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Student Faces 38 Years In Prison For Hacking Grades
the brown guy writes "An 18-year-old high school student named Omar Kahn is charged with 69 felonies for hacking into a school computer and modifying his grades, among other things. He changed his C, D and F grades to As, and changed 12 other students grades as well. By installing a remote access program on the school's server, Kahn was able to also change his AP scores and distribute test answer keys, and could be looking at a lengthy prison term. Not surprisingly, his parents (who have only recently immigrated to America) have decided not to post the $50,000 bail and Kahn is in jail awaiting trial."
Even being a security researcher I might find some of those tasks non-trivial. In highschool I'm pretty sure that kind of action was out of my league. He has certainly learned something.
Summary is unnecessarily sensational.
I'm willing to bet the 38 years is if he gets convicted for all the charges, and doesn't get any concurrent sentencing - very unlikely.
Beetle B.
Sure the kid is an idiot, but does he deserve 38 years? That's insane.
Kick him out of school. Hold him back a year. Put him to work in community service.
People who think he deserves 38 years in prison for being a teenage idiot probably deserve to be in prison themselves.
Well, I'm not going to argue that he's obviously talented, but that's the sort of talent that gets you thrown into jail when misapplied
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If he is guilty of those charges, he is a criminal. Those actions undermine society's trust in the system that if someone graduates from an institution and that institution certifies that the student did what the records say they did, they may or may not be qualified for jobs, further education, etc. While 38 years is certainly harsh, that is criminal behavior. Our education system is far from perfect but guys like this certainly do not help make it better.
I would much rather that he applied himself to do well in school and set a good example of what good behavior, studying, and hard work can do when working with the grain, not against it.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Who is supporting him? No one is saying he did a good thing, they are just saying 38 years is pretty insane for changing some grades. You can get less time for killing someone. Or maybe even two someones.
I don't know what so unsurprising about that. No parent wants their kid to spend time in freakin' lockup. Further, they can leverage $5,000 of real dollars with a bail bondsman to post $50k, so they just need to sell the kid's computer and scrape together a few thousand more to spare him potentially weeks behind bars.
Heck, banks will loan the money for bail, and I seriously doubt they get the loan-shark like interest the bail bondsman would.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I don't know. If you are willing to break into the school's system to improve your grades, and generally compromise their data, I am not sure it is _they_ turning you into a criminal. I think, if you do that, _you_ are already over the line.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I'd tend to agree with you, if we were talking about adults trying to take care of their families. Surely, there are at least SOME desperate people out there who feel like govt. has caused much of their financial hardship in recent years - and they have to "step things up a notch" to get back out of the hole they've fallen into.
But we're talking about a high-school student here. His biggest responsibility in life is probably his schooling, and *earning* his grades. I think it's a stretch to claim his cheating via computer hacking was motivated by post 9-11 events. Rather, it's the simple desire to find short-cuts to "get ahead by any means possible".
I agree with the people who say he probably "learned something" with his hacking efforts. I also agree that they're brining a lot of "trumped up" charges against him here. (Conspiracy charges? Uh, right..... His scheme SURELY was really all about undermining our government to overthrow it with his fake A in math!)
Nonetheless, they can't just let this go with a "slap on the wrist" either. Too many students spent a whole year of their lives working to earn those letter grades the right way.
I mean...what the kid did was dumb, granted. But should his ENTIRE life really be completely ruined because he tried to cheat and boost his test scores in fucking high school? Seriously? There are rapists that face less jail time. Murderers who face less jail time. Corrupt politicians who start wars with other nations, unprovoked...that face no jail time. And you're going to hop on the "he's getting what he deserves" bandwagon? Shit, I *DO* support that kid. And yes, he's just a kid. A dumb, arrogant kid that made a stupid mistake. But in the end, no ones been harmed except himself. Expell him from school. Make him repeat the 12th grade. Let him stand on his own two at a community college until he can prove that he's ready for a 4 year program. I just don't think this is worth destroying a life over......
With all due respect but disregarding what good prison would do this kid as "complete ignorance" is ignorance in itself. The kid is 18, even if he saw just a year of jail time, you mix him up with all kinds of career criminals you end up getting out something worse than what you put in. Or you could belive the incarcaration industry that he will come out a reformed character. Tag him, limit his activities, get him to do community service that gives a net gain instead of the cost of sheltering and feeding from the state.
I'm not against prison, I just think there are more effective ways of punishing him.
Ok, so the kid is a greedy one, changing all of his grades to As ;)
But he is also not very socially bright, think about the other 12 kids for whome he changed the grades, someone was bound to talk. Or maybe a parent saw a dramatic grade change and called a teacher for whatever reason etc.
You just don't include 12 more people into your 'crime'. It's not a secret anymore after that.
Still, 38 years is just nuts. Make him pass the highschool exams again, put him into community service (with the other 12 kids by the way.) Also fine him for a few thousand bucks for the trouble and that should be that. His parents will take care of the rest of the punishment, I am certain.
Anyway, Khaaaaaaan! I suppose.
You can't handle the truth.
They didn't "turn him" into anything. He's a criminal. Period. I could write it off as misguided teenage mischief if he had changed his own grades. Maybe even a grade or two for a girl he was attempting to woo, but he changed grades for twelve people, stole tests and answers and distributed them, and burglarized his school to cover up the fact that - even after proving he could steal test and answers - he was still cheating.
Where's the "talent?" The only thing he did was read someone's password to initially "hack" the system, and I'll bet $20 that the "remote access program" was something he downloaded from some site with a name like "Teh Supar-3v1L Bl4ck Haxx0rZ La1r!" Giving him a pass because it's a nonviolent crime makes as much sense as letting off anybody who tunnels into a bank because they were clever. He's not talented, he's a sociopath. He should be expelled from school and they should staple a copy of the police report to any transcript they send to a college.
penitentiary... root word: penitence. make an example of him
people seem to think that only crime with violence should be punished. punish them all. whether they physically break into your house or virtually, it is still a crime, even if no-one was hurt. That is why you can shoot someone when they break into your home in America. A law I really love and wish would be adopted in Canada. Too bad they can't find something similar when you catch someone hacking into your system.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Thirty. Eight. Years. I am far from a bleeding heart, but my God, man! Imagine walking out of high school on your last day and realizing you're now 56. He'll miss the best 4 decades of his life. That's basically life in prison!
The pendulum's swung, and we have to get some sanity back into sentencing.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Voila. The ball's in their court. If they ignore it then they deserve to get owned. If they fix the issues you can drop them a note saying congratulations. If they haven't done anything in six months send copies of your correspondence to the local news and watch the fireworks fly as Link Beefingham and the WHAX Investigative Flying News Squad descend on your school for a live, in-depth report on how the administration refuses to protect Little Johnny and Susie from child pornography, Chinese military hackers, and internet jihadists.
"Principal Landingham! Principal Landingham! WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?"
Jail time is not the solution for everything.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Okay, let me try to parse this one out.
and who are all such sticklers for prosecuting lawbreakers, I'm sure you want to see this guy prosecuted too, right? Yes. but it is inconsistent to claim you are all so concerned about the law being followed when it is a corporation trying to help out after 9/11 When you say "help out" I assume you mean that time the telcos let the government illegally strip-mine all of our conversations with no judicial oversight whatsoever, just because someone in the intel service said "no, no, it's cool. You're fighting terrorists."Or did AT&T help a kitten out of a tree or something?
but when it is some hacker who is a lot more like you nerds than AT&T happens to be, will you be consistent? I don't even know what that's suppsed to mean. After all, who else's grades did he snoop into? Twelve of his friends. Did you even read the article? For the record, I think it is grossly excessive, and sad that young people can get 25+ years for doing things similar to what I did in high school when most of it wasn't illegal then. Breaking and entering, burglary, and falsification of public records wasn't illegal when you were in school? I am for telecom immunity for companies that tried to help after 9/11 in good faith, and relied on the government's assurances that they would not face legal sanction. I'm sure you are. I'd imagine that this hacker got no such assurances from authorities before he broke in! He's not a hacker. He's a common criminal and burglar who managed to see someone's password. Don't make him out to be anything else.A slap on the wrist may not be enough, but 38 years in prison? You just ruined this kid's life completely.
Why not just five years in a minimum security prison, with an emphasis on education? Rather than turn this kid into a hardened criminal by putting him in jail (where he will learn from other inmates) let's try to turn him around so he can be an asset to society instead of a liability when he gets out at age 56 with no life skills other than crime.
Sounds like he was at the age where the contents of the sweater were more interesting than the sweater itself.
This kid isn't a genius. He's not talented. He isn't some sort of super child that did this because he was bored in school. He's a stupid script kiddie. He downloaded a keylogger from the internet then broke into the school office and installed it. What a computer wiz. The kid's a douche and this sentence probably just saves the court some time down the road. And he won't even get 38 years anyway so quit whining about how long that is.
He is facing "up to" 38 years. That means that if you take all of the charges against him, and he gets the max prison term for all of them, he will be in jail for 38 years. The chances of that happening are zero. What is going to happen is that if the evidence against him is good enough where he (his lawyers) think that he can't win, he will just make a plea deal with the prosecutors. If he serves any time after pleading guilty and making a plea deal, it will likely be under a year. In all likelihood he will just get put on probation for a few years. Probation sucks, but it beats prison... and well, it is supposed to suck. It is a punishment, and punishments tend to suck.
More accurately--the kid just ruined his own life completely. Taking responsibility for choices we make is all part of growing up.
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
But you don't threaten to lock him up for almost 40 years, unless he's an immigrant...named Omar, I guess. An actor's or politician's kid from Beverly Hills might make the front page of the National Inquirer and that would be the end of it.
What?
Now, IANAL, but my father is the Asst. County Prosecutor, and I have to tell you that the "38 years" quoted in the article is probably calculated by summing the maximum possible penalties for all of the charges, and then assuming that he's an idiot in prison, too, and never recieves parole or other sympathies.
First off, he likely will not be charged with every single charge and given the maximum penalty and be forced to serve sentences consecutively. Remember that a judge still makes the final sentencing decisions, and is likely to take into account the fact that he is only 18, just leaving high school, etc.
If he even shows a bit of remorse, he'll likely get more community service time than jail time, anyways. (Which is probably to both his and the taxpayers' advantage.)
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
We look at the crime, but not at the intention behind it. If we did, the same punishment should be meted out for someone who is caught cheating on his tests. The intended result is the same: Getting a grade he didn't earn the "legal" way.
Why is hacking a computer to fudge the grade worse than using cheat sheets? Why isn't anyone who cribbed his doctor thesis facing 40ish years in prison (which is, IMO, a worse offense than cheating with your grades, we're talking about a thesis that allows you to bear a title, which does hold a lot of meaning in some countries)?
Look at the crime, not at the way it was committed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Criminals are not caught this way, amateurs are. This guy is clearly not a seasoned criminal and he should not be treated like one. I hope he does not get jail time from this. This is obviously just a kid making a mistake.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
38 years in jail is way too steep, any jailtime would probably be.
But this is no where near "just a mistake". It is not a one-time break-in to prove that security is insufficient. He was deliberately and continously (34 times alledgedly) "altering public records", for his own personal benefit.
Even if your security is inadquate it doesn't mean that it's not a crime to break in, and even if it does, fraud is still fraud.
38 years in jail is way too steep, any jailtime would probably be. But this is no where near "just a mistake". It is not a one-time break-in to prove that security is insufficient. He was deliberately and continously (34 times alledgedly) "altering public records", for his own personal benefit. Even if your security is inadquate it doesn't mean that it's not a crime to break in, and even if it does, fraud is still fraud.
No, it's not "just a mistake". But in cases like this, I think it's important to keep perspective. The effective results of his actions weren't particularly criminal. I mean, yes, what he did was technically a crime, but the effects of the crime weren't particularly different from if he had just cheated outright.
So probably (I'm guessing, because I don't know the kid or all the details) the guy deserves to be expelled, and put in a position where he really has to work his ass off to earn his way into any college. Community service wouldn't be a bad idea.
But I agree, jail time sounds like a bad idea for a situation like this. It's not just "too harsh", but you have to wonder what the effects of sending him to jail would be.
When your 18 years old, you still have a lot of time ahead of you, and a lot of learning-- for better or for worse. This guy probably still has the potential to turn it all around and be a productive member of society, but if you send him to jail, you're probably going to diminish that potential. Instead of learning to be productive, he'll be socialized to the jail environment, which means learning the wrong things, ie things that will actually make it harder for him to function appropriately in general society.
I think we should generally be cautious about sending young people (even over the age of 18) to jail, unless we feel that they pose a significant continuing danger or that they absolutely cannot be rehabilitated.
I wouldn't be too sure on the skills part of it; most school networks are ridiculously easy to break into. School districts can't afford to hire good IT guys, so they pretty much get the bottom of the barrel; I remember that I once got access to all the teachers' files completely by accident. Fortunately (for the school district, at least) I was a rather good kid and showed them how I did it.
Some jail; around 6 months.
A far sight better than 38 years, which is more than some murderers get.
When this student commits another crime in an attempt to get ahead, such as stealing an identity, and when he gets caught, then throw the book at him. But right now? It's kind of immoral to punish someone in advance for something we think it possible that they may do, at least without ample evidence that they are in the process of planning to do it in a very specific manner.
Personally I think it is a shame that you get less prison time for murder than you do for hacking into your schools computers.