Charges Against High School Hackers Dropped

ZosX writes "According to eSchool News Online, the 13 students from Kutztown, PA originally charged with felonies for hacking have been given a deal, dropping charges in exchange for 15 hours of community service. From the article: 'The probation department realizes this is small potatoes,' said William Bispels, an attorney representing nearly half the accused students. This is great news for the students and their families."

Comments

Let's all register at random hick sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez, let's all register at "eSchool News". Sigh. Talk about minimum effort editing.

Good news?

[syousef]

They had a moronic school willing to proceed with this stupidity, and they're still at this school I presume? Going to a school where those in power have a severe mental handicap doesn't sound like good news to me. Having the possibility of a felony raised and it taking THIS LONG to and public uproar to dismiss this stupidity doesn't seem like good news to me.

Good news would be the principal and any police involved in this over-reaction getting an official reprimand.

Re:Good news?

[Lumpy]

I hate to break this to you but after school, College has a severe mential handicap, then work, the managers have severe mential handicaps.

you never escape it. I strongly suggest becoming extremely adept at social engineering, it will get you out of many situations. Anyone who is really good with any technology today must be a really good social engineer to disguise the fact or to calm those around you.

and when you potentially run afoul of the law it works great. and officer on his way walking to you to give you crap or possibly arrest you will not do so if the first words out of your mouth are " Officer! I am so glad you are here! can you help me?" if you make the officer think that he is your savoir then he will ignore lots of things to help stroke his ego. Tresspassing? you will be politely told "you know this is a restricted area?" instead of being dragged off screaming by barney fife wanna-be.

Same goes for school admins, college admins and managers and upper managers at work. none of them will EVER understand technology and you are extremely scary because you know technology.

Is this fair? no. but it's life. Ask any minority that is persecuted and they will tell you the same thing. you are frightening to them, they see you as dangerous, and they want to keep you under control.

At least the tags will be gone...

[Palal]

I mean grafitti... But the real question is: did this bring out the real curiosity in them or will this forever stop them from exploring computers further?

Not merely that it's small potatoes. . .

[kfg]

but that they really don't stand much of a chance of conviction by jury.

Not to mention how silly they look.

KFG

They are not bright kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really bright hackers know not to get caught. Think of it as natural selection. They can still become politicians, with their experience in breaking the rules and getting away with petty punishment.

Small potatoes == felony?

[monstermonster]

You know, what I don't get is this - there is a reason that juvenile offenders are supposed to be treated as juveniles by the law. Their brains aren't done developing. They sometimes do juvenile things because they're, well, juvenile. It's not like they murdered someone. And if the school IT guys are idiots, as they often are (I remember explaining a floppy disk to my totally incompetent 8th grade computers teacher back in the dark ages), I don't see that we should be trying to charge kids with felonies. Especially when it's not as if they hacked into some national defense computer. The only lesson it teaches anyone is that we have overzealous prosecutors.

Give a kid something he's not supposed to get into, and he'll try to get into it. Period. Be stupid about it, and he will get into it.

Corporate IT vs Employees

[Raindeer]

What these kids did sounds like the battle happening between many corporate IT-departments and employees.

Corporate IT departments erect all kinds of barriers for users to use certain applications and generally don't explain why these barriers are there. The most common answer I have gotten was: "Security". ICT-security is in my jobtitle and I know these guys were bullshitting me. Other things you hear are maintence, complexity or my favourite one: "It is our policy" and "The department heads agreed on this".

This is a battle that has gone on ever since we started with computers in the workplace. Invariably the result was that people worked around the ivory tower that controlled IT and got what they wanted some way or another (PC's got bought on office supplies budgets in the early eighties, they were forbidden by the high priests of mainframes) Invariably after prolonged fights the users win.

I currently see the following problems around me, where corporate IT erects barries, that people go around. In most cases corporate IT should enable it in such a way it is safe, or explain very well why it is not allowed at the moment, or at all:
- Banning of Instant Messaging
- Filtering of websites beyond porn
- Banning any Palm-like device, except the corporate one.
- disabling USB ports.
- disabling Wifi
- banning alternative browsers and all kinds of utilities.
- limiting the size of mailboxes
- disallowing or crippling desktop search
- disallowing or crippling streaming media
- Creating lengthy processes for getting new software on your desktop

Re:Corporate IT vs Employees

[aaronl]

There *are* perfectly logical reasons for why those policies. It is not the job of IT to explain those reasons; it is the job of IT to do the IT-related work. If you want to know why a policy is what it is, you can try to ask, or you can try to find out. The IT people are probably too busy to sit there and try to explain all of this to a layman that refuses to even attempt to learn anything on their own.

Really, it doesn't matter what the users want. An IT manager should *care* what they want, and form policy around it. However, if you do what the users want, you have an infrastructure that doesn't work, has no security, and can never be maintained. That means you have to tell users to "stuff it", to a point.

You follow the policies of your workplace because those are the conditions of working there. If you disagree, you say something. If it is perceived as a problem (ie: enough people complained), and a change is deemed required, then policy will get changed.

International view.

[Lellor]

Here in Kelowna, British Columbia, a co-worker of mine found out about this via an email sent by his relatives in the US who knew about the case, and we discussed it for quite a while at work.

The general consensus is that the authorities in the US have become too strict, especially with "intellectual property", "the war on drugs", and "computer crimes".

They are basically making themselves a laughing stock internationally - the Canadian public doesn't seem impressed by what the current US adminsitration is doing, or how they are handling these issues.

Things like this would not happen in any other industrial, civilized G7 democracy, like Canada for example.

It's quite shocking that the authorities are punishing students for using passwords - that they were given!

Hmmm....

[Legendof_Pedro]

I'm glad they're dropping the charges, but seriously, shouldn't this be a civil matter, not a felony?

Re:Hmmm....

[dauthur]

It should be "sysadmin gets fired for leaving the passwords taped to the back of the fucking laptops", not a civil matter nor felony.

Re:I was asked to hack

[Lonewolf666]

It seems that things have changed towards far greater paranoia. Today, it might be wise to get that invitation to hacking in writing. So you can prove that you did it with permission of the computer's owner.

LInk to the student's site

[Evets]

For those that haven't followed the story, here is the link to a site representing the student's side of the story: http://www.cutusabreak.org/

Re:I hope they don't take the deal

[krunk4ever]

if you don't view it as a deal, it doesn't seem that harsh. think of it as disciplinary action. i mean if i break one of the school rules (nothing to do with the legal system), i'll be punished either by detention, writing standards, community service, or some other sort of disciplinary action within the school system; and community services is definitely a valid disciplinary action they can choose to use.

what these kids committed was NOT a felony, but it did BREAK school rules/policies. It may be true that the IT dept was stupid, but if the school grading system was left wide open, you are still NOT ALLOWED to go into it to change your grades and IF YOU DO GET CAUGHT, you should be liable for your actions.

Re:Unfair!

[digitalchinky]

I 'worry' about unauthorized computer access constantly - the law is irrelevant.

The internet doesn't just stop with lines on a map - I get hundreds of dictionary attacks on a daily basis - I don't care where they come from, I don't much care that they even occur (though obviously it'd be nice if they didn't) - the ones that are successful are the problem.

Re:sad...

[MichaelSmith]

i recently got the admin password of the local computer taking about 15 minutes

A word of advice from somebody a lot older: save this kind of stuff for your own systems. If you want to get involved with sysadmin stuff then you should start by gaining the trust of the people who run your school systems.

I can see that you are talented, but your admin people are just going to come down on you for it.

Oh, and don't brag about your accomplishments, even as AC. Word gets around. Remember the really smart people keep this kind of information to themselves.

DAMMIT MODS

[RAMMS EIN]

So here this guy goes pointing out how ridiculous the situation is, and how it is a nice example of US authorities having become too strict. That's not exactly rocket science, it's been said many times before that USAmericans are too sue-happy and that authorities don't have the wits to understand technology - often leading to ridiculous situations (software patents, anyone?).

And just because he said he's Canadian it's modded flamebait! I hate to break it to you, but this is a real problem is the USA, and it isn't a problem in most of the rest of the western world. So instead of silencing those who criticize you, perhaps you should let them speak, so that the situation may be improved?

If this were only one incident, I wouldn't bother to post this, but I'm fed up with americans sticking their heads in the sand and telling those trying to educate them to piss off.

Nice example: the Europeans who wrote letters before the last elections, arguing why people shouldn't vote for Bush. Guess what happened? The reaction was: piss off I'm not gonna let you tell me what to vote. Not an unnatural reaction, really, but it's very sad considering how ignorant many Americans are about the rest of the world. So here the rest of the world comes and tries to educate them, and their arguments aren't even considered. Now that's ignorant and smug about it!

Re:No Registration Required

[klept]

It's not "as mild as you can go". They still got 15 hours community service. I can understand the defense attorney cutting a deal. You never know how a trial is going to turn out. But then it sounds like somebody with the authorities had some brains. If this case had been brought before a legitimate court, with a decent, intelligent, and fair judge, there was most likely a high probability it would have been thrown out. For example, did these kids even commit a crime? Did they have intent? Or for that matter did they even have knowledge of the law allegedly broken? And before some wiseasss, like the jerk that commented to me about free speech, tells me ignorance of the law is no excuse, let me reply. Yes, ignorance of the law is no excuse, but lack of knowledge is. There's plenty legal precedent on this. And then there's that poor smuck that they are "expected to proceed". Sounds like he's going to be the fall guy.

Re:Unfair!

[SoloFlyer2]

Parent and Grandparent were likely only punished by the institution they were attending not by the courts...

These kids will have their lives ruined by this if they ever want to do anything in IT requiring any sort of security, i have held jobs which required a police background check where any form of hacking (and several other things) no matter how small would have prevented me from being employed.

Thank god my school decided to punish me by requiring that I assisted the IT administrator for 1 hour every school day for 1 semester.

Sounds familiar...

[bogd]

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

Some things never change...

Ah, those high school days... uggh *choke*

[ACORN_USER]

High School and, as everyone else has pointed out, EVERYTHING which follows is just plain brain damaged:

• Through school and high school, I got harassed, teased and when others were baking their own rear-ends, I was also depended on for my 'skill with computers.'

  You earned respect from teachers. You earned more of a stigma from students. Finally, you were distrusted by the same stupid teachers if something went wrong. You'd show someone one of your programs and they'd be like, 'how do you do something like that?' Not that they'd listen to your answer. I really hated that question!

• Through University, I was distrusted ( validly ) when spending nights in our labs. I was condemned for finding obvious security holes. Still, this was the most sane ( other than the dot-coms I worked in ), situation I've seen.

• I once quit a stupid tell-sales holiday job, calling my employer a 'computer-illiterate moron,' after being suspected of 'changing the bloody date to 1980 on a stupid PC.' Why? Because I was 'good with computers.'

• Through REAL work.. The dot-com years were tolerable. Then I went for real money and well it goes on and on. Now that everyone is ready to proclaim his/herself a computer expert, you have to put up with more distrust, shit and even stupider 'imposed' solutions. Ignorant backlash to good suggestions. And then some.

My point was.. well I'm pissed that these kids were prosecuted in the first place. If anything the kids should be encouraged and rewarded, while the school learns a thing or two about sensible security. The world may be brain damaged, however at least we can look down on everyone else.

Nerds should have their own country. Kind of like Isreal. We can encourage other nerds to enter and have a 0 tolerance policy to all other imigrants - unless they're cute and attracted to nerds.

Re:No Registration Required

[anthony_dipierro]

Please note that using that login constitutes felony computer trespass.

Re:Where is the line ?

[a_greer2005]

Sysadmins do not listen to students, in my experiance. They assume that students are stupid and know nothing.
example:
My freshman year we were using Windows 95 boxen in typing class. I came in one day and saw that Napster and AOL havd been installed and were running - I didnot hae the permission to kill the app or remove the program - because I would not hack the pathetic security, so I told the teacher and filled her in on what it was. 10 min later the IT person came in and deleted the SHORTCUTS freom the desktop and said "OK, the apps are deleted, thanks for reporting it" I said "but you deleted the shortcut, not the app" he said "I didnt pay my way through college and get my MCSA to be told that I am wrong by a mouthy teen"
I proceeded, in front of the teacher to say to the IT guy "get outa my seat, I just had the teacher call you because it was the right thing to do, it is just a shame that the corp. hires dumbasses like you in stead of real pros."

Example 2:
we moved to Win 2k pro, and found that if ou went into the find->people utility, you could see the students name, acount name and PASSWORD in PLAIN TEXT...the IT guys didnt listen untill my buddy demoed it to the entire electronics class on a 6 foot screen while the IT guy was in the room, watching.

I have MANY MANY more stories like that.if you cant report an isue and have it resolved,,,something is wrong

Re:Unfair!

[nahdude812]

Although I know your response was a joke, I think that what happened here was basically executed perfectly.

The kids repeatedly violated guidelines that were put in place by people with the authority to put those guidelines there. Regardless of whether the measures used to enforce those guidelines were sufficient to deter activity simply by the strength of the restraints or not is unimportant. I can drive my car over the dotted yellow line in the road too if I want, and I can make my car go above the speed limit; that doesn't make it the state's fault when I careen through oncoming traffic at 120 mph.

Obviously the early traditional reprimands failed to make an impact on the students. What they needed was a good scare, and I think this is what they got. Settling on 15 hours of community service each kid doesn't sound like the prosecuting attorney(ies) ever really intended to send these kids to jail, it sounds to me like they wanted to make the kids fully aware that when you choose to violate guidelines, there are consequences (at least when you're caught, especially when you're flagrant in the actions). And I doubt, when faced with the prospect of jail time, that any of these kids failed to get that message.

Further, the message was probably received by more than just the kids involved, it was probably received by many other kids in the same district, and in surrounding districts.

Re:Unfair!

[mwvdlee]

I do think it reduces the significance of the crime.

The hacking methods they used were not something the suppliers of the system could not have stopped. They left some easily exploitable holes in there whereas they shouldn't have. They also continued to use that very same password on most systems, even on "fixed" compromised laptops and even after pretty much everybody knew about it.

I do think they should be punished for their deeds (which they are), it is however no excuse for the gross negligence of the system admins, who basically did next to nothing to prevent, or indeed assist in, hacking. They should have expected children (yes, children; who cannot enter legal contract because they are not considered responsible enough) to play with the toys they are given. They gave these children a half-working toy and pretty much told them "do not try to play with the other half, even though it's a lot more fun" and ignorantly expected them to comply.

Re:Unfair!

[avdp]

Yes, I know - it seems to be the popular thing to do to "make examples" out of people. "Send a message" blah blah. I am sorry, I don't think it's appropriate to do that with children. To (potentially) mess up a child's life just so that you can "send a message" should be a crime in itself.

You also seem to believe that this was the plan all along. Give them a good scare, then end up giving them 15 hours of community service. Yeah right. I am sure the worldwide media attention this case received had plenty to do with the appropriate punishment they did end up getting (as opposed to the ridiculous crime they were charged with). Call me cynical, but I don't believe it was the plan at all. It just ended up to be the only way out the authorities got themselves into without sounding like they completely caved in to the negative media attention.

And lastly, I have a problem with you comparing this case with dangerous driving. Speeding and moving into the incoming traffic has real physical, possibly deadly, dangers to you and to others on the road. Need I say more, really? changing the admin password on the computer they carry with them all day long so that they can browse the net without the filter, or the damage-less little prank they played with a teacher is totally benign, and the punishment needed to fit the "crime". But really, what should happen is getting these policies that made such an infractions a crime to begin with re-examined.

Don't take the deal

[macdaddy]

I've been in nearly this exact same boat (minus the legal charges). I was accused of causing around $14k worth of damages (labor for the outsourced IT company to come down and fix the problem) way back when I was a freshman in HS. It was not possible that neither I nor the other person they accused could have done the dead though because 1) I was home sick on the Saturday that the logs show the first of the damage and I was at the doctor 1+ hours away on Monday when the second round of damage occured, and 2) the other kid was on the basketball court playing in a JV tournament on that Saturday (that I missed because I was sick), and was at home having supper with his family when the second round of damage occured. When pressed with this information the principal even admitted that neither of us could have caused the damage. He needed a scapegoat though. The other kid's parents had the right approach. They told the principal in no uncertain terms to go to hell and that they were through with the matter. My mother was a district teacher though so that wouldn't fly. The principal made me do 120 hours of community service. It was easy to account for though since I filmed all the football games (which he counted) and had worked for the school pro bono for years.

However after all of that came to an end, I was still treated by the school staff as some sort of hacker. Many openly expressed their distrust of me around their computers. Whenever ANYTHING ever went wrong with the computer system I was the first person they blamed. Now I was also the one they always turned to for a fix to their problem. Still I had to put up with all that grief just because my parents elected to take the deal.

Moral of the story, if you're innocent then don't agree to any deal where blame can still be associated with you. If you're innocent then make damned certani everyone knows it.

My letter of apology.

[wubboy]

I'm sorry. I'm very sorry that your network security is a disgrace.
I'm sorry that your network admin staff is completely braindead.
I'm sorry that the ADMIN passwords were taped to the back of the laptops by what must have been the single most stupid person on the planet.
I'm sorry that likely the only thing anyone learned out of this is that 13 kids "broke in to the schools computers".
I'm sorry that noone will ever think to FIRE the dumbass who taped the passwords to the back of the computers.

I'm sorry that I had to write this.

Pleas and felonies

[hotspotbloc]

The fact is in the US felony charges are used the vast majority of the time as a club to coerce a plea agreement to a lesser felony or misdemeanor charge rather than a State's Attorney's honest desire to prosecute a real felonious crime.

Felonies are meant to be serious crimes like "aggravated assault, arson, burglary, murder, and rape" and not minor infractions like what the "Kutztown 13" possibly did. Almost 95% of felony charges result in a guilty conviction via a plea agreement. It's rather disgusting.

IMO the only reason the "Kutztown 13" got off without a conviction is because of the multitude of complaints generated by the Internet and not out of any "common sense" of any prosecutor. The criminal justice in the US is like a giant meat grinder where the innocent and guilty get ground up together and spit out the other end. "Justice" is rarely a factor.

Re:Unfair!

[j-turkey]

Does this somehow reduce the significance of the crime, or was it just an aside you were adding?

Considering that they were charged with a felony for what essentially amounts to youthful mischief, I'd say that the significance of the crime is pretty minor relative to what they were charged with. No person or property was damaged in any way.

When I first read about this case, I thought the school was justified. When I found out that the passwords were taped to the machines, I changed my mind. When I found out that later, there was indeed "hacking", I changed my mind again. The students broke the law--the very same law that protects you from having to worry about unauthorized computer access.

Yeah -- those kids really do deserve punishment. I'd think that 3 weeks of detention, possibly even in-school suspension would be an appropriate action. I'm still baffled by how this all adds up to a felony charge. The students didn't break anything, they didn't access sensitive data, and they didn't disrupt anything. The fact is that this is a mostly harmless crime. I'd want more severe punishment for the kid who uses a sharpie to tag all over my neighborhood. If these kids were convicted of a felony, it would have ruined their lives. Convicted felons don't tend to get jobs, and often resort to crime as its the only way to make a living. Let's save the felony charges for those who are truly harmful and disruptive.

I hope that maybe some day if you or I ever slip up and are caught commiting a minor or victimless crime, neither of us have to experience heavy handed tactics of making an example of someone.

Oh, and with regards to your mention of the students breaking the "very same law that protects you from having to worry about unauthorized computer access." It does absolutely nothing of the sort. If I didn't worry about unauthorized computer access, I'd be out of a job. Unreasonably stiff penalties do not make the world a safe place.

Blame Osama?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the US has been sliding toward facism since Nixon, maybe before.

But 9-11 was a Federal Control Freak's wet dream come true. It was an excuse to completely trash what little was left of our rights.

Land of the free and home of the brave? We have become land of the coward and home of the corporate slave. We may still be a Republic, but so was the USSR. We may still have a vote, but when there are only two candidates, both of whom have their campaigns paid by the large corporations and both of whom are against P2P, shorter copyrights, for DRM and against pot, your vote doesn't really matter.

Walt Kelly's Pogo said it best about one election: "You can vote for Tweedledum or Tweedledumber."

Lately I've been voting only minor parties who have no chance whatever of being elected, simply as a Don Quijote-like protest against the Republicrats.

If I wasn't looking at a pension in five years I'd try to move somewhere else. Is Amsterdam warm?

Re:Where is the line ?

[cow-orker]

4. A kid gets a locked device handed to him with the key dangling on a chain.
a) Obviously an invitation to open the device and use it.
b) Obviously an oversight, the kid should immediately point this out to his supervisor and hand him the key. Kids aren't supposed to possess keys anyway.

Are you fucking out of your mind comparing this to the rape of a helpless victim? (And you too, mods! You should stop smoking this bad stuff.)

Re:Unfair!

[j-turkey]

Just because they're kids doesn't mean that they're incapable of rational thinking. So many apologists on Slashdot (I have no idea if you're one of them, so apologies if you are not) are quick to step forward and say that kids are capable of making distinctions between right and wrong when it comes to discussing video game regulations, but when it comes to them having commited a cyber crime, they're just kids, give 'em a break?

Let's see...they can't get a credit card, get married, drink alcohol, drive a car (in many states), or live independantly without a lengthy legal emanicpation proceeding. So -- which is it? Are they capable of rational thinking or not? It's a bit of double talk that they have all the responsibilites of an adult, with none of the privileges. Even putting this aside, I still don't think that it makes any sense at all to over react to a minor crime, where there was no personal or property damage. These intentionally heavy-handed tactics of making an example of someone have been used for quite some time, and they don't work. They just destroy lives. In this case, the punishment doesn't fit the crime. IMO, what they did is akin to spitting on the sidewalk.

As far as your black-and-white law and order stuff goes, I have a feeling that you've ever been acquainted with our criminal justice system in any way. Go work in corrections for a while (just about any area), gain a minimally basic understanding of the other side of our criminal justice system. Perhaps with a tiny bit of perspective, you will have a difficult time spouting your black-and-white justice BS.

Finally, your earlier example of driving on the centerline at high speed is called reckleess endangerment, and is not a victimless crime. It is a felony. Your analogy makes an inappropriate comparison.

Re:Unfair!

[Sancho]

For the sake of discussion, let's turn to cutusabreak.org, a site which proposes to support the students (though I think some of the passages in there actually harm them).

Now all along the computer department was monitoring for these infractions and dozens of students were reprimanded and punished for their curiosity. Detentions and in-school suspensions were handed to kids by their homeroom teachers, often with no face-to-face with the disciplinarians. This was hardly a deterrent, though, as the kids were able to take their laptops and play video games during their "punishment."

They were handing out the sorts of punishments you suggested. Perhaps not for the length of time you suggest, but it's not like they just saw a problem and said, "FELONY!"

Some laptops were temporarily confiscated for long enough to have them cleansed and returned to their original configuration with a new password. Yet the laptops were still not secure. On several occasions the laptops were returned with the old password still intact. And then the kids learned how to turn off and or limit the administration's ability to spy on what they were doing on their laptops.

Here we see that the students must have known that what they were doing was not authorized. The notebooks were confiscated long enough to undo the damage and change the admin password. From this point on, the students who had their laptop's password changed had to actively seek out a way to get admin access again. There is no way they didn't know, at this point, that what they were doing was "wrong".

Now, you suggest that these children, if convicted of felonies, would have their lives totally destroyed. In many states (including Penn.) this is not the case. A person may request that their juvenile record be expunged, under certain situations: ahref=http://www.jlc.org/home/mediacenter/factshee ts/FAQPAJJ.html%23exprel=url2html-4701http://www.j lc.org/home/mediacenter/factsheets/FAQPAJJ.html#ex p>

Now, many people are going to come back and say that the school screwed up, too. They did. I'll even provide a few examples up front.

1) They only targetted 13 kids. I have no idea whether these 13 had cracked the password after it was changed. For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume they did (if they did not, the school was definitely way out of line).

2) They failed to notify the parents, either of the offenses themselves or of the severity of the offenses.

3) They allowed the use of the laptops during detention, and had no contingency for removing a student from the program. I suspect that there is more to the story than "Some kids who had trouble resisting temptation tried to turn in their laptops and were forced by the administration to take them back." but for the sake of argument, we'll take that as accurate.

4) They monitored student activity in the first place. I do think that there is a reasonable level of monitoring that can occur when leasing or loaning out hardware, especially if notification of the monitoring is given up front (which it was, in this case, to the student but not the parent, apparently). But I still don't particularly like it, and there are distinct privacy implications considering these were minors.

5) They didn't secure the computers properly.

The only one of the above which reduces the culpability of the students is #3. If the student was actually trying to get rid of the temptation by getting rid of the program, they should have allowed that. Of course, we don't know if any of the 13 tried to give up the laptops, which would make the point moot.

And for the record, I agree with you on making an example of people. I think it's inappropriate and a mockery of the jusice^Wlegal system. But, rather than not prosecuting any of the kids, they should have prosecuted all of t

Common sense

[Ogive17]

As I just finished reading through the topics that had been modded up, I wonder why everyone BUT the kids are being blamed for what happened.

I am sure when the school district gave those kids the laptops, there was an agreement signed and rules explained to the students. So it wasn't a smart idea to put the passwords physically on the computer, but how do you explain the minority who took it beyond that? The kids knew the rules, and they knowingly broke them. Sure a felony was too far, but 15 hours of community service seems too light. But now I'm sure the regulations will be much tighter due to these 13 kids, who may have ruined it for the other 483.

Then there's the segment of /. that blame the schools and anyone government related for being too strict. When my parents were in school, the teachers physically beat them in front of their classmates for breaking a rule! If anything, kids now have much more leniency because of the very liberal advocacy groups who raise a stink whenever someone is punished.

Bottom line, the kids broke the rules multiple times. The school had to do something that would get the kids to stop, which happened. 10 years ago I got a Saturday School because I was working on my Geocities webpage in the school lab. It may seem a bit harsh for a 1st offense, but I never did that again!

The whole program sounds stupid

[soft_guy]

What is the point of requiring every kid in the school to carry a laptop around with them? What benefit is there to that? According to the article, the teachers did not like the program because the laptops were a distraction in class.

I'm certainly not against computers, and I think they do have a place in education (writing reports, etc), but not in the classroom.

Kids need to spend school time learning academic subjects, not IMing each other and downloading music.

Not really a crime

[bezuwork's friend]

I'd just like to add that I don't think this is a crime that should have got the DA involved.

My reasoning is that the computers were given as part of the school's activities, as part of a mandatory program, if I understand correctly.

Since schools are de facto guardians of students while the students are under their control, they are effectively parents. I believe it's termed in loco parentis.

Anyway, a DA would not get involved if a kid hacked his parent's computers - it would be a domestic issue in most cases. So I say the school should handle it this way as well. If it's bad enough, then expulsion. But not a felony charge. That's not right. Kids will be kids, and schools should shoulder the responsibility, since the law requires parents to surrender their kids to them.

was suspended for violating school rules once.
is a fun story to tell now.

why...

[Lazarian]

Why didn't the school administrators simply take the laptops away from them the first time they proved to be untrustworthy? Or the second time?

It's obvious that if those kids circumvented the controls the first time around, they'd do it again.

It looks more like the admins wanted an example made, and it blew up in their faces when the police were called in.

Re:Major difference

[jc42]

I can say as a lab admin for a university, if we had to deal with a similar situation, there would be criminal charges as well.

And I can say, as a parent with kids who have learned about computers, that I'd advise any child to refuse the loan of a computer from any school. To any other parent of school-age children, I'd say: Teach your children to turn down offers of the use of school computers.

This case is an excellent example why. Yes, you want your children to learn to use computers. The only way to do this is to experiment with the computers.

But we seem to have an "educational" culture now that, rather than encouraging the kids to do the usual thing of playing with the gadgets, instead offers the kids enticing toys and then punishes them for attempting to study and learn from them.

So if you want your kids to learn about computers, buy them their own computer. Tell them that they can experiment and learn on their computer all they like, but beware of any school-owned computer. Attempting to learn anything on a school computer without explicit "authorization" may be dangerous to your safety and your school (and police) record. Don't trust your teachers on this; the school admins can overrule them and call the police on you if you try to learn something that they haven't authorized.

Either that, or send your kids to a school that's seriously interested in educating their students. Asking the admins about their take on this story could be a useful interview approach. If they support the school's actions against the students, don't let your kids anywhere near them.

Those of you without kids, or who don't want your kids learning about how computers work, please ignore this advice.