deter hacking. But it is hardly true. In countries with captial punishment, people are still commiting crimes that will get them killed. So when are these idiots propsing capital punishment to hackers?
The fact is that the security of a system plays a part in inviting hackers. I am not saying that hacking is not be a crime, but more should be done to encourage system admin to keep systems secured. It can be as simple as if a company is broken in simply because the system admin does not believes that hackers exist, there should be no form of getting back any damages through civil courts or otherwise. Furthermore, the damage done to the computer system should not taken into account when the hackers informed are being sentenced. The case should be taken as the hacker has commited a crime by hacking and no damage is done. Furthermore, if sensitive information of other parties are stolen (like credit card information), the company should be made to pay for any losses that this parties suffered. This will force companies to take computer security more seriously and therefore cut down the amount of hacking that is going around. Also, laws must also be made to encourage software companies to comes up with patches within a certain period (maybe 1 week) after the vulnerablities is detected. If not, the software company involved should be make to pay for a certain percentage of losses that their client suffers as a result of failing to come out with a patch fast enough. It will encourages software companies to design software with security in mind and not user interface.
I would also like to add that the punishment for a crime must always be consistent with the crime commited. But it seems that this principle does not follows anymore. For example, if I am not wrong, in a CERTAIN country, if you kill a person, the chances are that you will get less jail time than a person who commit intangible, unquantifiable intellectal property thief is quite high. This is sad. Those idiots should comes up with laws where the punishment for hacking should be proportional to the effort need to commit the crime. If a script kiddy who took 1 min to download a script and and 30 secs to hack into a system which is not patched for 2 years, he should get 10 hours community service at most. However if a person hacking in a system where the system admin has taken due care in ensuring the system is secure, then he should get 10 years for all I care.
I went to a public high school which shall remain nameless. Suffice to say that the school mascot was a ram.
Password for administrative access to network servers (and from there to things like the grading system): gorams
Password for school library system: public
Password for cafeteria accounts: goodfood
Of course, since the losers knew nothing about compartmentalization of access, logging in under the cafeteria manager's account would also get you access to the grading system, for example. Apparently, it was simpler to make everyone ROOT.
No joke.
-Elendale
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
The parents are who we should be looking at.
What did they say to the child after he got suspended? Perhaps they were supportive, or angry, or silent... or perhaps they filed him with guilt, berated him about how much of a failure he is, how unlike his successful older brother he is, how he's going to jail now and will stain the families reputation. Or maybe they just ranted about how inappropriate the suspension is. There is a wide range of possible reactions they could have had. I don't think a supportive one would have led to suicide. I don't think its even remotely logical that the parents could not have played a part in this.
Is 10 days extreme? Sure. Is hacking into the computer system of your school and doing who knows what extreme? You betcha. I don't think the suspension is out of line. Breaking and entering, even virtually, into property is a real crime. I don't really want to downplay the seriousness of threats, but people, kids especially, threaten each other all the time. Following through on those threats is another matter. This child didn't threaten to break in to a computer system. He did.
Blame the parents.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
BUT THEY ALREADY DO.
Haven't you noticed that schools have rules about cheating, about bullying, about being disruptive in a group, about doing what is expected of you, about playing fair in sport, about obeying your elders, etc, etc... all of these, both written and unwritten, plus the manner in which they are enforced (or not enforced), create a moral framework which is impressed upon students as How Life Works.
Anyone who believes schools don't help shape the morals of the young is totally ignorant of the reality. Any school official who claims "it is not the job of the schools to teach morality" is engaged in cowardly buck-passing to avoid the responsibility they know is implicit in the school system, no matter how much they'd like to wish it away.
Ah, got a bit heated there. Either they're engaged in buck-passing or they're being pedants. Even if it's not the job, it comes with the job anyway, whether they like it or not.
Man, you ARE a geek, aren't you.
"Not until we do somehting about it"
Yeah, let's hold a fucking "No More Forcing Kids To Suicide By Threatening Them With Jail Time" march!
What the hell can we do? It's the people who are ignorant of the geek/hacker mindset that need work, not us. And don't think that we can do much to educate them, either, because they're equally afraid of us as they are anything new or different.
Yes, but when the burglar is a school kid breaking into the school for the 4th time after hours and falls thru a painted over skylight after stepping on it, he and his family sue the school district for millions for not making the school buildings idiot-proof for teen burglars.
And they won, too.
"...can you imagine a BEOWULF CLUSTER of these? That'd be some serious power!"
And when they steal cars and crash them hurting others we still don't hold them accountable.
When they steal liquor out of their parent's cabinet, get drunk and shoot a friend with daddy's pistol, we say poor baby you didn't really mean to do that, now i hope you have learned your lesson and promise real hard you will never do it again.
And when they plot to kill their classmates for a year and half the school knows about it, including adults and then go on to kill 13 people we throw up our hands and ask why no one taught these kids any respect for others or personal responsibility for anything?
Do you see a pattern here?
"...can you imagine a BEOWULF CLUSTER of these? That'd be some serious power!"
"I don't think that's true. "hacking" computers doesn't seem very immoral or illegal. When you're sitting in front of the screen, especially at 13, it's just like a video game."
How true! When you are standing in front of the cashier island in the 7-11 at midnight pointing a 9 mil at the Paki or Sikh shitting his pants trying to open the register.
It gets even better when they give you the money and you bust a cap on the boyz [no witnesses, nome whut i'm sayin'?] the blood and screaming are just like the video games!
And you get to see yourself on TV news the next day because you forgot to shoot the security cameras!
Call all your friends to let them watch you as well.
"...can you imagine a BEOWULF CLUSTER of these? That'd be some serious power!"
That conformity comment reminds me about an editorial I read in a newspaper once.
A kid in a test had the question:
Which of these is the odd one out:
The Earth
The Moon
The Sun
A lemon
They used pictures as well. The kid chose the earth. He was marked wrong. When he was asked why he chose the earth he said "because it was the only thing that wasn't yellow." Wrong according to the answers but perfectly fine reasoning from looking at the pictures considering he was only in primary school.
Oh please, I didn't do any out-of-class revision for my GCSEs yet I did better than 95% of my year. My notes are simply not understandable beyond about a month of taking them, and my homework was always a quick rush job a few hours before it had to be in.
The ability to get good grades at high school is little more than the ability to act like a parrot.
Whatever the outcome, it's a very sad story...
--
Donate free food here
And I used to be 13 as well; I'm guessing that the poster was speaking from personal experience - I know that I had a tendency to occasionally overreact to threats of punishment at that age; I stayed away from school for two days when I got given detention for hurting some poor bully's fist with my head.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
In sixth grade, our school had old Apple IIe's which had a program called Microtype installed that taught us typing skills. Microtype was made in BASIC, and during a day when the teacher was out, I modified my version of the program to give me a 100% every time (we'd test our accuracy rates while someone held paper over our hands). Needless to say, the teacher found out, and called me into his office. He couldn't understand how I modified it. He knew no BASIC, so I told him about the LIST command. He tried it, told me that he got thousands of lines across his screen, and I told him how to list groups of lines. It was a great learning experience for him, I suppose. I didn't get any suspension, however, which baffles me many years later, as I'd advocate for a punishment for a kid doing the same situation now. Anyways, the school got brand new Macintosh PowerPCs the next year :)
Don't say things like that...
We need Zero tolerance...it's what all these jails are for...
If we don't have Zero Tolerance, where are we suppose to get next year's garbage man? Mexicans are getting expensive to hire.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
If law were this black and white, we wouldn't have the intricate layering of appeals processes, and we wouldn't have court rulings that consist for three quarters of quotes of other judges' interpretation of the law.
And while I don't want to enter the debate on whether the outcome of the trial is defendable on legal and moral grounds, I do want to point out that both parties have themselves to blame for letting it get this far out of hand.
I've been on the corporate side of such disputes more than once, and I'm actually quite proud none of them got out of hand to the point where talking could not resolve the issue (from both ends: getting the individual to stop damaging activities, and getting the corporation to at least listen to the warning signs).
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
Don't even presume to know anything about their family life. It's totally irresponsible of you to lay the blame on the parents here and absolve the school system when you know nothing about the matter. You're the kind of person who takes propaganda and runs with it. You were given no facts here, and yet you managed to come out pro-establishment and anti-parents. You're such a tool of the Man. They deny the public any information, and you somehow come out glorifying them in the absence of any basis for judgment whatsoever.
Guess they'll suspend yet another student, eh?
My kids are all fairly young, 4 to 9. They are not equipped yet to make many important decisions, including things like what medical treatment to get, how (or whether) to get educated, or for my 4-year-old, even whether to eat anything other than ice cream.
Good parenting includes putting more and more decision-making and responsibility on a child as he is able to handle it. Hopefully, when he is ready to leave home, he will be making practically all his own decisions, and be well-equipped to face the world.
Of course, this all assumes a minimum level of good parenting. If you aren't getting that, then I don't know what to tell you.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Now back to my tirade...
Parents, please smother your kids with positive forces!
First, spend (quantity, not just quality) time with them yourself. You are the best expert on your child...much better than any so-called "professional." It does not take a PhD to give love and adult guidance. Use educators, medical doctors, religious counselors, etc. as you see fit, but always reserve ultimate responsibility and authority to yourself.
Be very careful who you choose an an agent of your authority for educating your child. Investigate the public school in your area. Consider private school, or even home schooling. Whatever option you choose, stay involved. In the end, it is you who are responsible for your child.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
I would go further in this case, and claim that there is a moral obligation to intervene, but that case is harder to make.
Second, even when considering a sovereign adult, there a world of difference between persuasion and coercion. Certainly, one is morally permitted to try to dissuade someone from suicide.
Again, the case is harder to make, but I claim we should try dissuade people from committing suicide in at least most cases. We should also try to help them address the problems in their lives that are causing them to consider suicide. If you subscribe to some form of "love your neighbor"-based moral code, then the argument for this case should be obvious. If not, then this would be a longer discussion than we have space for here.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Maybe he should have come back with a gun, at least then Darwin would have been right.
Flame on!
second society
Walking away from one's responsibilities?!?
One's responsibilities AS A CITIZEN outweigh one's responsibilities at work.
Do you want to be tried exclusively by unemployed people? Would that be a jury of your peers?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Do something about it? If one can't vote? What should one do??
As for "bleeding hearts" (no need to insult) how about people that do not like the conflict of interest, where politicians whose fate is determined by elections get to decide who is allowed to vote in those elections. Make marijuana possesion a felony, bar felons for life from voting, and just like magic, the elections favor drug war supporters. Could it be because many of the constitutents on the other side of the fence were left voiceless at the ballot box?
P.S. Randal Schwatz can vote, but not if he moved to certain states.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
The above post is plagarized.
It is a near duplicate (minus hyperlinks) of my post in the recent story about contacting lost clients about bad security.
I don't know if I should be flattered, just have a good laugh, or send Slashdot a DMCA takedown notice.
(Just kidding about that last one!!!)
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
And dealing with a mental overload due to the overachieving made it worse. Pushing a person (even if the person doing the pushing is him/herself) beyond their limits will eventually cause damage.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
If he moves to Nevada, he will NEVER be allowed to vote (we share this "distinction" with 13 other states). Sad but true.
Oregon is one of the states that is quite favorable to felon's voting rights.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Fuck it. Let's nominate the kid for a Darwin award.
I recently graduated from the school district in San Diego, CA made infamous a few months ago when there were two school shootings (Santana and West Hills) within a very short timespan.
At the high school I attended, the string of inexplicable student behavior has been continued with half a dozen suicides or suicide attempts, some involving entire groups of friends.
My mother is in a position to be privy to this sort of information, and when she told me about the string of suicides at my old school, I was surprised as I hadn't heard anything about it. She told me that while she was in a position privy to such information, teen suicide was considered a provate issue -- and the press did not ever act on the information, out of respect for the families of the deceased.
Reading that this student was only 13, it makes me wonder why the press would run a story on his suicide, especially when I personally know of several such cases, none of which were ever mentioned in the press.
Grades are more a measure of conformity and how well you subjugate yourself to the teacher. Some kids are fine with that and accept it as a fact of life. Others are riled by it and find themselves unwilling to comply.
They typically get bad grades despite their intelligence, and find themselves ostracized by both the faculty and the other students.
"People who are good with computers" sounds alot like "advanced powerpoint user". The description certainly applies to users of commercial software packages.
Developers by definition are *not* satisfied with the rules presented to them, so they set about making their own (language|editor|interface|etc).
Teachers have no knowledge that is useful anyway
You might be shocked by how many teachers that applies to. You might also be shocked by how many straight "A" students are massive morons. Maybe one day youll meet a person with a PhD who is obviously inept.
I interview people for programming positions, and I have found education to be the least reliable indicator of talent.
- Shinjan's death was untimely and unwarranted but we are all seeing the effect without knowing the cause. I can certainly suspect that his suspension was, at least, the catalyst but certainly not the cause.
- We ALL live in a society and are subject to it's laws and are ALL empowered to attempt to CHANGE those laws we feel are wrong. In New Jersey, Title 2 describes that:
"2C:20-25. Computer-related theft A person is guilty of theft if he purposely or knowingly and without authorization:
a. Alters, damages, takes or destroys any data, data base, computer program, computer software or computer equipment existing internally or externally to a computer, computer system or computer network;
b. Alters, damages, takes or destroys a computer, computer system or computer network;
c. Accesses or attempts to access any computer, computer system or computer network for the purpose of executing a scheme to defraud, or to obtain services, property, or money, from the owner of a computer or any third party;
or
d. Alters, tampers with, obtains, intercepts, damages or destroys a financial instrument. "
I'm sure that NJ is not the most, nor least "oppressive" in computer-related laws - in fact, title 2C goes on to state that certain "unauthorized access" may be a simple "disorderly person" offence.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out...
The Old Man
Because he deserves it...
No. Really. He does. He was stupid.
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
There were three before him, two were caught, I was one. Believe me, when I was suspended they were _very_ nice to me. They said "He has shown that he is very bright in this area, but as a policy we must suspend kids for 10 days." One of the things that I feel that they can still improve is to offer more options to kids. There are no ways for a gifted student to use computers in a constructive way in this school besides word processing.
When I was suspended they asked why. I said because there was nothing else for me to do. I still believe this. If I had something more constructive to do I woul not have gotten in trouble (I now administrate 3 linux boxes and have written much code for Everydns.net).
With similar options open to me last year I would not have a suspension on my permenent record.
Apparently the school has not offered more options for students who can do more than use powerpoint and word.
Sorry but what I did, gaining administrators access and never logging in, is not going to need psychological help. I'm perfectly sane. I made a bad choice. I regret it. I have done volunteer work for the district, I have tried to make up for what I did. I don't see how I fucked things up for you. I don't see how I'm disjoint from the real world, I did not blame my actions on others. The world would be a better place if people like you didn't respond to comments where they know no background, if they didn't accuse people of being things that they aren't.
I don't know what assurances I can give you... I delieved "The Times" as a paperboy for a year and a half and I can tell you that it isn't always right on top of the news. This did happen about a week ago.
I can also tell you that the crimes that he committed were serious. There are three different stories about what he did, they all involve him changing grades or selling administrator access. One has been verified by a teacher who I trust, that it the one that I told.
I live in this school district. I was suspended last year for a similar attack (I got Admin access but I didn't do anything with it, then I moved onto running linux and OBSD and found myself here). I was also threatened with jail time. It was a very empty threat.
The district web site has a little blurb about it which I think is very out of place.
I have heard various things about what he did. From what I can piece together: He was getting Cs and Ds. He cracked into the school grade system (called SASI), changed his grades, and changed some of his friends grades. He may have sold access.
The main other thing that I have learned was that the principal of the school was really shaken and broke down in front of the school.
If anyone wants any questions anwsers reply and I will do my best.
In a whole school assembly he began to talk about what happened and how the students should respond, what they should do if they see this happening to anyone else...
At some point he just could take anymore and just broke down. For a principal in our district he is rather young and he didn't know what to do.
The entire administration believes that they had nothing to do with this. He showed his head because he believe that he was 100% right in doing what he did. Apparently his conscience got the best of him.
Not that I believe that they did do that much wrong, but anytime a child resorts to killing himself, something went wrong.
So many posts about blame.
You need to blame somebody? Blame the school officials who acted so defensive over something so harmless. Who did all they could to punish this kid because of their feelings of insecurity. The same kind of principle that would call the police after a student shows him up, proving him wrong about how easy it is to get marijuana in school. The same kind of people that freak out because a child brought a butter knife to school to cut his sandwich.
This 13 year old should have been commended and asked to help make the schools' security stronger.
I'm quite liberal but I support school vouchers. Schools are businesses. Their top priority is often money. If customers are allowed to go elsewhere, schools will get better.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
May this never happen again
In my experience, wishing something away doesnt make it go away. We are all going to shake our heads, say how bad this was, not do anyhting about it, and will be surprised when it happens again. Dont be surprised when it happens again. It will. Not until we do somehting about it.
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"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is an intolerable threat. I forgot where i first heard that saying, but its sad how many people do not understand it. I know that most people here will understand it.
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"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
Im sure there are lots of things that pushed him to the edge, before he went over it. But the actions of the school is what I do not condone. The kid who sits next to me on one of my classes attempted suicide 2 weeks ago. and that was his choise to do it. As you have made clear, you do not care if a kid choose to commit suicide. But my tresponse was to someone who DOES care. He said "May this never happen again". I told him that he cant wish it away. YOu dont want to wish it away, so my comment wasnt for you.
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"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
Do you really believe that the administration did something wrong?
If the kid had thrown a rock through the school window, the punishment would most likely be the EXACT SAME THING
Yes i do think they did something wrong. But my oringinal post was to say that you cant stop somehting by wiching it away. Something has to actually be DONE abot uit if you want it to go away.
And no, i dont think the punishment would be the same thing. Out of Fear they over reacted just a bit. The school i used to go to was a public school. There was kid in particular that always caused trouble. He even killed another kid (not in school) and it was said to be an accident. Thsi kid often got in trouble, he litterally threw a freind of mine into a tree and gave him a concussion. THis kid usually got reprimands and detentions, but i dont recall him getting suspended for more then 2 or 3 days. At very most the admins would have a vandal (like someone who throws a rock thru a window) fix what he destroyed. There was never any talk of jail time, or legal action. I dont know about you, but i AM in school now, and kids who are computer savy are look at with more suspition then anyone of the bullies.
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"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
Your time is your to do what you please. you are not oblidged to help anyone at your own expense. You are in no way profiting bye anyones death if they kill themselves and you dont do anythign about it.
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"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
This article seems to have people mixing up Suicide and Screwed up adminitrations. You seem to think that its alright to put people in charge who will push kids over the edge. Of course not every kid is ON the edge! but that doesn tmake it right to push those who are over it. The world we live in has choosen to damn ability, to punish those who can do things, and to let off those who can do nothign but destroy. Someone had mentioned that 6 years ago he had gotten the crap beaten out of him, and his attackers got a 3 day suspension. Yet a kid who has potentional, along with some other problems, gets a 10 day suspention. They have choosen to damn people who miss use there abilty MORE then those who HAVE NONE.
You have just said you will stand by and LET THEM damn abilty, even your own. I DO NOT! Those who hold minor crimes and more heinous then major ones DO NOT HAVE MY SANCTION! I will NOT say this is just part of life. IT IS NOT! You are irresponisble and self damning for given your sanction to those who would push kids over the edge. You might stand on that edge some day. And you have already given me permission to push you over.
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"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
I think a key point here is he was 13. It's an age where you just aren't a fully reasonable adult.
Almost modded this up, but I decided I'd reply to it instead.
13-year-olds ARE NOT ADULTS. As tang has said here, you just aren't fully reasonable. Not to mention that you can't drive, you can't vote, and you can't do 34092 other things that "adults" can do.
So why the fsck does our society persist in trying people as young as 13 as adults? I certainly don't condone what some of them have done, but this is setting a ridiculous double standard. Are they adults or not?
---
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of the Corporate States of America...
i think we may expect our school systems to be sensitive to the inner demons of thousands of individuals, while we're inclined to cut families a lot of slack when they are suprised by a child's behavior. i think this desire to place blame and produce "policy" is a crock and denies that each child--no matter how bright or where their gifts lie-- is an individual package. i think i qualify as a person that "the public school system failed". i was considered quite bright, but when i stopped attending, or my grades fell off, i was cut tremdendous slack. (i remember trying to turn myself in for truancey and having the attendance office staff stare at me in dis-belief.) at the same time i recall living in fear about the possible consequences of my actions. i eventually dropped out. i survived. in retrospect, i'd be inclined to say i was over-indulged by a school system that didn't want to hurt a bright white student, and neglected by a parent who had too much on her plate. but i survived. school systems,(esp. post columbine) are increasingly being pushed to see "other people's kids" as dangerous threats to "our kids". concurrently they are being bashed for not providing a nurturing enough environiment. if you were under this kind of bombardment at work, you'd probably scream about the death of common sense and eventually give notice. after reading all the threads about whether the punishment fit the crime -- should the parents be blamed, should the school be blamed -- *common sense* tells me that the school admin. *and* the parents thought they were dealing with a balanced, bright, high acheiver that just needed his cage rattled a little to get him back on track. they were wrong. but why do we think we're entitled to easy answers?
D
Mad Scientists with too much time on thier hands
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
Ah... but things like counselling and adult faculty supervision requires (horror of horrors) resources, people with the time and the training to do such a thing. Yes, I know there are things such as guidance counsellors but would they be able to properly handle this kid in an age where most governments seem to feel compelled to cut back the funding in our school systems for the sake of providing a tax cut to Joe Average?? Please, someone prove me wrong on this.
Don't get me wrong, all I am saying is that I don't believe the kid should get preferential treatment. The life of any child is precious, and yes, there are problems in the way they are treated when they have done wrong.
But I just don't agree with preferential treatment to computer hackers, or geeks, or jocks, or african-americans, or women or whatever -> that's just wrong.
It should be a whole approach, because otherwise, who is going to be to blame when the kid who got suspended for graffiti-ng the toilets commits suicide?
I'm glad my kids are almost done with public school in the USA. I pity my grandkids.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
I've already seen several posts from people that this is just a case of curiosity and that the suspension was too severe. However, privacy is privacy. Many Slashdotters complain load and clear that they hate it when companies invade their privacy by sending spam, placing cookies on their computer and tracking users over the Internet (e.g. GUId). Yet, when someone hacks into a computer and looks aroung, many are willing to give all kinds of leeway and say that he's just curious and he really didn't do any harm. If privacy is so important to you (like it is to me), then any kind of hacking for curiosity sake is a violation of privacy. It does not matter if it is a poor user on the Internet, a school or a faceless big, bad corporation.
You Americans sure are wacky:
rudaditorian - rudest kid in the class ....
mooaditorian - grumpiest kid in the class
foodaditorian - fatest kid in the class
screwaditorian -
James ... I know.
P.s. Yes, yes
Has he written any well-known software? Wrote programs to solve problems for his school?
All I know is he knows how to download 'spl01tz and cause havoc.
While it's sad that a troubled youth dies, it's not that sad. And they shouldn't say he had computer programming skills that were unusual for a boy his age without providing any examples.
Anyway, My own experence with schools, I am one of those students in the top 2%. I get rather bad grades (C and Ds). The reason is not intellegence, nor ability, or knowledge, it is simply that I go to school to learn, and I am not doing that. I left the IB program, because It was not fast enough. (btw, I took algebra 1 in 6th grade and was into precalc (which i should have been above, but it was ok, as the class did cover calculus the second half, and as a sophmore I scored a 5 on the AP calc AB test, after my calculator broke in the middle of the exam.) IB would not let me take college classes without being forced to do what others do: take a class over again for a semester when the college class is done with. I took Calculus 3 at a state university next to where I changed high schools to, and am going to graduate in my third year of full time high school. The reason I am not getting good grades and am rather uncaring is that none of my high school classes are really helping me. US History (2 years required by the district) is a waste, because I took the AP test and got a 4 (however, it is not entirely down the drain, as the history teacher and I share some interests in the same part of history). Chemistry, is another waste of time. Only in the last 4th of the class did we get into anything I had not done before, and now the teacher (who messes up things right and left (multiple people agree, anyone know that only elements up to Fe can be made with Fusion? And even after she was corrected she said the same thing.) When told that her class was slow, and lacked depth, she proceded on an hour and a half rant about how 'some of us are genusis' and how the class is considered so shallow and etc. How much self-control it took not to go through a laundry list of why it was so slow, and not pull out papers from my Freshman science course and show them to her and how much more difficult they were. English is not a complete waste of time, as it does have some interesting stories with supposed philosophical meaning. However, I read many of them before on my own time.
Enough with the rant, My point is that many people don't do well in school, because the schools are not doing what they are supposed to: TEACH STUDENTS NEW THINGS! If you are in a higher program like IB, everything is very prescriptive, and unflexible. If you aren't then it is a near waste of time.
As for suicide, well, a student who was apparently VERY bright was poked prodded (or whatever you wish to call it) and commited suicide at the IB program I left because he thought he might find people who were as inteligent as he was, and escape that, he was wrong and committed suicide.
Ever wonder why the people with the highest suicide rate are also the most intelligent?
Much like foo@phreedom.net (who's a friend of mine), I got suspended in this district as well. Freshman year I got the admin password through pwlcrack, but I didn't use it. Sophmore year, the administrator left a computer logged on with full privaledges for 40 minutes unattended... and I took all his personal stuff and copied it to the public file server. I got 5 days for this. Another friend of mine got the admin password from pwlcrack and stole everyones locker combinations. Another friend put an animated esheep on the network server. Now, the point of this is not that my friends and I are l33t haxors, or even that we are cool. The point is that if you don't have good security you are asking for trouble. When I got busted, I was compared to a thief taking things out of a teachers drawer while she was out of the room. Frankly, I don't think thats fair. There's a world of difference between having someone break into a network, or just sit down and do a file copy. Thats why teachers lock their desks at night instead of just assuming that everyone is going to be a honorable person. The sad story is that we TOLD the network administrators what we were capable of. We sat down and walked them through exactly what the problems were. No antivirus. No write protection on the file servers. Aministrator .pwl files on every computer. And, in turn, we were all shot down, ignored, or threatened until we shut up. One time, I took in an article for the admin that said IBM antivirus was going under, and that it would no longer be supported. I told him that soon his definitions would be out of date and he should get a replacement piece of software. For my troubles, I was called a wise-ass, and I was not spoken too for a week out of spite. My own teacher, ignoring me because I tried to help him out in a friendly, non-confrontational way. I did what I did to make a point, and to be taken seriously. Its only AFTER I got suspended that I was called down to the office and asked what should be done to better protect the network. And I didn't even hack in! The fact is, between the ignorant admins and the principles who follow what the ignoratnadmins unconditionally, the whole system is a mess. And I'm sure whats true for the high school is true for the middle school as well. I too was threatened with jail time. Whatever the principle of Grover said to that kid, you can take my word for it that it was trumped up and designed to intimidate. Frankly the whole process disgusts me, and I've given up being involved with the school computer department at all. A incident like this was bound too happen, and unfortunately, I don't think this is the last time it will occur.
Congrats, good troll. (Heh I'm starting to sound like those arrogant "trollbusting" Slashbots).
You know, I thought the headline said "13 Year-Old... Commits Suicide." That would mean he killed himself... he died by his own hand... he made the conscious decision to end his life. Period. Did any of the school administrators physically commit the act of murder? No.
And who was to blame for the act of hacking? Perhaps the actual person (the 13 year old) who commited the act of breaking into security holes? I'd love to know how the admins are directly to blame for this. Maybe they might be dumbasses for not being aware of the holes, but that doesn't make them directly responsible. If a burglar breaks into your house, is it your fault for not having a foolproof million dollar security system with iron bars, laser motion sensors, high tech alarms, and hired armed guards? Nope, the burglar is charged with the crime of breaking and entering.
Sorry, but as fun as it is to use a tragic death to lash out at things we don't like, there's something called reason. The kid did a dumb thing by hacking the school's computers, and when he found himself about to be punished for his misdeeds (maybe the punishment seems a little harsh, but that's another issue) he wasn't stable enough to handle it and made to decision to kill himself. It's sad enough that the kid killed himself without a bunch of dumb gawkers sitting around trying to make him a martyr.
OOG THE OPEN SOURCE CAVEMAN!!! OOG BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD!!!
My High School has an idiot teacher. He keeps breaking the computers in our library (which is not supposed to reconfigure) and rarely realizes he's the one doing it.
The latest thing he did was to put three security products (each) on some of the computers--turning off access to any programs, the internet, disks, booting....
As the school intern responsible for the care and feeding of said machines, I turned off his security products and got the computers in working order again.
Later, seeing the security gone, he "fixes" them. Long story short, there is no computing for a while. He reports me for vandalism of the computers and suggests a local company fix them for $3,000.
My previous perfect record is ruined, I get suspended, and the principal no longer believes a word I say. Supposedly, I should have asked my superior for the passwords--which he didn't have, and the guilty teacher forgot.
I spent two hours convincing the principal he doesn't need to spend any money to fix them. It took just 20 minutes for my superior (a bus driver who "knows computers") to do the job.
_That's_ a bad school experience and a bad teacher.
Sounds to me like a parent-pressured kid who achieved to satisfy his parents. He likely killed himself, not because of any school punishment, but for failing his parents.
We've all been victims of this. You've got my sympathies on this one.
Have you ever seen the programming language called "Brainfuck"? It's real, and it's a real brain-killer.
x t
Here's an example program: http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/bf/factor.b.t
Most people who want others to eat a bullet could be said to be.... mentally unstable?
Would you like fries with that?
Why is everyone so upset about this? We all believe in evolution, right? Survival of the fittest, right? This is one 13 year old who isn't going to pollute the gene pool, right? If you respond to adversity in this way you clearly are weak and aren't advancing the survival of the species, are you? You can't have it both ways! The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few (or the one). Oh, and if you are a "Christian" you believe that he's in a better place, or God took him or some such rubbish. So why be sad about that? We should all be happy either way, right? Oh, you mean we aren't? I'm callous? I'm full of fecal matter? Hmm. Then there must be another explanation.
Curious George
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
No he didn't. He wasn't a minor in school. He cracked passwords as an adult while working at Intel Oregon. (I worked there around the same time). He probably wouldn't have gotten hozed so bad if he hadn't cracked the password of one of the *VP's*. This is where the Pentiums are designed. This is where every 50 feet is a padlocked "sensitive trash" recepticle and ceiling cameras all over.
I live in South Brit. I know a kid who did manage to gain access to the school system, and was caught (while doing it, rather than due to a lack of skill). The kid was punished, however, the IT staff allowed him to aid in the securement and setting up of the network.
Giving these kids a productive output for their skills WILL make them far less likely to abuse the system, as they will build a relationship with the staff, who's job it is to maintain this stuff.
Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway.
After reading through this sparse article and pondering over the provided quotes, I can only say that it seems very likely the school's administration was totally, and utterly wrong in their preceeding and post actions.
To begin with, it seems to me, due to the hesitation of the administration to reveal its nature, the "hack" incurred could not have been a very severe one. I don't see how it could have been necessary to suspend Shinjan for such a bredth of time, seeing as how the expected suspension for physical assault tends to be a week or two. Furthermore, Shinjan was 13 years old, and it looks as though he put himself under a lot of stress and self scrutiny in order to succeed. This is not abnormal, and it is something administrators should be able to recognize easily from student records and an indepth character assessment. Couple the overzealous punishment, heavy personal stress, and a modern society where suicide isn't quite as shunned and feared as it was 50 (or even 25) years ago, and you've got a recipe for disaster, not to mention the veiled threat of (to Shinjan at least) of imprisonment. What aspiring student can shrug off such a conviction as a criminal record?
Obviously, we can't expect the administrators to so easily spot these problems within their students when schools can house 1500 or more. But perhaps those responsible will finally begin to understand that retribution isn't an effective form of punishment, and as a result overzealous sentencing will be replaced with a greater emphasis on education about the rights of others and a person's responsibilities not to infringe apon them.
I think I'll stop now before this turns into a rant.
-Medgur
I can see the School Handbook now:
----
Should any student break the law and or a school rule they will be administered an IQ test, the result of which will then be used to determine their punishment:
Above 160: Immediate dropping of any punishment.
Above 140: Warning.
Above 120: 1 detention.
Above 100: 1-day suspension.
Below 70: Death by lethal injection.
----
This is the fundamental problem: children with a high propensity for computer use aren't your regular disciplinary problem kids. We're usually over active and very curious.
Please. Here's what's wrong with your argument in a nutshell:
- there's now such animal as a ``regular disciplinary problem."
- rules and laws (should) apply to everyone, regardless of intelligence, likability, economic status, etc.
Give me a BREAK. Acadamia's arrogance towards many "different" students ("geeks" or otherwise) is an insult to academic integrity - and so is your graceless comment.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
I don't understand the principal's statement that if this student were an adult, it would be a crime. Breaking into a computer is a crime no matter what the age--the perp's age is relevant only in that a child is not judged in a criminal court, usually, but in a juvenile court--but it is the same crime.
But in this case, the principal and school system don't even use the juvenile court system, but instead set themselves up as judge and jury, with no due process or legal protection for the affected parties.
We don't really know yet what this kid was accused of, but you can bet that "breaking into a computer system" is going to be interpreted very liberally by the school system, and never in favor of the student. But this is stupid. As others have pointed out in this discussion, often the system or the administrators are at fault and give users little choice but to use it in a way that others might construe as misuse.
We should not forget that a child's life was sacrificed here. For what? The arbitrary power of the school principal? Do we really want teachers and principals and parents to exert such intense emotional pressures on kids that they kill themselves? For what?
I don't want to see this young man's actions reduced to a response to a single incident. The life of any 13 year old is fraught with many events which are so seemingly huge at the time. Try to remember how complex life is for a young teen, especially a bright one. A single article is not enough for any of us to gain signifigant insight into his motivations.
Randal Schwartz (co-author of Programming Perl) did just this thing and was taken to court and Convicted of three felony counts, with (deferred) jail time. Read all about it at
http://www.lightlink.com/spacenka/fors/
The good news is he likely won't serve any time.
The bad news is quite bad though. As a felon he is legally barred from many rights full citizens (which he NO LONGER IS in the eyes of the law) have.
It is illegal for him to own a firearm ever again everywhere, (in some states, not his state of Oregon) to ever vote again, and of special interest to people in the I.T. field:
It is illegal for him to work in certain technical jobs ever again. Such as working for a certification authority in at least one State.
Also, a lot of people are under the impression that all felons are intrinsically untrustworthy individuals.
The above still applies even if the persons motives were pure.
P.S. Randal Schwartz would likely have not been convicted if he were in Nevada. The laws here provide for implied authorization of an employee to access employer's systems unless their is "clear and convincing" evidence to the contrary. He still could've been fired though (Nevada is an at will state).
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I'm not sure what to be more upset at, the inability of the school principal to realize the impact he was having on Shinjan by suspending him or how Shinjan was raised to believe that following the rules is so important. Suspension from school isn't nearly as bad as taking your own life unless your parents, teachers, principal, etc are all disappointed in you. IANAP (I am not a psychologist), but I would guess that he didn't kill himself because of being suspended from school, but because all the people he valued were displeased by his actions. Didn't anyone praise him for having the knowledge to break the system? Didn't the sysadmin at the school think to ask about how he got in and if he had any suggestions about how to make the network more secure? The article makes it sound like the hack was "serious" but not mission critical.
Agreed. When I was in HS, I got my first computer violation for signing someone's guestbook with an entry that automatically forwarded it to my home page (using an image and an onload tag). That was reason enough to suspend me from the computer labs because it was seen as malicious use of school computers. I later got suspended again from the computer lab because I pressed F3 in explorer and did a search for all files looking for printers (so I could print from a teacher's computer to the lab printer). I was accused to trying to hack into the system because there were logs of the search trying to get into folders that were "off limits." I never even actually got into anything, but for just accidentally attempting to access these folders, I got suspended from the labs.
In regards to this particular situation, this continues to underline the problems of "quiet children" which (I think) have recently come to light but have been brewing for years. That said, the young man probably had an inclination to commit suicide way before this: from what I've read, most people seem to think about it well beforehand.
And I agree with what someone else said: 10 days of suspension seems extremely rough. If this kid was actively trying to change grades (the article doesn't say) I would think a schoolweek (5 days) would be sufficient. This is 2 school weeks. I remember kids bringing weapons into my high school and seemingly receiving less.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
From his other accomplishments (tae kwon do, violin, ribbons from various events) mentioned in the article, he doesn't seem like someone who'd be getting C's and D's.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
There was occasionally a brilliant student that would get special attention (an 8th-grade student got to attend high school alegbra, for example) and they were many programs for certain niches of people, including the "smart kids", but this 2% thing is completely hogwash.
A compadre of mine got 1590 on her SATs, took every AP course the school offered, and was my competitor in every way, form, and fashion. My girlfriend was validictorian of her class (one year below me), scored something close to perfect on the verbal section of the SATs (I think her total score was above 1500) and was captain of the tennis team to boot.
We were also good friends. If either had been invited to any "special program" for the top 2%, I would've known about it.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
When a student is getting A's and B's, they are pushed to take on as many extracurricular activities as they can to show that "they are well-rounded". It supposedly helps get them into better schools.
For example, in addition to AP courses, I was an editor for the school's literary magazine, wrote for the newspaper, played ice hockey, did academic decathelon, and other stuff.
My girlfriend (she was validictorian of her class -- I was saluditorian one year before) was the captain of her tennis team, leader of SADD, a writer for the literary magazine, editor for the school's newspaper, etc.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
You're going to be sorry when "your freakin kid" ends up at a community college, with a lower salary later on, and no innitative to try new things, when you didn't push him in school to try out many different activities. How can he/she find out "what they enjoy" when they aren't pushed to try new things? Sitting at home playing Nintendo doesn't count.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Also, your logic is totally skewed.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
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This event might have been the catalyst, but the kid clearly had some serious psychological problems. He didn't commit suicide because of this arrest, any more than the proverbial straw is the cause of the camel's back breaking.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I think a key point here is he was 13. It's an age where you just aren't a fully reasonable adult. I'm probably going to get flamed for that, but it's true. Getting busted for something where you are threatened with jail, ecspecially when you have a bright future ahead of you, is probably pretty crippling. I'm not saying he shouldn't have been punished. Children need to learn the boundaries and what happens when you cross them.
It's sad that someone with as much talent as he seemed to have threw his life away.
'The educators need to be educated on what is really an offence' Exactly. When I was in school (~12 years ago also) while working on some Qbasic prog (or something like that) I 'found' a test question database that belonged to our biology instructor. After copying it and telling too many people, someone eventually went to the instructor and told him I had the test questions to the final to which he replied 'if they're resourceful enough to get the questions they can have them.' This instructor knew something about computing and wasn't scared of it. He rewarded the curious minds (we really had no malicious intent) and not the snitches. Beats the hell out of being expelled.
All this says is that they are clueless, and they explain it away as saying there is no answer.
And their standard answer is punishment by suspension. Punishment by itself is NOT educational. It is the theory that Pain is theraputic to Learning. Which is how some people train dogs. By Fear, Pain, and Punishment
Now the kid needed to be taught some responsibility. Obviously the school district is not qualified to teach this to those kids.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
(thoughtfully worded snailmail probably best)
Grover Middle School
10 Southfield Road
Princeton, NJ 08550
Principal: Steven Mayer
But if you are in a rush, School Board email addresses and other info can be found here.
http://www.wwptoday.com/schools/schools.html
The district main website is at:
http://www.ww-p.org/
they have a blurb about handling trauma, but noting about the suicide itself
Please be careful to tread the original story, and cite the link as a source when you send email.
Mind you also that some of the teachers may well be innocent bystanders, and already upset enough as it is.
Be thoughtful and concerned in your reply, even if it is intensely emotional.
The problem is a system, that, under thew appearance of help, tends to do those things that destroy, even if benign neglect. "We didn't see it coming" they say, but they are supposed to be the professionals. They are supposed to know.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I probably would have taken my life too when I was that old. I would have done anything not to embarass my parents.
Let's face it. When school districts see talented young programmers and sys admin types, they see the capability to program a destructive virus or "hack" into a school system. Their first impulse is to control and punish. That's why the "zero tolerence" policies -- I.E. reducing options and isolating.
To ameliorate situations like these, I suggest setting aside one day a week to mentor computer talented kids.
I definately want to get involved in my local school district after I finish my MS. I want to teach something that I love (C++/OOP principles and the GNU/Linux environment) to local JH/HS kids.
If they get it, then they get it. If not, then at least they have somebody to talk to and confide in. I think that tech talented outcasts would be more like to reach out to a former tech talented outcast then any teacher. We'll see though...
I knew people who broke windows, went *hunting* for birds behind the school, and showed up late to class with Burger King shakes and a medium pizza. The most they ever got was 7 days.
My school district would have probably done the same. They can relate to hunting, vandelism, and truency, but not anything computer related.
More important than being "depressed" is being impulsive. People with Attention Deficite Disorder, for example, are at a higher risk for suicide becuase the impulse for self-destruction that most people easily supress is that much stronger in ADD'ers.
This strikes me as very true. Appearantly I have some of that ADD mojo going on, and I tend to be rather impulsive. But I also know what's good for me, and dyin' ain't.
These sick bastards that teach because they don't know what else to do with their degrees make me sick.
Sounds to me like you're making a leap here that's a bit rash. It sounds to me like the punishment fint pretty well with the crime, if the kid did indeed crack the grading system, change his grades, and even sell access, as it is alleged. In that case, I think 10 days of suspension was neither cruel nor unusual. I'm not sure that this is really anyone's fault. (Although that's not to say that there aren't many "educators" out there that need to be drug out into the street and shot. Or at least given different jobs.)
Stupid like a fox!
According to his parents, Shinjan -- a youngster known for his infectious smile and outgoing personality -- was not depressed and only the night before had discussed plans to improve his swimming times.
This is almost certainly what they'd say about me, if I committed suicide. It is extremely unlikely I'd do that, but I am rather depressed at times. It is important to remember that teenager with boundless optimism are not always as happy as they seem.
Stupid like a fox!
Although things may not have been so in this instance, it is often the case that school officals don't know what to do or how to behave properly. This may be because they're assholes, or because they're stupid, or simply because they lack the experience.
Without knowing exactly what the kid did, judging the harshness of the punishment is not possible. However, in my experience, the delivery of the bad news is often more significant than the punishment. If he was made to feel like a criminal as opposed to a kid that screwed up then I see how the school could be held at least partially responsible. After all, kids are kids; they're inexperienced and impressionable. That is why content is rated all over the world; kids lack the mental capacity and experience to properly judge the things they see and hear.
----------
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
I have to disagree with you. The student was told "If you were an adult, you could have gone to jail." Notice the qualification in front. It's true, had he done this as an adult, he would likely have been hauled off. Not to sound insensitive or anything, but this gives a false impression of WWP. I graduated from the system in 1997, and I went there K-12. I'm not positive if anything has really changed, but that school nurtures bright minds. Geeks there have some really nice, maybe not the best, equipment to enrich their minds with. They generally hire top-notch teachers, and are generally fair in their punishments. I remember getting away with murder while I was there, but because I "didn't cause many problems", they generally let me off. I think laying the blame squarely at the feet of the school is incredibly unfair in light of how lenient they really are.
As to the family, I'm truly sorry for their loss, but don't go crucifying WWP.
Humorless sig goes here.
however I don't think the school should be blamed, they simply gave him a suspension. It appears to me that this guy was overloaded with extraculicular activities (swimming, playing violon, martial arts training and computers). This is way too much for a 13 year old boy and I can only guess that he was pushed to some of these activities by his parents. He was a high-achieving youngster and living up to his reputation prooved to be too much of a burden. He made a mistake, and at his age, he didn't know how to deal with it. He was afraid!
Nowadays children are thaught at a very young age how to contribute to society and be a high-achiever. No one stops to think what a child really likes or dislikes, they want the children to have discipline and teach them very early how to be like the rest of the society. No wonder that once they do something different or make a mistake they become be haunted by it.
We're 6 billion people, the more we grow the harder it'll get.
Additionally, I found the article to be quite sketchy on many details, like how he was found out, the oppinions of his friends. This may sound cynical, but as far as we know, this boy may have had no friends and have been forced into all these activities that he didn't want to do by his parents, and being punished for doing something that he wanted for a change was the straw that broke the cammel's back. Several of my friends have been affected by parents who wanted to involve them in everything, and who pressured them to do well. Aside from which, he can't have been that bright and gifted - he got caught.
Anyhoo, my point being that a happy 13 year old wouldn't have killed himself over something that meant he was getting a light rap over the knuckles for. I get the impression that we may have been fed a few scraps of reality and dickloads of sensationalism here.
F4+80y +1++135
F4+80y +1++135
FatBoy Titties - (aren't I l33+
come on slashdot, practice what you preach and don't perpetuate the big media conflation of hacking and cracking.
My highschool had one computer person, who also taught 5 computer classes. My friend's school is the same way.
I'm not a cracker or anything, but the computers there were about as insecure as you could want them. IT's because the guy didn't have any time to solve such problems! If the computer was comprimised, reinstall it. He didn't have time to set up anything watertight. Nobody in my school really tried anything, because we liked him and didn't wanna lose some class time in programming while he fixed some messed up computer.
I'm not sure about your creative punishment idea. It's a pretty creative idea, and I'm sure some kids would go along with it. Any kid who's honestly a jerk and is malicious about it is just gonna fess up some random weak link that he found, or just say "I was just poking around, someone left their account on."
The fact that the administration is being tight-lipped about the details suggests they're trying to cover their asses.
Of course. That's why we should outlaw public access to cryptographic technology and repeal the fifth ammendment. Only people with something to hide wouldn't fully disclose everything to everyone.
That having been said, I would be as curious as the next guy as to the actual crime committed, but I don't agree with forcing them to release info unless some charges are pressed or an investigation started. And the implication that they have something to hide because they haven't already offered full disclosure is nauseating.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Liberty.
I go to a large university which shall remain nameless. (on account of network security services now knowing me by name).
Anyway, recently I downloaded the cvs of nmap. 'let's test it'. I see some connections to my computer, so I scan them.
Next thing I know I get a very nasty letter from the LAN security people saying that I had been found guilty of the following activities:
And that said activities may be illegal under federal and state law, and that they would assist in providing evidence to the proper authorities if I persisted.
I was very pissed. They also said it violated their user agreement and I could be immediately taken off the network.
Guess what? LIES!
I looked through their entire user agreement and nothing was mentioned about port scanning.
When I managed to meet with them, the head of network security was very rude and confrontational, however his two co-workers (not rude) did tell me that it wasn't illegal in any way and indeed not against their user agreement; it was just a scare tactic.
Now, I don't think this kind of thing is right at all. Maybe this is what happened to this kid, the people disciplining him decided to scare him so he wouldn't do it again. Obviously they went too far.
Yes, it was an illegal act, but probably no harm was done, and nothing would have come of it. Now look at what happened.
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Liberty.
I think this should bring light on the true role of schools : to get kids used to being repressed and censored. Either you bend over and let them rape you like a hand puppet, or you get pushed aside and realize that today's society rejects individuals. Fit in or fuck off, and fuck off he did.
The problem goes much beyond the school principals, the entire philosophy behind these schools is the root of it all : "Stay in line, or be punished." We're not teaching our kids how to read/write/count, we're teaching them how to survive in this mock communism we live in, and not caring at all about their psychological well-being. Then something like this happens and we all get upset: "How shameful! What is the world coming to ?". Well i'll tell you, it's coming to right-wing fanatism. Murder happens every day in every school on this planet, murder of free thought, and we pay the hefty bill to submit our own offspring to these masters of deceit. Well shut up and swallow the pill. This kid's dead because of society's near-sightedness, there are thousands of others just like him and there will be thousands more until we strike them down and start over with a clean slate.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
if more kids committed suicide for injustices in the school system, maybe the system will change
Yes, but some people are actually responsible individuals, and he probably is trusted by the staff of the school/district. Pretty much the same thing, minus the suspension happened to me, I ended up running the school net last year [ 2600 students ] and got pulled out of classes, tests, quizzes, and even an exam [ but I had to go back and finish them, so =P ]. Let's just say that the technicians don't know their heads from their ..., I'll stop there.
Back in my day, I would've been happy to have 10 days off of school, especially for exploiting a poorly setup network, school or no...
I doubt the kid would have gone to jail, I mean it sucks that he hung himself, but he must have had some serious issues if he thought it was the only way out.
See you space cowboy...
To blame the school district, however, seems unfair. The punishment seems reasonable for what he did.
Oh, and for the moderators who will surely be stupified (further) by such a rude set of revelations as these, this is a flame, not a troll.
---
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Slashdot: News For Zealots. Stuff That's Hypocritical.
I hacked into the school's network, and got caught. I was a ½ wannabe hacker ½ a script kiddie at the time, without a clear understanding of what I was doing, so it was easy for the, uncharacteristically, relatively cluefull admin to see my footprints.
I was aware of the consequences though, and I was ready and willing to accept them. Got caught, got suspended, got threatened with "if this happens again you'll go to jail" Ethe whole nine yards. Was I upset? You bet. Was I scared? A somewhat. Did I even think about suicide? NO WAY!
How did I react? I used my suspension time to REALLY learn what was going on, and subsequently I was never caught again. (As an aside, while I never changed any of my grades, I did help a few jocks get into college - a couple of them went on to become pros. No I don't feel bad about it. YES I'd do it again; these are really nice people, who weren't really dumb, they just had different priorities.)
Having said all that, it's a sad thing that the kid killed himself.
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
Seemingly one would want to blame the school/faculty, anyone who had a hand in the decision making process in which the boy was involved, which led to such a ridiculous and harsh suspension. At that length, we hear those involved state it's not their fault he died. I disagree. The lawmakers and policy makers which shaped the environment to which those in this particular decision making process are accustomed to are also to blame. Our children should be, partially, a guage of the climate of the times. Not so much the fact that video games, movies, etc cause our children to be 'monsters' or 'miscreants' or even incredulous, but rather the allowance of the new environment which we allow to be formed around us. Laws come into affect and change our social climate, and ultimately us. There are some changes which we must resist, and those which defy our natural born intelligence are those. If it is not natural to snuff out freedom of choice, or we would not like something done to us, then we should strive not to do it to others. Mistake this not. I don't blame the parents for what happened, but I blame all of us for allowing such an oppressive environment to exist in so many facets of our life. School should be a democracy, or better. Changes which affect students need to be discussed with the students AND their parents. In turn, parents should not expect that the people who teach, know how to rule. Know how to create rules, or worse still, know how to enforce rules properly. A good example is Timothy McVeigh. This is someone who could indeed teach a lot of people a specific thing with the proper training. Be it math, science, social studies, or history. However, we would not let him attempt to create rules for our children to abide by. He killed. He's scarred, and he's hurt. Just because someone doesn't build a bomb to hurt people, doesn't make them a good person. It simply means they don't know how to build a bomb, or don't want to. Shaping our children's minds is OUR responsibility. The parents. To decide what is best for them, with them, is our responsiblity. To allow an autonomous group, in most cases, to decide what's right for our children is ludicrous. GET MORE INVOLVED. It takes time, and it's difficult, but without our guidance as parents and people, in society, neither our children nore those who teach them will learn the proper lessons in life. We all learn, we never stop. We must remember that and continue to improve our lives, but not at the sacrifice of our abilities, our individuality, or the right to be who we are. Nurture talent, don't garner it. Give guidance, and examples, not without. Learn what your children know, teach them how to learn, decide, and discriminate between good and bad. Never let them feel as though they are being oppressed. STAND UP for them, sometimes they don't know how to do it themselves! If you don't, this legacy will continue, until we destroy our heritage. We need no knee-jerk reactions from this, but well thought out reactions. We must, if we don't, someone else will hurt just as equally. I hope I raise my daughter right, talk to her, listen to her, be there for her, and teach her as much as I can about tolerance in the face of oppression. I don't need a statistic like this in my own life.
--SuperBug
However, this doesn't change the fact that the boy committed suicide which is a deplorable incident. To the family I give my sympathy. If foo is right I think the punishment was lenient. However, I'd say the school is blameless for the boy's death. Its good to see students showing such a strong interest in computers but the enthusiasm needs to be harnassed. In HS I was taking a typing class and I could hunt and peck better than most could touch type so I used all that extra time to start programming using GW-Basic, Turbo C, whatever was on the machine. The teacher saw what I was doing and instead of just punishing he gave me free reign and introduced me to the school sys admin. By the end of HS I could pretty much walk out of a class and just say computer work and be let go. Direction is the key. The boy was apparently given none, so he did his own thing. Is it the schools fault for him breaking into the computer system? No. Is it the schools fault for him commiting suicide? No.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
I have a friend who is a bit more gifted at computers than me. I say that because he could have a computer job right now in high school and i will still need a few years of secondary schooling to be any good.
Any ways hes been getting in trouble at school for hacking all the time for years and finaly they just found a way to get rid of the problem. They gave him admin access and told him to work with the email servers. So far I don't think they have had any problems with him screwing around so I think this would fix most of the honest cases of people who are just curiouse about computers. This is because they now have a way to look at the system in a positive way and other schools could do the same and also save money.(there should always be a pro there though)
first of all he got the job by actually setting up the email servers and he is not going to take it down just because he feals like pissing poeple off because he is the one who is responsible to repare it and fix any securaty holes that there are on the server.
anouther guy said that he couldn't be trusted because he had access to other teachers files. I dunno if he can access the teachers files I think they have a personal lock on them that they use so none of the other teachers doesn't go looking at papers and stuff or so if a student does get access to a teachers acount they can't go into everything I think the same thing goes for him but he would still have access to other students files but its easy to see if he copied some other students work teachers have been doing this for some time now he would lose his privilages if he did that so I don't think it would be something he would do if he could advoide it.
I know there is some troubles with letting just any one do that(now that you pointed out the whole access to teachers files) so I think it would be nice to have a small class say or after school club where you could set up a group of 486's and just practice networking and testing security holes in a safe enviroment.
why a 13-year-old
1. knows how to do
and
2. is successful
at suicide?
With so many attempted suicides that fail because either the about-to-go-bye-bye reconsiders or messes up (rope too long, etc.), what state of mind do you have to be in to so quickly plan, prepare, and execute a "successful" hanging?
interesting, I was not aware of this.
Why Are You Complaining, You got treated the same way everyone else did, no more harsh, and no more lightly, thats true civil rights in action.
"He Who Laughs Last, Is Just A Hand In The Bush" - Ozzy Osbourne
...There was no due process. There was no search for understanding. There was no compassion... The school administrators that deal with disciplinary problems deal with guns, drugs, and lewd conduct all day. They treat the computer people, generally meeker and milder and more intelligent, the same as everyone else... We're usually over active and very curious.
You sound like a rich kid who broke the law. "They're treating me like a common criminal!" Oh, how awful for you!
Yet despite your myopia, you have a very good point. Maybe you shouldn't have been treated that way because you were curious. Maybe nobobdy should be treated that way because they're curious. Just so happens you're curiousity is usually considered acceptable. What about kids who are curious about social structures, kids who challenge authority? Should their curiousity be suppressed? What kind of implicit lesson is being taught here? Are schools training students not to challenge authority?
What is the solution?
First, define the problem. How are schools structured? What kinds of behaviours do they encourage? In other words, what structural lessons are being taught? Is obedience favoured over autonomous responsibility? Is rote memorization and regurgitation favoured over creative, independent, and critical thought?
When kids start killing each other and themselves at school, it's time for a critical look at the school system.
...they are being bashed for not providing a nurturing enough environiment. if you were under this kind of bombardment at work, you'd probably scream about the death of common sense and eventually give notice.
Maybe that's what kids in school are already doing: screaming about the utter lack of common sense! Except they can't give notice! They're stuck and nobody is listening!
When obviously smart kids with good parents start screaming, teachers get confused because it never occurs to them to question the education system itself! It's always got to be *somebodys* fault, the kids fault, the parents fault...
The school system is a designed structure. Maybe it's time people took a hard look at the system we've designed for our kids grow up in.
Oh yes my anonymous friend. A spade is a spade. You're going to use your spade to dig your grave and I'm going to use my spade to pound your trollish head into a pulp. Both of us will get life sentances but you get let off on time served.
P.S. Amazing Troll - I'm actually a bit furious!
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
More likely pressure from parents to be perfect above all.
I agree. Karate, Swimming and Violin? *looks doubtful* Anyway, it's impossible to say much about this article without more facts.
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
Teachers & Admin need to be educated about what actually constitutes hacking and cracking.
During my time in school (a good 12 years ago) while I was 14 years old I plonked a few REM statements into a BASIC program that was stored on the school network, Basically leaving my tag there. Of course I was found out and was threatend and blamed for the effected codes malfunction, however this code was written by a student with no computer skills and was taught by *teacher* with no computer skills. The changed code had no structure to it and did not work in anyway whatsoever, it was the equivalent of my attempts to speak German (I knew about 8 phrases) I was threatened with criminal damage and was from that day blamed or held in contempt for anything that happened in the computer labs, even the insertion of a chocolate bar into a disk drive!
The educators need to be educated on what is really an offence, not the FUD that is spread by MS, but the real deal.
My heart goes out to the family and friends involved.
Does it go on forever?
About 1 month before 8th grad ended for me in 1996, I was called into the vice-principal's office for a talk. I was being accused of stealing property from the library, violating the grading system, and crashing 3 school email networks.
In reality, what I had done was sent a really really large email (~50MB) through the system. Because everything was going haywire, they expected the worst.
My parents were called at work and told that I had broken some "serious school rules." There was no due process. There was no search for understanding. There was no compassion. I was suspended in school for 5 days. I had to sit in a sterile classroom and read/copy from books onto paper. I couldn't interact with any of my peers as they walked past the classroom. I felt like I was going to die.
The school administrators that deal with disciplinary problems deal with guns, drugs, and lewd conduct all day. They treat the computer people, generally meeker and milder and more intelligent, the same as everyone else.
This is the fundamental problem: children with a high propensity for computer use aren't your regular disciplinary problem kids. We're usually over active and very curious.
This is a very hard thing to get a grip on. But the question remains, how are schools supposed to deal with computer kids? Mere understanding doesn't do the trick. "Refocusing creative energy" sounds like an administrative cop-out.
Currently, I'm attending a school with an honor code. The administration believes students when they say something. However, I don't believe this would work in middle school. What is the solution?
Watch Pink Floyd's The Wall... A Lot... Sad how life imitates art, is it not? Especially the school sequences...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I don't know if things have changed but in my day (class of '85) being suspended was an unexcused absense and if you had more than 3 unexcused you were not given your grades for that semester. In other words, suspension for more than 2 days is an academic death sentence for that semester. So they not only potentially f*cked up the kids academic record, but maybe his criminal record too (if he had lived) S.
"Laws are like sausages, it is best not to see them being made" Otto Von Bismarck
It's the school district's job to hand out a common punishment, a suspension, to students who willfully break rules. The didn't pass the type of judgement you are trying to pass on them. If they had done so perhaps they would feel the remorse that you wish upon them. But they didn't. You seem quite willing to be a punisher of those who you don't know. Perhaps you should enjoy your dreams instead.
No flame here. No throwing the blame on society. No repetetious praising of how talented the kid was, how much potential he had. Just a virtual moment of silence for a poor kid.
May this never happen again.
I don't want to sound insensative, but no one is to 'blame' for this. The suspension was irrelevant. Without some therapy/psychiatry it was an unnavoidable situation.
M period. Fresh, comma
i just cant imagine most people committing suicide do this really well considered. Often it is just a overreaction. Sure, if i think about killing myself i imagine i will write a pile of letters to my family and how i loved them and so on. But if i really would committ suicide, this wont be the case, i think. It would be a suitiation in which i were really miserable. I wouldnt be in the mood to write many letters and so..
And of course he was mentally unstable when he just came home from school and was suspended.
Platy
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I.
8 points apply to me. hm.
Though i have thought a lot about suicide i dont think i am really suicidal.
Platy
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I.
yeah, normally healthy children dont kill themselves. But who says he was normal & healthy..?
Platy
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I.
I had a very bizzare (and quite frankly stupid) incident last year (I was a Freshman) in high school. My Biology teacher, who (Although, I've heard he's quite nice in Summer School...) will always be remembered as a complete jerk in my eyes. I mean, as with most high school, CD Players are banned right? Well, some guy took it out because he was getting something out of his backpack, and he confiscated it saying "Your not supposed to have this..." But I'm wandering...
Anyway, we had a assignment where we had to print out a web page or something. Anyway...the laptop was set to "Microsoft Fax," you know the default Windows 95 (Yes, my school last year was, and still is running Windows 95) setting. Now, I just set the printer to the correct one and printed. The following day however, someone else (Who had shrunk down a window cause he was playing a game) and I were called into the Dean's office because for some reason the laptops wouldn't print, and he decided to blame us. To this day, I have no idea what happened to the laptops and I probably have a note on my records thanks to his cluelessness. Oh yeah, he also blamed me after a group presentation for people being unable to login to the Novell server. I'm also pretty clueless to that.
BTW, the librarians at our school consider hacking...changing the wallpaper via Netscape's "Set as wallpaper" option.
-----
Los Angeles: 1,000 suburbs in search of a city.
I've been in a position like this. I broke the schools filtering system by configuring a proxy (not really breaking it but anyway) I was hauled down to the office (being 14 at the time) and was thretened with court charges, suspension or expulsion. I never even did anything, they were pissed because I told kids how to "goto objectional sites". From that experiance I can safely say they pump you full of so much shit you break down. On this situation I called my parents right away, if your parents are there they don't press you so hard. But hell, hacking the schools computers could be a slip and accidently clicking "Network Neighboorhood" and then they wonder how you got past all their blank passwords.
Smev
That's gotta be some sort of mistake. Obviously a simple reading of the note or asking anyone would tell him/her.
The only thing left is to sue the people who came up with the specs for programming languages, or maybe the companies or organizations that sell/provide compilers. I mean, if it weren't for them, there would be no video games to inspire shootings, or in this case no language to power the computers this kid hacked that got him suspended that led to his suicide. It all makes sense right?
It seems we're so ready to assign blame left and right, just so there is someone to blame to make us feel better about ourselves. What happened was horrible, I can not begin to imagine the pain those parents are going through right now and I only wish them the best of luck in dealing with all that will come their way as a result of this, but I would be one of the first to tell them to shut up and sit down if they tried to blame anyone for what happened. Why? Because there is no one to blame, the kid had something wrong in his head, he just suddenly snapped with no warning for anyone to pick up on. You can't fix or solve a problem that isn't there one second, and suddenly is the next.
I can see how telling the kid he is going to prison would definitely trigger the suicide response.
What, exactly, did he do (I just skimmed the article) that was so bad? I hardly think "hacking" a school computer by a student justifies any jail time, let alone *10* days suspension.
From reading, this was a *TRULY* gifted kid. Not an idiot nerd like the folks here on slashdot love to put on a pedestal so often.
But district Superintendent John Fitzsimons said school officials followed disciplinary policies in this case, and although teachers and administrators are grieving the loss, they aren't responsible.
It's all horribly sad. And a grotesque illustration why 'leaders' should be capable mentors and not be ruled by policies. This brilliant policy, blindy applied to this child, was clearly inappropriate.
I hope this unconscionable act haunts these 'officials'.. it should.
-Nowt
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
Of course, the quote does look a little absurd when taken from an objective perspective. If a paranoid list on a school district's website is what it takes for parent's to get involved, more power to them.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
I'm a 16 year old high school student who did a few dumb things without malicious intent, the details of which can be read here.
My punishment was originally supposed to be 8 days and etc., but was eventually changed to:
-5 days suspension (including from my advanced out-of-district math and science center)
-removal from two classes that require the use of computers
-loss of ALL computer priveledges at school
-one week of community service at my school this summer (painting)
-losing my position as webmaster of our schools webpage
Another friend got 5 days for refusing to tell the administrators about me.
Hey, I bet this kid isn't going to break into any more computers! See, zero thought--er, tolerance works! Ashcroft is right!!
That's a great analysis. Very dismissive, and very shallow. I appreciate your insight. But really, hasn't it crossed your mind that maybe this kid was just fucked in the head? If you read the article, the kid was obviously a child prodigy. Last I checked, most child prodigies ARE whack in the head in some way or another. Besides, a normal, mentally healthy kid would NOT kill himself over a suspension or even a stern "you could get thrown in jail for this". This kid obviously had problems, and it's disgusting to see a pack of morons try to sum up this situation with a few trite lines and use it as some kind of geek rallying cry. The kid had problems, he was very smart, he happened to be a geek, and he killed himself. Period. Whether these things were related to each other in any way, we'll never know. Trying to make some connection betweeen his geekiness and his suicide is just pathetic.
"He also would not discuss exactly what Shinjan did to the computer system or what files he accessed. Shinjan's parents don't know to this day the extent of their son's infractions"
... the school charged him on illegally gaining access to privileged systems.
.. The school administrators are just non computer literate users who like to run a witchhunt ..
... otherwise its just another case of people in power who cant tell the difference between a cracker and a gifted person ..
Why not reveal the extent of what he did? The young kid could very well have hung himself cause he couldnt face his parents, but why not reveal what he did ?
A friend of mine had disciplinary action taken against him cause he brought a laptop to his school and plugged it into a network jack, received an IP from the dhcp server and he downloaded a kernel patch from www.kernel.org . Thats it
People nowadays are getting so paranoid that gifted students are being labelled as cyber terrorists
If the school can publish WHAT EXACTLY He did then I might believe them
Just a reminder to all :
If he really did break into the school's computer system then why cant they publish what he did? Like "He circumvented security procedures and gained access to the extra marital affairs of the teachers" That would be a good thing, but its common knowledge that the people in school districts who have the power to decide what is hacking and what isnt are pretty clueless themselves...
Just a reminder to all :
heh. my schools IT department told me that the monitors on our computers only had 4 megs of video ram, so we couldn't look at big pictures on them and made me go down to the library where they had bigger (17" instead of 14") monitors with "more ram". does that mean that any insect that wandered on site deserved straight A's?
..Barny
Perhaps he should have harassed geeks while being a stud on the varsity football team. These actions in combination never merit a suspension, much less a reason for killing oneself...
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
at least that's how I saw it when I was in school.
My school did send me to jail for a weekend...for truancy.(not like they didn't give me about a million warnings before it came to that)
My cell mate was a crack smoking car thief.
after doing time, later that year when I was of age I dropped out and went to college instead of high school. I think many of our gifted young folks would do good to get out of High school and go straight to college that applies to their area of interest to be in an environment of people who are trying to further themselves.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
>>Not that I believe that they did do that much >>wrong, but anytime a child resorts to killing >>himself, something went wrong. Hello...I believe in most of the world this is called: WHERE THE HECK ARE MOM AND DAD???? I mean it's one thing to same why didn't school officials notice. But, as I understand it, he had already been sent home. And, really, how should school officials have known the kid would kill himself. I'm sure that Principal has suspended kids for more serious offenses and threated REAL jail time. None of those kids decide to skip the trial. Please...I see this as being a case of why weren't the parents there with the kid?
--- Open Source = Freedom not free.
I have a really bad feeling about this. It is absolutely horrible that someone so young an intelligent is dead. Think about the opportunity lost and what this kid could have programmed in the future...
What I have a bad feeling about is exactly what he did. Notice how they don't say exactly what he did or which files he accessed. If his high school is anything like mine was then anything could be considered hacking simply because the teachers don't understand the computers. In my school we ran a novell network connecting numerous windows 95 computers.
The extent of security was that if you logged on there were missing buttons in the start menu and desktop as well as the inability to run certain exe files like control.exe. If you pressed F3 while logged in the find files dialog was displayed from which you could launch the ADMIN APPLICATION. If you pressed control-esc before at the login screen you could get a run dialog and run any application.
I fear that what was considered hacking could have been something like changing the screen saver or the screen resolution. Something silly. If this is true then his death is for the same reason as so many others. Because of someone else's stupidity. Evertime you hear about a death think about the reason. It's usually because of the stupidity of the dead person or of someone else. Disease would be one of the few that breaks the mold.
I hope someone figures out what "hacking" this kid did. Because if it wasn't something like changing the grades of everyone in the school then the suspension was based on nothing. Oh I'm so sad now. I have to go to sleep.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Get a clue man. If this was some 40year old embezzling money then sure lets throw the book at him. I personally think the school did the right thing in only suspending him for 10 days.
Though sick but true. Adults need to relize that thier actions on children/younger teenagers who are of less power of them take them more
literal and more seriously then an older person who knows the Bullshit that adults pull, and some just don't know better. I've seen a 22 year
old act 5 years old and not even know it. Some people are not mature enough to handle "scared straight" theapy that stupid educators try to
do. Some kids get to scared, some see it as a challenge to them and it puts them down the wrong path. Its the job of the schools to know how
to handle it which is not scare straight is caring and understand like parent because we all know that they get the blame and someone has to be
the parent. And for you disipliners out there if caring is to much for you to do GET A NEW JOB YOU SCUM BAGS you are fucking with
lives not just the little bastards you think they are...
Yeah, the sad fact is that intelligence doesn't equal real world success. You don't deserve anything that you don't work for. Some intelligent people don't realize that until it is too late.
I don't know enough about your system, but would you actually send a 13 yr old who breaks into the schools computer system to jail? Sounds strange to me. Doing so wont help anyone, really.
I am not saying that what the college student or the 13-year old did was acceptable, or undeserving of punishment, but a single felony charge can ruin someone's life. You carry it with you on every job application, on every interaction with the police...everywhere. If the 13-year old truly believed he was facing a felony charge, I can see why he was so upset (not that I understand his taking of his own life...)
I am not saying that he did not deserve his punishment, but if the administration truly did leave the idea in his mind that he may be facing legal problems due to his actions (whether they intentionally let him believe that or carelessly let him believe that..), they were wrong. Were they responsible for his suicide? No. Should they have realized that they were dealing with a child--a 13-year old--and approached the punishment and lecture with far more sensitivity? Most definitly. It is sad that a life is lost over this...
I'm amazed at all of the calculated, affirmative judgements in this sid already, stating that "he obviously had other problems, else he wouldn't have killed himself".
We are dealing with very incomplete information here. In this age of Rule by the Lawyers, the school system is keeping the details of the boy's infraction under wraps. What they are releasing has been spun, as is the custom, to provide absolutely no information.
This is offtopic, but consider the folly of making any judgement in this age. Every organization, whether private or public, requires some sort of Non-Disclosure Agreement for all involved. As well, they only disseminate information through a chosen individual or tightly-controlled group. As well, enough spin is applied to render the information worthless.
This makes me wonder about most of the stories posted on slashdot. We are handed spin from one or two sources and let loose in the forum, trying to draw conclusions from a black box.
Ewige Blumenkraft!
Ewige Blumenkraft!
I extend my condolonces to the victims friends, family, and assiociates.
Why don't the parents knmow exactly what he did? I've been suspended before (not for ahcking) but its standard to tell teh parents and all involved parties exactly what happened and what damages were incurred, if any. From the tone of the article it sounds like Shinjan was threatend with jail. I remeber in junior high, what were really incidents that wouldnt matter in a year or two seemed like major events. That was just getting picked on and dating. Waht would the effects of beign threatened with jail time do to someone in
junior high? Especially a young adult who does several things that most adults cant do one of.
Blame doesn't need to be pointed here. Suing the schools would only put a huge hole in the budget for years affecting the education of thousands of children. Especially the musical and gifted children like Shinjan.
"We look back on people like Galileo with awe, at how he wouldn't be silenced by the simpleminded religous zealots. He died for what he believed for, this kid died because he feared for his life." Actually, Galileo didn't die for what he believed in, and he *was* silenced, at least in his lifetime. (ATTENTION: What follows is a simplified and encapsulated version of History. I know I am neglecting details, but this is effectively the story.) He had to produce his works in secret and smuggle them out of the country. However, his credibility was shattered because the Inquisition forced him to recant. He was afraid of torture and death, and decided that his hypotheses weren't worth suffering over. Sure, he defied the church once before that, but he spent the last years of his life under house arrest, which, given what often happened to such heretics at that time, was a very comfortable fate.
We must remember that the actual person that killed this child is the child himself. The school did not kill him by issuing this punishment. The parents did not kill him by not being hard enough on him. The media did not kill him by creating a frightening image of jail. The kid decided to take his own life, of his own choice. He alone decided to end his life. The sad thing is that he valued life so little, he ended it for something silly like this. The real crime is that he placed so little worth on his own life. Suicide is sad, and I definitely feel sorry for the family, but the kid did the killing. He made a very stupid mistake that he will regret eternally. He took his life and totally rebuked the gift given to him by his parents and the Creator, whatever you believe that may be. He is the one to blame for the suicide, even if other factors influenced him.
A student at my school committed suicide after he was caught using school computers to print racist materials from the Internet. Administration was kind enough to give him the option of being the one to tell his family and gave him several days to explain before they called to speak to his parents. This happened just before a weeklong vacation, at the end of which he hung himself in his garage with his family in the next room watching a video. There is absolute no way the school can be at fault for this. To think, as many did, that the school (or the school mentioned in this article) is responsible for pushing a student to kill themselves is simply wrong. Normal healthy kids don't kill themselves when they get in trouble, nor do they prefer death to imprisonment.
Yes i'm burning a karma point for offtopic just to say this is the kind of stuff that induces suicides...
- "Ford, you're turing into a penguin. Stop it." Go Prefect!
He earned a black belt in tae kwon do with less than four years of training.
No one can get a recognized blackbelt in Taekwondo below 18, unless it's just a pre-approved(Read: pseudo) blackbelt given by his trainer for his good work. But it's not a real blackbelt.
Why should they created some artificial award for kids? Simple, it's to give them a sense of sucess and achievement. However over-appraised kid might not be able to withstand the pressure of one failure(well, adults have that problem too). I can tell from what his father said that this kid has received a lot of sucess and pressure comes with them.
As of 5.13.2001 (8:06 PDT), the district web site is slashdotted, and I'm sure they have no clue as to why their servers are suddenly being overloaded with requests from strange places.
Homeschooling. It's the only answer.
Thank Eris I prudently decided not to have kids myself. I thought my childhood was a living hell, but I had no idea. Sheesh.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Not that us creative/smart individuals don't have enough pressure on us from the community at large, but we also have to deal with authority. It's total bullshit that all of us have to go through this, and you know, it's not fair. I'm sick of the politics, the prejudices, and the indeniable stupidity of the world.
Guess what will happen? People will weep about this for a couple days, think about it, then move on. Nobody ever thinks about what impact their little comments have on society, especially those who are so irresponsibly immature. I would say just to throw them all in a jailcell, but I'm sure that would be per to some ignorant politicans wishes, as well.
Seeka
I disagree. Simply said.
Seeka
This is on Slashdot for a couple of reasons. Namely, if you've read the FAQ, they post news that they feel is reflective to the general community. Obviously, by even entering this thread, you have some interest. Most of us probably had to deal with this same bullshit when we were younger, and therefore makes a good psychological discussion peice. I don't see why it wouldn't be on Slashdot, it makes total sense that it reflects the general population.
Seeka
This happens forever, over and over. The idiots of society (read: Gomfie) piss off people and drive them to insanity. When the authorities, the people that should be proud of these kids for learning shit, rebel against them, and hurt them.. What other choice is left? I surely don't think a 13 year old has many choices, especially when thrown into an environment where they can never function.
Seeka
"I really don't have any idea what was going on in his mind," said Rita Majumder, Shinjan's mother. "But they surely are to blame."
Funny... my parents, knowing that suspension from school is the root of all the troubles in this world, just made sure I didn't do something to get myself suspended.
Even giving this woman the opportunity to voice this opinion to a mass audience is irresponsible. She's upset, but she needs to take some responsibility. By not taking reponsibility for her actions, she also managed to pass that trait on to her child. Rather than dealing with his actions, he took what he saw as the easy way out.
So who will polititions, communities, and the like blame for this? I would see it as the schools fault. Yes, I know it was wrong of him to hack the computer system, but he was only exercising his mind. The school should have been a little more soft on him. My prediction is that many of the people (non-geeks) who hear of this will think something along the lines of "See what those evil hackers did to him?"
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
When I was 10, I hacked into the school's email system (called Alpha, because, well, it was run on Alphas). It wasn't that hard - with the security of MacOS and the stupidity of the teachers. I got a list of everybody's password and logged onto the email account of a bully which I really hated. I sent a message (from his account) to his teacher saying, essntially, "Fuck You". The kid almost got suspended, but I felt bad and went to the principal. Normally, if this had been done with a paper note, the punishment would have been three days of suspension. However, since there was no policy at the time, I got off free (well, I had my Alpha account suspended, and it's still suspended to this day). The policy is now 3 days of suspension.
Bottom line: Don't mess with the schools. They are technophobes and they WILL crack down on anything you do.
Really? On the contrary, I find it signifies intelligence. I wonder why people who look down on the tireless pursuit of money, are throat-deep in the rat race of getting letters on a piece of paper.
If you don't like a rule, start getting active about changing it. Instead of going about BREAKING the law, start getting people to go along with your idea. And what constitutes a 'bad' rule. What you consider 'bad' I may consider good. And vice versa.
Why suspend them for a long period of time and threaten them with jail when they can teach them right from wrong like any _school_ should do?
It is not the job of the schools to teach morality. It is the job of the schools to provide an *academic* education. If effectively providing this education to students means that one student must be (temporarily) removed from school, then so be it.
Unfortunately, in this case, the removal was not so temporary. IMO, this is not so much an issue of a troubled school district as it is an issue of a troubled little boy. I do agree with the previous poster that the child needed counseling... I just (strongly) disagree about who should be responsible for it.
____
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Either they're engaged in buck-passing or they're being pedants. Even if it's not the job, it comes with the job anyway, whether they like it or not.
I understand and appreciate that. I agree with you, that there is a certain minimum of morality that must necessarily be *enforced* by the schools. But those morals should be *taught* at home. That - among other reasons - is why there's home schooling: if a parent disagrees with the enforced morality of a school, then she is free to enforce her own morality during her child's education.
It is my opinion that the mandatory counseling sessions proposal that I responded to exceeds this "minimum moral enforcement" idea of mine. Some things are *necesary* to function in a society (and school is just that - a society)... other things are an ideal of behavior that is very subjective. Schools must, by necessity, enforce the former; they need not (and IMO should not) enforce the latter.
Again, IMO, the proposal crossed that very thin, very wavy line from necessary morality into idealistic morality.
____
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Your are very correct. Schools today give credit and praise for everything. My daughter came in first place in the local "math games" her award was the same as the 2nd, and 3rd place people. She spent hours and hours making sure her math was right, what sort of reward system is that. I took her out later, that was the family award.
/.
I went to her class just recently, I found out that history has changed, the radio was invented by "Marconi". I'm sure that Marconi was not the inventor and i think that there was a recent mention of that here on
As a parent, I am now forced into confirming her history book, science book and her math book ( yes there are errors in the math book ). Hell, I don't have a problem learning new and interesting history but, please present the facts straight.
Top it off, my daughter, is not a gifted artist yet she pulled an award for something that I could not fugure out in arts. later on I asked some questions. Everyone got an award.
Anybody else see something interesting in there childs books or this new slanting of giving praise where it's not needed?
On a side note: Children can make anything fun, so take your time and enjoy. best 3 tools for fun are 1) cardboard boxes and tubes 2) Elmers glue 3) glitter. Cleanup, well that's another story.
ONEPOINT
if you see me, smile and say hello.
When I was taught history in outside schooling. We were told that Tesla was the inventor of the radio. And that Marconi was the guy that marketed the product( or sold the most of them).
Then again, I was subject to intense outside schooling, so I never really paid attention to my "normal school" teacher in history.
I can't wait until they start talking about Vietnam in history books. Will they ever mention that the USA was the country that most supported the action, and that anti USA was a popular view point for some asian countries as well as by some of the US american population. Or how about that an american movie star fired on USA troops and was never put to trial for treason.
ONEPOINT
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Funny how an offhand comment can get you severe disciplining or even expulsion at school, but an administrator can threaten jail with impunity.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I was quite angry afterwards, I did not believe what I did was serious in any way. Perhaps because it wasn't serious? However I did not care much, there were other interesting things in school and I had access to other computers to play with. But I can imagine that if it had been closer to my heart (and I can imagine the boy who committed suicide really wanted to do stuff with computers in his life), I would be hurt a lot. I can even imagine trying to rid myself of this shame and humiliation by exitting life. And I can definitely imagine that I wouldn't tell anybody about how I felt about this.
Whose fault was this? No-ones. Could this have been prevented? Yes, the school board should learn that kids are eager to do this kind of stuff, not out of malevolence. Their 10-day suspension rule should be changed of course. If a kid tries to open a door of a room he shouldn't enter, just tell him why it shouldn't, don't beat the guts out of him.
Which is why I read Slashdot at -1.
It's weird... when I first found Slashdot, I remember thinking "Wow, a place for interesting and intelligent people. This is gonna be great."
I was quickly disenchanted. Don't get me wrong, Slashdot is great. I'd say 95% of the people I meet every day online and in person are dumb. On Slashdot, it's maybe 80%. I was just hoping for something closer to 10%... ah well.
It's not the trolls and the crapflooders who are the problem. It's the sheep.
--
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Moderators, please read the moderation guidelines. Whether or not you think the parent comment is funny or not, it certainly isn't "Offtopic".
Don't moderate down just because something offends your sensibilities or clashes with your opinions, please.
This post is offtopic, you may label it as such, if you like. But please at least consider what I've said.
--
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
I have a laptop which I take to high school everyday to do work on. The school computers leave a bit to be desired, so I like it a little better. Lately I've been getting some heat about putting a Novell client on my computer so I can print off throughout the school. I'm not sure how this was viewed inapropriate, but the school certainly doesn't approve of this.
10 days for poking around in a network is way too harsh. The kid obviously knew what he was doing. To get that much knowledge of something he knew right from wrong. Though the article didn't say so, my bet is he didn't do anything but sniff around a little. There's no crime in that. My school doesn't even have a set suspention time for "hacking" a school computer.
Sure they are coping with an unimaginable tragedy now but in hind-site maybe if Dad hadn't 'gone back to work' his over achieving, demanding workplace and instead took the afternoon off to talk with his son about an emotionally wrenching experience this might have been avoided. What I see is a very scared lonely kid who had no one to talk to to try to put this whole thing - fair or unfair - in perspective. -generic sig -
At my school the smart kids are given access (and sometimes even paid) to manage different things... i get the honor of doing everything side by side with the admin, they did this after i hacked the distrct... and three schools... grades, internet, and file servers. i havent had a reason to do any of that crap since the hired me on to do work for them.
Howabout making the punishment this: take a Word 2000 generated webpage, and turning it into reasonable, unbloated, browser-independant code?
I guarantee you this will stop the hacking :)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Not for my school...
Doing something MUCH more minor, like playing a game on the computer in Computer apps in our school causes you to get computer privleges kicked out for the rest of the year. I'm serious. Oh, and it goes into your record too.
I'm sure this varies from school to school, and likely year-to-year...
My incident occured around May 1985, and the "computers" in use were really 300 baud green-screen terminals, connected to an IBM 370 mainframe down at the district office.
We actually played video games (a text game called "Target", loosely based on Star Trek) during lunch and most of the staff knew it ... it was never against the rules, so long as no other student needed the computer for schoolwork.
Well, it's been a long time since I've been in school, so I can't say what's a "reasonable" policy for computer hacking these days.
I did break into the school computer when I was in high school ... they caught me about six weeks till the end of the semester. My "punishment" was getting kicked out of my computer class, which ultimately meant being short credits for completion. My alternative was to pay for access to a computer at the local community college and finish my assignments there, which I did.
At the same time, I can tell you I felt really, really empty inside. If there was *one* thing I was good at, it was computers. To have that taken away from me, and to become an outcast even in that realm was pretty disorienting ... perhaps even crushing. At the same time, I suppose they could have been a lot meaner.
Now, this kid was apparently a rising star in a number of other activities, and I'm not sure why he wouldn't have simply funnelled his efforts toward another hobby for a little bit, and come back to computers a bit later.
I'm really saddened that such a bright youngster decided to take his life over what appears to be a minor infraction. I can honestly say I don't begrudge the school district one bit. I think the initial sting of punishment is probably a good thing, so long as it is followed up with guidance.
I can see both sides. I was a misfit back in high school as well. I was one of the school geeks. The jocks picked on me for awhile, but I had an unexpected lucky occurance. One of my friends fathers tought his son and I some very basic unarmed combat and one of the school jocks who picked on me walked right into a judo throw. After tossing one of the star quarterbacks a few feet, the jocks left me alone ;)
;) At that time I was typically reading 1 to 2 books a day.
I was also in the unusual situation in grade school that my mother taught in the high school up till I was in 3rd grade so my mother knew all my teachers. I was lucky as best I can tell compared to many of my friends in HS and college. My parents incouraged my interests without alot of pushing or emphasis on grades. On the other hand, the school started out thinking I was a happy moron until the IOWA test's in 4rth grade as they could not believe that I was actually reading all the books I borrowed from the school library
The preassure that some parents put on their children to excell is one of the big problems. Children need to have their interests encouraged in constructive ways, not be puched into things they don't like in destructive ways. My mother was a music teacher and my father a muscian. Although they were somewhate disapointed in my lack of interest in music, they noted my interest in science and technology and encouraged it. I was a cronic underachiever with overall grades in the high C area (math/science best, english/social studies/gym/etc worst).
Parents have to recognize the gifts thier children have and also help them overcome their limitations.
Each day of suspension counts as an unexcused abscence
/excused/ absence--the excuse is "I was suspended."
/that/ they tend fail the quarter.
If that is true, that must depend on the system. In ours, each day counts as an
The catch is that most students who get suspended aren't the type that come in to get their makeup work. So for
Administrators tend not to want to suspend students during finals because that means that they have to proctor them during the first part of the summer, after grades have been turned in; which is awkward.
I have read with great interest what other slahdotters think about this and it seems that noone has so far questioned the belief system which makes a kid think that it is better to be dead than in jail.
From reading the article it sounds as though the kid was a bit of a classic over achiever, violin, tae kwon do, programming. But from what I have read, he was getting Cs and Ds at school. Maybe he was not being stimulated at school and that explains the low results from an obviously gifted child. I would suspect that his parents are very pushy. You don't do martial arts, violin and all the rest of it unless your parents are the pushy type.
I suspect that if he was trying to change his results to stave off his parents. It sounds like his parents had built a shrine to him and he was afraid to let them down. The fear of failure and disgrace can be very strong when all you have known is success and praise. He seems to have built his values round success and not been aware or able to comprehend that life is full of successes and failures. Everyone has failures and that if it goes wrong, you can't just stop the game and start again.
Anyway, that's my take on the situation. I know I felt in a very similar way when I was that age, but no way would I have hanged myself.
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
A 10 day suspension is almost the same as expulsion for a year. Each day of suspension counts as an unexcused abscence, and most school districts have restrictions on the number of unexcused ones that you can have during a semester. Sure, 10 days is hefty - but I wouldn't jump to call it extreme. The article specifically does not say what he did while he was in the school's machines. He could have been changing grades, gathering address information of students or teachers that he has a grudge against, stealing expense credit card numbers, etc. If he wasn't willing to pay the consequences, he shouldn't have hacked the system. I wouldn't really call this news slashdot-worthy, either...papers are chock full of proplr taking the easy way out to avoid personal responsibility. Now if he had hung himself with a mouse cord.....
Uh .. duh .. obviously, it wasn't, or this wouldn't have happened. I'd hate to see what happens when they handle a situation badly.
"Shinjan left a note saying he would rather die than go to jail". Clear that mystery up?
I guess that even if he wanted to, Fitzsimons probably couldn't admit even partial responsibility, or even hint vaguely that they fscked up here .. because, being in the USA, they would get their butts sued for millions. So one has to wonder if he really is a stupid asshole, or if his lawyer told him what to say. The Majumders have probably already started getting solicitations by lawyers telling them they can make a lot of money from this.
Thats the USA for you.
...things they pulled with school computers, I might as well chime in.
:D
:)
I never did anything overly bad, I was allowed to be a "second in command" type to the network admin in high school because the faculty liked me, but in middle school I managed to get the entire French department banned from the Apple IIe lab.
I'd discovered the magic that was the control panel of these machines, and would do just plain obnoxious crap to them like:
Change the keyboard layout to Swedish
Change the background to hot pink and the text to orange(or some other obnoxious color combo)
Change the background and text to the same color(usually black on black so it looked dead).
The funny thing is, I did this while our class was IN there, yet nobody ever caught me doing it.
They just knew it was someone in a French class, so they banned the department from using the labs for a semester.
I should've been caught, I kept calling my friends over and saying "check this out, it's so cool!" and they got a kick out of it..no one ever squealed on me though.
In high school, I got to have the fun of busting wannabe "hackers" or "crackers"..of course, being able to bypass a Win9x logon screen isn't any huge feat.
They all seemed so SUPRISED that we could see the porn sites they'd visit coming in over the server log files.
http://pebkac.net
This is part of a general trend in the US to crush curiosity, intelligence, innovation and creative thinking. The very things that made the US a major source of scientific knowledge are now being systematically destroyed by lazy parents and teachers combined with simple-minded attitudes. And surprise, surprise every day the effort to re-merge church and state continues. A classic example being states that legislate the teaching of fantasies like creation in their schools.
I did the same thing. I got caught hacking my schools network. why ? because schools have a tendancy to completely ignore the most talented individuals they have in class, just like everyone else. if you know you have real talent, it's frustrating and irritating to watch everyone ignore you. sad, but true. I had fully planned on getting caught (otherwise I wouldn't have done it in the first place) I got a one week suspension. To me that was just a free holiday. and I enjoyed it too. if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. simple. This kid was just insane in the first place. oh and it didn't help the school "emphasising the criminal aspect". my school did do that, but luckily they also saw the talent I had, and let me off fairly lightly. What am I doing now 7 years later ? I'm a programmer/analyst for a living, earning one seriously nice amount of money :)
if the kid wasn't warped in the first place, he could have ended up in my position now ...
oh well, guess we'll never know ..
Hmmmmm.. I'm not so sure about that. The only thing that irks me, is that I have NO IDEA what this kid did to get him suspended for 10 days. Has anyone read that article, or asked anyone what he did? In the article, the superintendant says he does not want to discuss what he did. I'm guessing that it was probably an embarassingly small infraction.
But this is simply another example of the demonizing of tech-savvy people as culprits of unspeakable digital horrors. The lack of understanding of the medium has made the common public much too scared of those who have better access to the digital medium than they do. This is finally a realm where to excell, all you need is access to a computer, free time, and the ability to read.. So alot of people who have been denied power in other parts of reality in the past, like 13 year old children or invalids, etc. are able to excell, and the fear they generate from a heavy understanding of the subject of computers is incomprehensible to me.
So now a child is dead, and I'll be the last one to place direct blame on the school superintendant for it. However, this does not excuse the fact that the very people learning how to advance computers are thought of as dangerous criminals, because their moms and dads don't understand the technology well enough to feel comfortable buying from l.l.bean online with a credit card.
It's time for humanity to grow up.
-TRiFIXION
Do I ever wish I had moderation powers right now I could could send this down to 0 or -1 where it belongs. I'm sorry, finding the humor in someone that's 13 killing themselves is pretty sick. I'm all for freedom of speech, but there's also taste, which you seem to be lacking.
How many times have the individuals who so many of us are amazed with and respect so very much been driven to answer the question of where to go with death?
Look throghout history and see how many briliant/amazing people were treated wrongly just because they were different©
Alan Turing
Socrates ¥setenced to death by hemlock
Vincent van Gogh
Please add more© I know I'm forgetting many right now©
I mean, seriously. How incompetent are the IT losers working at the school district that they've been hacked several times?
I don't mean to offend anyone when I say this, but how many competent IT people are going to be working for a public school salary?
I worked at a high school teaching AP Computer Science for six years.
The IT guys that maintain the servers get paid around $15 an hour TOPS. Turnover is tremendous. Most applicants are fresh paper MCSE's that just want enough experience to get a real job that pays twice as much.
This is for a large five high school, thirty elementary school district in north-west Phoenix, Arizona.
I actually overhead one idiot IT guy brag to a bunch of AP students that his NT server was so bullet proof that it was unhackable. I NEVER say that to my students, in fact I tell them that there are problems in the network, and to know that if they want to hack, let me sit next to them and work with the IT department to help things.
High school districts are swamped. Since they don't get the money they need, administrators have to make rash decisions like this based on suggestions from underpaid unhappy IT departments.
If you want to make a difference, then vote for state legislators that will give more money for school districts. Otherwise, put your kids in private schools.
Now, you'd think that the politicians would see this and realize that maybe they're wrong about things, that maybe zero tolerance policies and draconian punishments for benign computer hijinks are wrong, but I doubt it.
Who wants to bet that the politicians and the school boards are instead going to blame computers and the internet for the whole thing?
I urge all of us, if we have children of any age, to get involved in the school boards, and remember this when elections come around and do what we can to inject a little sanity into the world. And if we are really lucky, maybe other young people will be spared the experience that lead to this young man's mistake.
I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, oh, wait...
I barely know where to begin. Until I read this story, I have never shed a tear over a news article. Don't get me wrong, I felt bad about the oklahoma bombings, the culumbine shootings, and various other events I've seen unfold. This is the first time I've ever had to take a break from what I was doing and compose myself before reading on. I can relate to this now lifeless 13 year old boy. I was in his shoes nearly 10 years ago. I took tae kwon do, I didn't excel like he did. I was on my school swim team and did have excellent times. I was also suspended more than once for infractions of what the school system calls a 'code of conduct'. bah. I was yelled at, I was threatened with police involvement. Did I consider suicide? yes. did I attempt it? no. I was afraid of dieing. The news article that slashdot links to asks the question 'how could someone so young make such a drastic decision?' I ask you, how could they not make drastic decisions? I can not speak for any of this young mans friends, family, or school staff. However, When I was his age, being computer litterate made me different. It made me the 'geek'. I made excellent grades up until 6th grade. Thats when I realized, that because I had done everything ever asked, I was overly criticized. Every little detail of my life was watched by someone. So I gave up. I did what was required to pass my classes. Yes, I regret that decision. But this adds a new perspective on life. You've got a machine, that'll do as you tell it, doesn't ever tell you what to do, and it's fascinating. Anyone ever read 'The Hackers Manifesto?' http://users.1st.net/timdog/Manfesto.html If you read that, then you have a little insight into the mindset of someone approx. that age. I would see things on the news and be disgusted. People kill people, sell drugs, wage war, break hearts, steal, and me? me? I sit behind a monitor and watch it all go on. How can you expect someone not to get depressed? Who does someone that age turn to? I didn't turn to my parents, I didn't turn to my teachers, I didn't turn to my real life friends. I turned to total strangers that I'd met in various chat rooms on local bbs's. The helped me through it. These were other people, just like me at the time. Who may not have realized it at the time, but they touched my life. We have too many people asking why this happens, who was at fault, why why why? In my opinion, It's not the parents fault. It's not the teachers fault, it's not any one persons fault. It's societies fault. Yes, I blame everyone. Sound like an easy cop out? well think about it. Who gets on and talks to people these days. They're not the same crowds that were around before technical support would help any jerk with a phone line and a credit card. So who are your childrens friends? I'm not saying you should pry and find out. I'm saying that everyone should take a good look in the mirror. If you know a child, of any age (I consider myself still a child at age 22), then be supportive. Try and be a positive influence. No one person causes a person to make life changing decisions. However, that 1 person adds up. You'd be amazed how many people a kid encounters that don't even realize they're influencing someone. I send my respect, and condolences to the family for their loss. I wish I could do more to help them in their time of need. To the IT Community, I send my condolences as well, looks like we've lost a good one. Everyone in the industry should show the respect of a moment of silence in his honor. To society in general, When are we going to learn to love everyone? These are just my opinions, but I thank anyone who took the time to read them. With love, John
Yeah, "blame the jocks." That makes a lot of sense. The kid cracked in to his school's computer system, and although the extent of what he actually did wasn't explained in the article, it said that what he did was illegal. Now whether or not what he did should actually be illegal is another question, but the point remains that it was illegal and obviously broke school rules. Accordingly, the school administrators did what they are supposed to do and suspended him. Once again, whether or not you deem this punishment appropriate is not the issue - this was the punishment that school policy dictated. To say that the administrators acted inappropriately would be ignorant, as we have no idea what the kid even did. So now, the kid goes and hangs himself as a result of this punishment. How in the hell do you get off "blaming the jocks" because "they're always to fault like with Columbine"????? Saying this is tantamount to asserting that it is "always the geeks who have to go and blow up the goddamned schools." As someone who happens to be very active in sports (2 sport varsity athlete), yet also is very interested in Linux, the Internet, and computers in general, I take umbrage to your statement. Go troll somewhere else please.
-Matt
Duke '05
I clearly recall when I was four years old, being told that I was going to be in hot water if I didn't stop what I was doing. And then bursting into tears because I thought I was going to be boiled alive. Now saying that there is a difference between 4 and 13 is missing the point. The severity of the punishment, and the level of understanding are proportionate. Furthermore, the principal's use of the term "due process" clearly illustrates HIS lack of understanding of either: a). the english language, or b). his roll in relation to his charges... The statement could have been directly applied, without editing, to a warden commenting on the suicide of an inmate. I will probably be roasted alive for saying this... But, the parental reaction could be cultural. By this I mean that my parents reactions to various things at school, and my best friend Javed's parents reactions, were VERY different. Javed's parents took the stance that authority was something to be respected, period. Whereas my parents were sceptics until they knew the details. Sometimes they sided with me, sometimes the school. But they always investigated. How is it that the father could take his son home with only the information "he has been suspended"? Doesn't anyone ask WHY anymore? Should I call these people, and inform them that I am the collections department for X, and that they have unpaid bills? Would they pay? 10 days of suspension for a "victimless" crime, and bulies get 3? What example does this set? The knee jerk reaction is "tougher sentencing for bullies", to make it perportionate. But then again, that is how we got here...
Fear of lawsuits keeps people from doing all kinds of things that are truly in the public interest, like exposing the abuses of the creators of censorware block-lists. It's neither reasonable nor fair to demonize school administrators for buckling under those same forces; our duty as citizens is to get rid of these abuses of the legal system so people are no longer taking risks when they try to do the right thing.
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Having 50 karma is an itchy feeling; I know I'll get
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
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Having 50 karma is an itchy feeling; I know I'll get
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
And to think, they caught me 'hacking' our network a few years ago in high school and treatened to suspend me. Somehow the evidence 'conveniently' dissapeared, and within a couple weeks I had been hired on as a part-time assistant to our technology coordinator. All you gotta do is convince everyone that you were merely trying to point out obvious security flaws in the network's design, and you go from problem child to junior network administrator...
If any of this appears incoherent, assume that the writer was drunk.
I don't want to seem insensitive, but kids are suspended from school everyday for a variety of reasons and they don't commit suicide. Despite our romantic ideas of hackers being underground heroes, hacking is still a crime and like any other crime needs to be dealt with. They didn't say in the article what he did, but it was probably rather serious to warrant a 10 day suspension. The mother says her child seemed happy and the fault surely lies with the school, but OBVIOUSLY her child wasn't fine if he commited suicide hours after being kicked out of school. Just another example of parents not taking responsibility for their children, I wonder how often she even talked to her kid. Again, children are suspended everyday and they don't harm themselves, yet this poor child decided to take his own life which tells me pretty clearly the kid had issues and the school shouldn't be faulted for doing their job in trying to discipline him.
I posted to
And really. Who give's a rat's ass about this kid? His family, yes. Everyone else, no. Stop pretending folks.
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"Fuck your mama."
I don't think society will ever stop fearing what it doesn't understand. The sad thing is that society fears those individuals who do understand, when in fact they are the last people who should be feared. This story will probably not reach the general public. I can only imagine what the response would be if this poor kid had gone out and killed his principal. The same number of deaths would have occured, but it would have garnered much more media attention, the kid would have been villified, and the public would probably blame the Internet. He often went to internet chat rooms at his home computer. I can just imagine that. It seems to me the schools have been spending too much time identifying the "dangerous" students and not enough encouraging the talented ones.
It made my heart ache to read about this. I feel really bad.
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
But let's not jump too far into the murky realm of conclusions on this one. Yes, this is tragic, but by the same token ALL suicides are tragic, inasmuch as they represent the depths people can reach.
Personally, I don't think too much emphasis should be placed on the "hacking" component of this event. Realistically, should one replace the action in question ("hacking", as it were) with anything else "criminal" (and I cringe at the use of the term "hack" in that sense), such as breaking into the school library, the end result could very well be the same.
This youth was troubled, no doubt, and probably terrified of the concept of going to jail more than anything else. I DO need to point out my suspicion that the school system quite possibly went entirely too far in the administration of mental abuse in this case, using fear tactics in the hopes of "making an example of him."
Reminds me of when I was 13, and got nabbed accessing some stuff I "shouldn't have" on my junior high network. Funny how differently I was treated, tho... they actually asked for my help in sealing up some holes.
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In the city of Minneapolis (and most other cities as well) it's illegal to use an extension cord in rental housing.
(my point? 'whatever.')
I don't think she was particularly greedy.
She was a successful writer, earned a substantial amount of money, and was able to continue to explore and spread her ideas widely.
I'm not sure what that has to do with greed.
"Not only is it theft and burgluray, but it's an insult to academic integrity."
So are laws making school attendance compulsory for persons who might rather not be there.
So is hiring inept IT staff.
So is using scare talk to instill a particular mentality in people who the school should be *educating*, not indoctrinating.
So is hiring a principal who commits open displays of anger.
So is giving the students busywork for a large portion of their grade so that the average kids have a way to compete with the brighter ones.
Breaking systems is a crime. Fine. But breaking systems or even a disregard for authority is a tiny problem compared to the problem of schools where the people responsible fo educating and guiding young folks are either too stupid or too complacent to perform their duties with any sort of commitment. Unfortunately, it's not a crime for school systems to do a piss poor job.
The state is the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everybody else. ~F. Bastiat
There are suicide prevention or mental health hotlines listed in the front of most phone books.
:'-(
Or just do a search on "suicide prevention hotline", I suppose.
I wonder if censorware programs block out all references to suicide. Somehow that wouldn't surprise me.
Let me just state up front that anyone compelled to take their own life is obviously in a state of pain and suffering, whether that be explicit and consciously felt, or subdued and controlled to the point of being out of touch with those feelings. This is a sad story.
However ...
I'm always highly suspicious of these kinds of stories. I think it's difficult at best to draw straight lines between two points in a person's psyche, and I think it's pretty obvious that the decision to take one's life is typically rooted in what is usually a complex configuration of personality traits, circumstances, perceptions and decisions. It is my opinion that unless you are intimately knowledgable about the configurations of those elements within a person's psychology then you run a really ridiculously high risk of committing any number of logical fallacies when trying to assess their reasons for taking any particular action.
The fallacy of joint effect, for example: One thing is held to cause another when in fact both are the effect of a single underlying cause. It would certainly seem likely that this kid took his own life as the result of a threat of imprisonment, especially since he cited this as the reason. But psychological motivations are frequently difficult to decipher. Did he have a predisposal to perfectionism? Was there parental pressures of unreasonable approval/disapproval? Was he even stable to begin with? And are we to trust any media source with being able to truly get to the bottom of these kinds of questions reliably and without bias towards creating a story that is designed to sell a paper?
I'm not defending the school. I'm just saying that regarding a case like this I don't really know what the hell happened, and most no one else does either. Something is held up to cause another thing when, in fact, they may not be as closely related as the media would purport them to be.
Of course, given how reliable general news sources are, this probably isn't a concern ...
Isn't the purpose of schools to educate kids, i.e. to teach them what it means to do something illegal, what it takes to go to jail? I've been lucky enough to have teachers explain me that if I get a bad grade, if I fuck up, the school is responsible for it. And please, let's not forget that any 13-years old person is "mentally unstable", by nature.
About a month ago I saw a Biography on Steve Wozniak.
They talked about hacking he did in high school. One time he broke into the schools computer and changed all the times the bells rang.
Another time he left a box which had a ticking sound in it. The principal ended up rushing the thing into the middle of the football field thinking it was a bomb. The person saying this was laughing about it
If he did this stuff today how many YEARS of prison would he get?
IANAL, but in Virginia, a felon--even one with fully restored rights--may NOT touch a firearm, lockback knife, crossbow, or BBgun.
So ya wanna email me, eh? Change
Why would someone kill themselves? When you're in that situation, all the "wrong" reasons make perfect sense. All you jerks who have no sympathy, you should understand at least that some people weren't born and raised like you. I almost hear people saying "good, serves him right"... Lack of sympathy says it all. You are a fascist if you feel no pity for the poor kid.
he may have been BOOK smart, but obviously he was an idiot when it came to life.
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
I question how someone so 'bright and gifted' could have foreseen going to jail. Either he did something really heavy, (though in my experience, schools aren't exactly hard to hack, or worth it) or he was mentally unstable. Even if committing suicide did make sense, (in a hypothetical sense) would'nt it have been better to wait until he was sure he was GOING to jail??
Ahh... the impatience of youth....
My condolences to the family.
We all went through this. Same ol.
"But this young man did violate school rules and regulations and he understood the severity of the rules he broke." When "rules and regulations" take precidence over common sense the end is near. It is a terrible thing that he died, and it was preventable, but not when you live in a world where the great god bureaucracy rules all.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
He earned a black belt in tae kwon do with less than four years of training.
I am so fuming mad after reading this line, I can't even read the rest of the article.
The problem with modern martial arts is the tendency to emphasize the art instead of the martial. The men who developed those "styles" centuries ago were warriors, and that's why the military remains among the best sources for practical hand-to-hand training. Founders of the martial arts were also often killers: Chinese organized crime still contains some of the best kung-fu masters alive. When warriors and killers trained, they trained to fight.
But nowadays the Self-Esteem Academy at every other strip mall is a place for little Jennifer and Kelly to spend a few hours until Mommy arrives in her minivan. Those kids -- the typical martial arts student in modern America -- may learn self-discipline, build confidence, and gain a certain amount of fitness on their ways to black belts.
But can they fight?
I've known a handful of black belts whom I wouldn't attempt to tackle with anything less than a 12-gauge. I've also known plenty of others whom I could take with a teaspoon. Face facts: a black belt used to mean that the man wearing it was hell in any back alley brawl, but nowadays cripples, old ladies, and kids wear them.
To quote from What does a black belt really mean?:
Through the popularity of this column, I get correspondence from all over the country. And the most commonly asked question is, "How long does it take to get a black belt?"I don't know how this question is answered in other schools, but my students know that asking such a question in my dojo would set them back several years in their training. It would be a disaster.
Most people would be overjoyed if I would say it takes just a couple of years to get a black belt, but unfortunately it does not. And though I am afraid most people would not be happy with my answer, I think the general misconceptions about "what is a black belt?" should be clarified as much as possible. This is not a popular subject to discuss in the way I am going to. Indeed, I warn my students not to ask the question in the first place. The answer is not what they want to hear.
How do you get a black belt? You find a competent teacher and a good school, begin training and work hard. Someday, who knows when, it will come. It is not easy, but it's worth it. It may take one year; it may take ten years. You may never achieve it. When you come to realize that the black belt is not as important as the practice itself, you are probably approaching black belt level. When you realize that no matter how long or how hard you train, there is a lifetime of study and practice ahead of you until you die, you are probably getting close to a black belt.
At whatever level you achieve, if you think you "deserve" a black belt, or if you think you are now "good enough" to be a black belt, you are way off the mark, and, indeed a very long way from reaching your black belt. Train hard, be humble, don't show off in front of your teacher or other students, don't complain about any task and do your best in everything in your life. This is what it means to be a black belt. To be overconfident, to show off your skill, to be competitive, to look down on others, to show a lack of respect, and to pick and chose what you do and don't do (believing that some jobs are beneath your dignity) characterize the student who will never achieve black belt. What they wear around their waist is simply a piece of merchandise brought for a few dollars in a martial arts supply store. The real black belt, worn by a real black belt holder, is the white belt of a beginner, turned black by the colour of his blood and sweat.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
There is no contradiction.
We (the Rich and Powerful) DO NOT want you people equiping yourselves with skills to stay independant of us. Why do you think we spend so much money trying to keep you from doing just that?
Don't go crying for this "criminal", either. He broke the law, just like you have, and luckily he was young and impressional enough that we were able to damage his psychie. Mark my words, give up your criminal activities before we advance this brain washing stuff to the point that we can get adults suicidal in minutes.
Sen. Hon. Richard K R Alston
Sen. Hon. Richard K R Alston
Australian Federal Minister for Communications, Information Technology
what exactly did this guy do to get kicked out for 10 days? At my school... you don't get suspended for hacking because they call opening Internet Explorer "Microsofting", and that is against the rules. You can get your computer privilidges for "Microsofting". No Joke. Thing is, all of the client computers run Windows 98 (same CD key.. hmm...) now remember, No Microsofting
... and also, in some ways, predictible. It has been my experience, both personally and through observation, that our school systems -- and often our parents -- are poorly equipped to handle children who are more than moderately intelligent. The one-size-fits-all method of education is clearly a failure, and while we've been working for a while on the lower end (special education for learning-disabled students, for example), there is generally little in the way of inexpensive (read publicly funded) educational alternatives for very intelligent children. So if your child masters educational concepts quickly, and then can't handle all the repetition and is bored to tears by having to repeat the same concept 200 times over the next two weeks, well ... look out, because there's a very good chance she's bored to tears in school, and the school is unequipped to teach her in an effective manner.
And if you're unable to pay for her education yourself ... well ... look out.
Situations like this -- over-reaction on the part of (clueless) school officials to something that isn't really all that big a deal -- will continue to occur until they are educated about the needs of above-average students, and until there is a place to put those students that can teach them how to use their talents.
And that day will be a long day coming, because normal-looking children don't make good posters.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
I'd be interested to hear what exactly it was that got him suspended. The fact that the administration is being tight-lipped about the details suggests they're trying to cover their asses. Regardless, it's a shame to hear something like this...
Anybody else notice that the school was very careful NOT to say what he supposedly did. If he had done something serious, the school would have plastered that everywhere in its own defense. If his "crime" comes out I bet it will be very minor.
I'm intelligent, I got Cs and Ds So what? Grades just show you know how to take orders and stay focused.
When you go to school and get graded your grades show how well you know how to pass tests, how well you take notes, how you well you get along with and obey the teacher, and the rest is homework and how disaplined you are. I got bad grades in school, but I'm as intelligent or moreso than most people i meet who got all As. The reason people get all As is because they work hard I lacked motivation to get good grades so i didnt.
Why can't we have mandatory counseling in cases like this? Instead of just a suspension and threat of jail time, why can't these kids (especially at the age of 13) be put into a program where they must meet with an adult faculty member to discuss what they did wrong and such? Why suspend them for a long period of time and threaten them with jail when they can teach them right from wrong like any _school_ should do?
Obviously, some people can take things the wrong way. I hope that in the future, schools will be a little more sensitive to things like this and not be quick to push the panic button and make it as if the kid committed murder or something.
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" Being so smart as to know what he was doing, one must wonder how he didn't already know it was illegal, or at least morally and ethically wrong, and really, being 13 is no excuse - if he's smart enough to hack into the school district's systems, then he should know the ramifications of being caught, and the likelyhood of it happening."
Pardon me, but bullshit.
First, technical ability and ethics do not walk in lockstep. My daughter knows how to pick up a plastic pail but clearly doesn't understand that it's not ethical to whack me over the head with it.
Second, you don't even know what he did. Judging from what both sides are saying (or rather, not saying) it could be anything from running nmap to sneaking in and looking around, to changing or altering grades. Since you don't know the variables, you're calling whitehat and blackhat activities morally equivalent.
My .02,
My
Limekiller
I hope this is not a look into the future. A kid that was so scared that he killed himself. What did they tell him? Was what they told him ...true?
Betting his parents were trying to raise the perfect son and he felt too much pressure. i.e. if he got in trouble for anything he'd get sent to a "federal pound-me-in-the-ass" prison.
This is not a flame, but an encouragement for everyone to look at things from a different angle.
This was a kid who was heavily obsessed with "making the grade." Judging by the fact that he had Hindu parents, who are known for their demanding nature, and by his father's statement that "I worked so hard to bring up good children in a good school district", it seems clear that this child was mercilessly pushed by his parents to succeed at any cost.
As someone else on the board mentioned, he was receiving C's and D's. He probably feared that his parents would regard him as a failure, and that he wouldn't be able to measure up to his brother. He took his own life because, as yet another person mentioned, he had a "screwed value system." He believed that reputation and skill were more important than life itself.
Can we really blame the school administrators in this affair? They did what they should have done - they punished a student who had commited what most people would consider a serious crime. His parents, on the other hand, did not do what they should have done. They pushed him harder and harder to succeed, until all they had left was a body in the cemetary and a box of ribbons.
I guess I was lucky. "Hacking" (knowing how to use a computer) at my HS was the best way to get an immediate coop placement at Nortel. Poor kid.
When I was 13, i was SO angry. And if I got punished, by my parents especially, the first thing my adolescent mind (NOTE: NOT ADULT) wanted to do was get revenge. I plotted ooh so many things to "get back" at my loving parents. Granted, I didn't DO any of them. But among those "get back at them" plans, i did consider suicide. Oh this will teach them! Now, I never really did any of these things, I never really got into much trouble. BUT, I posted because no one else had mentioned anger and revenge as a possible motive for suicide. Granted, he wasn't terribly stable, but I could see him doing it to "get back" at the school.
I would hire him to fix the hole. He could've been the next Linus Torvalds.
when I was fourteen I was thretened with jail. I had been caught shoplifting a cd and I had also been carrying a small pocketknife. The security gaurd told me I could do two years for carrying the pocketknife as a concieled weopon. The point is that I know even though I was doing something wrong how fucked it is when they get you in that little room and try to scare you as much as they can, more so if their not a cop. Imagine the feeling of having to tell your parents the people who suppported and love you that you failed them and were going to jail making your mom cry and shit . Than the kid is smart enough to imagine how much shame his family will feel and suffering this process will lead them through. He feels responsable for hurting the people he loves. Out of regret he thinks of the best is solution suicide that way he doesnt drag the family down and he shows the world how sorry he feels. When shit like this happens to a kid this black hole of regrett fills him up his world turns terrible and every other party in power tries to scare the fuck out of him (for his own good). It was wrong to shoplift and they scared me good
took my picture and humiliated me and i deserved it. I dont think its anyones fault but fears and shames fucked up and his school dealt it out in handfulls.
suck it dolphin
That he wasn't hung before he had a chance to top himself. Little deviant.
What would you do if the actual suspension reason wasn't true? This is what happened. The actual story was over-exaggerated to such an extent, that the sentence of 10 days was carried out. For exaggerating to such a point which hacking into the computer changes to changing grades and the kid having C's and D's is absolute CRAP. I know this kid. In fact, would best friend count as I knew him? What right does someone who didn't even KNOW the person can say this sort of things? Half of the "facts" here are lies. If you knew anything, you would know that.
Baaka.
You're right. I know the other kids who were suspended (the one that said about that is a friend of mine), and Shinjan just happens to be my best friend (kinda ironic). I'm entending to talk about this matters more at the site I made for shinjan (check URL thingy). It might feel better to talk to people who actually ARE within the school.
So you took a look at our site? Nice. So it was worth it.
Can you post this over there? Have a hard time keeping track over here with posts because there's over 1000 posts here.
...smartest damn kid in the entire under-achieving school... smarter than the dumbasses they hired to set up their network. He proves it, and their reaction: suspend him.
Here's an idea, teachers.. principal... make him stay after school to plug up your network.
...and they want more money
There is a memorial site for Shinjan put up by his friends at http://princetonfree.tripod.com If you want to send a healing message please sign the guestbook.
- They (and Shinjan) hacked in out of curiosity, but did not change any grades
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Shinjan was crying and could be heard 2 rooms away. This is at odds with Fitzimmon's account that "It was handled extremely well and was quite sensitive." and "..in any sense of the word, he was not visibly upset."
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Mr Mayer told Shinjan and another student that if they were 18 they would go to jail, and even now they may go to juvenile.
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Mr Mayer told them that he might press charges for up to $50,000.
I do know that Shinjan was on the principal's list (for student's with outstanding grades). My son saw his test scores regularly and says that it is inconceivable that Shinjan could have gotten C's and D's.A close friend of mine mearly logged into a SCO server in our school district, who's login and password was admin. They called the FBI and threatned to expell him for it. The FBI's collective response was: Get Real.