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Felony Charges For H.S. Hacking
jayrtfm writes "Last year the Kurtztown Area High School approved a program which gave every student an iBook. Now 13 students face felony charges for violating the district's usage policy." From the article: "Shrawder said the secret password '50Trexler,' was widely-known among the student body and distributed early in the school year. It allowed between 80 and 100 students to reconfigure their laptops, he said. The more computer-savvy students began to disable the administrations' ability to spy on the students' computer use. For others, it became a game, trying to outsmart the administration and compete with fellow students who held the secret, Shrawder said."
This news was also reported in the Reading Eagle/Reading Times.
In that article, it was said that the students were accessing porn sites, and HAD infact hacked the administrative network.
However, living in this area, I feel it necessary to point out that the papers around here can't handle technical articles, and and usually get the facts wrong. For all we know, they got the admin pass, and disabled the proxy (which was likely the n2h2 Bess Proxy), and all of this is being blown out of proportion.
Once more facts become clear, maybe we'll learn why the rest of the 80-100 students weren't charged.
I attended and worked IT for Conrad Weiser Area School District which is about 20 minutes away from Kutztown, where we had the BCIU come in to do a lot of work on machines. The BCIU is clueless, and security is their lowest priority. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the BCIU worked with Kutztown High to setup this network, making it all the easier for these kids.
Also, here are the nyud mirrors of the links:
FAQ
Kutztown Area Patriot Article
Laptop Initiative
May this post be indexed by spiders, and archived for all to see as my Internet epitaph.
I guess not only information wants to be free, students do as well. What a bitch for the tyrannical albeit wussie school officials who need cops and judges to enforce school rules that they cant. Unfortunalty things have gone so far in this country that they probably will be charged and therefore destroyed.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
What is it that causes legal-types to completely lose their marbles whenever anything high-tech happens? This seems roughly the equivalent of doodling in a textbook (in eraseable pencil) and sharing a Maxim magazine around in the halls. Hardly a felony.
"I knew it was against school policy," he said. "But I didn't know it was a felony."
Of course they didn't. You know why? Because, "Students who violate the computer policy will be disciplined" does not imply that criminal charges will be filed. It implies that the students could receive in-school sanction.
This is a bunch of hyped up and unnecessary bullshit. If you're going to give laptops out you better bet that they are going to be used for unintended purposes. By bringing criminal charges you are doing nothing but wasting even MORE of the taxpayers dollars for something dumb.
Discipline them in-house (like they did to us in high-school - made us sit in the hot school all summer doing NOTHING - it's worse than paying a fine and doing community service)
I just kept thinking "Enders Game" !!!
I ate my sig.
Skavinsky consulted with the Berks County District Attorney's office and recommended charges of "Computer Trespass," in violation of PA criminal code section 7615, which carries a third degree felony charge.
The best way to get poor laws changed is to enforce them strictly.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Why are they giving these children felony charges for being intelligent enough to see through such pathetically weak security? At the very least, the school should have assigned each machine a separate password based on serial number.
In all seriousness, if they really wanted to ensure security on these systems, they shouldn't have allowed the students to take them out of the school.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Am I the only person here that thinks that it is the most flimsy form of chintz that educators use the legal system and literally ruin students futures over something so minor as this...
Wait a minute - the administrators have to show them who's in charge... and having the cops do their enforcement... that'll show them.
-- $G
"Shrawder said the secret password '50Trexler,' was widely-known among the student body..."
;-)
If it's widely-known, how can it be secret?
Unfortunately, said leash was made of paper. Nobody's arguing that the kids were in violation of school rules when they hacked their own laptops - what we're arguing against is that a) the school is filing felony charges for a discipline issue b) the school is charging the students instead of their security people, and c) there exists felony charges that can be applied to such a minor crime.
That's like calling the police because a student is going to the bathroom without a hall pass. Sure, it could technically be considered trespassing -- but every school I ever went to would just give me a detention instead of filing charges.
dom
.. the same thing that caused many Americans to lost their marbles after Sept. 11: FEAR caused by a LACK OF UNDERSTANDING. These politicians do not understand technology, hence they fear it with all their might. And the legal response by politicians to fear is to pass fucking moronic laws.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Sounds like a good "punishment": put the offenders on the tech support staff and put them to work policing the network and cleaning up after the clueless and the pranksters. Is that onerous enough? It might channel their m4d 5k1llz in a more marketable direction. Then again, I'm no sysadmin, so what do I know?
Let's see, the postal address of the district office is.....50 Trexler Ave!
50 Trexler Ave.
Kutztown, PA 19530
Excellent, nobody would ever think of "50trexler"
I remember being in high school and encountering this sort of thinking. It hasn't changed in several years, apparently.
I think the school staff know exactly how inconsequential the security breaches were. But nobody likes being made to look stupid - especially by kids many years your junior. These students took advantage of security problems that never should have been there in the first place. Certainly the students were wrong in what they did - no question about that. But making this into a felony issue is a defensive move on the part of the school to divert attention away from how badly they did their job.
On another note - apparently the school had $900,000 to spend on this. Why couldn't they afford a competent IT person to run it?
So it was freshman year in Cornell, 1990, and I had doubly no hope of getting laid, being a freshman and also a geek guy, the one girl on my floor that I had a crush on ended up dating some jock, so I fell in with a group of cool malcontent geeks who liked to play early Mac network games looong before they existed on PC's (all hail Spectre, Bolo, and NetTrek 3!) and got to breaking some rules.
At the time, Cornell was Mac-dominated (oh, happy memories) and the Upson lab had a network of IIci's just waiting to have their security hacked. I forget the tool that was used, but we figured out that it stored the password in a certain file that we could reach by bypassing the file security with Norton Utilities for Macintosh (haha Mac OS 6 security, bah). We procured a copy of the software, installed it and created a password on my own IIci, then took a copy of that file (with the obfuscated password) and replaced the file on the lab IIci. Instant admin access.
But we didn't stop there. We had such organization that we managed, as a team, to use this trick to install a fun little background process called NetBunny... on ALL the macs in ALL the labs. NetBunny does nothing on its own, but paired with a little utility called StartWabbit that we pointed at any campus AppleTalk network we wished, would begin the chain reaction. What then happened is that the Energizer Bunny would walk across the screen thumping the drum, going literally from screen to screen across the whole lab. It was pretty much a riot, if you were in on the joke, but the admins couldn't figure it out (we had hidden the executable well through obfuscation by renaming it and pasting another icon on it) and after they heard the recognizable "thump, thump, thump" sound would jump up and run around helplessly yelling "It's the bunny!!" We did it a few times with "agents" at each location to witness the mayhem. Good geek times.
I think it's the nature of very talented people, that when The System is not challenging them sufficiently (or when they refuse to take on the offered challenge due to lack of interest or motivation), that they seek out their own challenges, and fun.
I don't think these kids should get punished this harshly. Felony charges? Simply for trying to break the rules? Please. Face it, it takes some effort and talent to break in, it's just misplaced effort and talent. Find a way to redirect it. I mean come on, it probably started with some high-school geek starving for attention who wanted to seem cool.
I just dealt with some students who abused positions of trust (as tech aides) to install keylogging software on multiple computers. We came down hard on the student who initiated this because he used the information he gathered to access email and grades of the teachers whose passwords he caught. I never considered recommending this to the police, though, because I knew that we could suggest expulsion (which we ended up on a compromise with the student and his parents on) and scare the student into not doing this again. Or, at least, we now know who he is and we can ensure that he won't do the same thing.
The primary downside is that high school computer experiences shouldn't have to be as controlled and locked down as they are in most places. While we absolutely need security surrounding our student information system, grades, attendance and teacher files, I don't like locking down computers and trying to force certain behaviors. Let these kids work normally on the computers and be clear about what is appropriate. Locking them up will only, in the end, produce exactly what these district's saw -- students who do everything possible to break the security.
Oh, and the parent who said, "and I don't know that it has cost the taxpayers any money" is delusional. Everything I do in my job costs the taxpayers money, so if I have to spent dozens or hundreds of hours tracking down the source of a security breach instead of working with students on a multimedia project or with teachers on instructional applications, then it costs money.
I'm unfamiliar with the term "asshat" but I think based on the context of your post I get what you are saying. My hypothetical reaction is based on the absurdity of the situation. Charging a child with a felony for a transgression that would be best punished by at least a detention and possibly a suspension, is a far greater issue. Fighting a felony charge would cost real money and the stakes for the child as well as the family would be sky high. A felony conviction for a minor would be an awful thing to carry for a lifetime. Especially for this type of violation. You are absolutly right that too many kids aren't held accountable for their actions. This is sadly a shocking and extreme case.
Actually, in addition to a lawyer your two other best friends are going to be media attention and contacting Congresscritters...both state and possibly national. Bring their name into it and suddenly they'll desperately want to side with the team that will lose them the least votes...and the school district that wants to turn kids into felons for what sound like (relatively) minor computer-related infractions probably won't be it.
I'd hand it right back. "No thanks".
The students had a wonderful opportunity to show what a complete failure such draconian policies can be. But, just like with illegal file sharing, they'd rather push the other way, and end up further behind than when they started.
FFS never mind this, why the fuck are kids being given laptops in the first place? High school students have NO use for all this equipment, they are going to use it for music, porn and games and very very occasionally write a report on it. Seriously is it that important to waste that much money so some students can do word processing?? what the fuck happened to using the computer room or their home computer or even just writing with a bloody pen? This is just an insane waste of resources for no purpose other than to hype the fact that everyone has laptops. Yeah sure it would be _nice_ to give kids laptops but at the moment it just costs too much, when the price eventually drops to a reasonable level then this will be a viable option. For the price of this project they could probably have afforded smaller class sizes, useful equipment or more one-to-one tutoring. These computers will be useless in a few years - many of them will be broken (they're not designed to last forever), some lost or stolen, and the rest will be nearing the end of their useful life as glorified word-processors with computing power that would have only been found in a Cray a few decades ago. I would sack who-ever is responsible for this and who ever DARED to pass the buck for their mother fucking failure on to kids that are doing what kids do (at least they aren't jacking cars).
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I think this is a dead on comparison on attitudes to day, and in years gone by.
50 years or so ago, the analogue (trespass charges from the article) would have been a bunch of schoolkids wandering off and stealing apples from some local orchard/garden. Just a handful, and just as it's 'the rebellious thing to do'.. That stage that many kids go through. And hey, adults do too.
Technically, it may be illegal, but common sense tells you it's a light hearted prank. Someone blowing off steam
You didn't just lump them in with somone who broke in your house and stole all your prized possessions.
If it were reported to the headmaster/headmistress of your school, you'd get a stern talking to, a series of detentions, lines to write, and probably a week kicking your heels in your bedroom.
All of which would say very strongly "It's really not worth the waste of your time to do it!".
An eminently sensible, and time tried solution. Everybody forgets about it in a few weeks, apart from maybe a slightly elevated reluctance on the part of the kids to 'scrump' for apples like that again.
Exactly as it should be.
Now: We get people like the teachers who went screaming to the police department at the first sign that somebody may have done something they didn't like.
Now, a suitable punishment would have been a series of detentions, letters home to the parents who would most likely have grounded the kids. And everyone would have gone on as usual.
Now, instead, you have a set of scared (and intensly angry) kids who if they do it again, are going to be much more careful, and if it looks like they're going to get caught, will likely cause collateral damage to hide their activities in.
And a series of shocked and angry parents who have suddenly lost faith in the ability of teachers to even try and keep some semblance of common sense in and out of the classroom.
Then, of course, the media, who love this, sending word far and wide to a generally disbelieving population, most of who are going to be shaking their heads at how far stupidity and knee jerk reaction has pervaded socicety and become the norm.
One thing's for sure: The image of that school is very badly damaged. I'd hazard a guess that several students will be moving (voluntarily) to another educational establishement.
The intake will likely be down (hey, would you prefer a school that'll give your kids a felony charge for a prank, or one that'll give them a detention and teach them pragmatism?).
The cost in PR and face for this action is incredible.
If the school holds it's current position, it'll likely cut off any possible stream for kids with a prankish side (who often tend to be highly creative; note this isn't just kids who misbehave just to be disruptive. Difference between Ferris Bueler and Bart Simpson) coming into the school.
And most other kids whose parents just don't want to risk it.
If they turn it around, and quash the teacher's wishes so completely, the administration will just never be treated as a joke, and it's authority will be seriously undermined (can you imagine, every small action a kid gets pulled up for, they'll be saying 'what are you going to do? Report it to the police?').
Maybe I'm just getting old, but all this leaves me with is the wish that things would go back to before the politically correct and lawsuit hungry era back to times when common sense was actually held in esteem. When you could actually learn to respect someone for being harsh but fair, rather than having them try to force respect by waving the threat of a lawsuit in your face at every corner.
Rule number 1 of security, if the attacker gains unsupervised physical access to the box, game over. What in the world did they think was going to happen?
You can raise the bar quite high if you use various crypto signature techniques, but ultimately a soldering iron and a flash burner will defeat that. A CPU that can check the BIOS signature in micricode on powerup would raise it much higher still(probably beyond a student's reach, in fact), but could be defeated by a determined attacker with the right laser and microscope.
Despite all of that, the real crime here is school administraters who have forgotten why they are there and who they serve. They are supposed to provide the students with a safe learning environment where they not only learn what's in the books, but how to get along in society. Part of that includes the school modeling society in microcosm. Part of that includes demonstrating that poor choices have unpleasant consequences while protecting them from the worst of those consequences while they are learning. Whenever outside law enforcement is called in, the school has failed in it's primary purpose. When outside law enforcement is unnecessarily brought in, the school has WILLFULLY derelected it's duty to the students, parents, and society.
Schools often claim to be acting in loco parentis and so need not recognize a student's 4th ammendment rights amongst others. Courts tend to agree with that. What they have forgotten here is that there are duties and responsabilities that go along with acting in loco parentis. Would any decent parent file felony charges in retribution if their high school aged child hacked their computer to bypass the parental netfilter?
The administraters are embarrassed that the students got the best of them. In their embarrassment, they have rather childishly decided to do as much harm to the students as the law will let them get away with. It sounds like the administraters responsable for this shouldn't be allowed anywhere near responsability for children until they spend some quality time with a qualified psychologist. In addition, given that the administraters have demonstrated an emotional age equal to or lower than that of the students, perhaps they should serve a few weeks of detention as well.
Were I one of the parents, I would probably petition for the administraters' immediate dismissal for incompetance.
Who cares if they want to play MAME on the school's time? It's alright to use computers recreationally, and for all we know, they could have been working quite hard and needed a break.
Generally, the computers are there so if someone *wants* to work, they can. I don't care if students are playing Quake or UT in my labs, and hey, I'll even join in from time to time if they let me. But if students are waiting in line for a workstation, I promptly and politely ask the gamers to leave - the machines can be used for gaming, but actual work gets priority
Signed
LAN Admin at a large Canadian university
(AC cause boss reads slashdot, too)
This reminds me of something I saw on the local news (Houston, TX) about how things like chewing gum in class are being classified as 'disruption of class', and these kids getting 'tickets' and the parents having to go to court and/or pay fines. I can see a kid getting into 'the system' for something like drugs or bringing a weapon to school, but chewing gum? Talking in class? And of course, it's always the kids whose parents can't afford to fight it that wind up with these kind of 'punishments'. I'm not that old, but 'back in my day' kids got into trouble like that for dealing drugs or trying to burn the school down.
> Boohoo!
> You commited a crime, and now you're paying for it.
> Maybe next time you'll think twice before breaking the law.
Why would he think twice next time? He just said his life is fucked after commiting one felony, having two felonies on his record won't make him any more unemployable than he is now.
It was pretty obvious he wasn't complaining about the actual punishment for the crime, but instead about the scarlet letter effect that took place after the supposed punishment was meted out. Even if you were an advocate of the scarlet letter style blackballing for life of felons, how do you think it'd be a deterrent to future crimes?
I really don't know anything about felonies, and if the parent post was accurate in his statements, but if he was it sounds like branding someone a felon for life would make them *more* likely to commit a crime again, not less.
I'm surprised that no one has noticed this. The school district REQUIRED students to use the school laptops, even if they had a laptop at home that they could have brought in and used. The school district also REQUIRES teachers to implement the laptops into the curriculum so they are used. The school district has monitoring software so that they can spy on the students. Basically they are providing themselves with tools that they can spy on students, requiring students to carry those tools, and if students disable the spy software, they get charged with felonies. Am I the only one that sees a problem with this? If my kid was in that school district, I'd be visiting with a lawyer and/or other organizations to get some changes made around there. This is a total invasion of privacy, but it's been glossed over as a "free" laptop, so people have looked at it as a good thing instead of the invasion of privacy that it also is.
...to meet the underdeveloped idiot who thinks that it is a good idea to charge these kids with computer felony. When will these imbeciles understand that the school is a place where kids LEARN (and this is *exactly* what these kids did) and not jails?
These stupids should understand that if they do not like kids or school they should simply change job. It is clear that an idiot who wants to charge a kid with computer felony can't even be considered a human being... and for sure not someone that should work in a school.