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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."
He got caught - unlike me, because I didn't brag about it on a public web site...
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.
Here is the list of charges against Khan
34 felony counts of altering public record
11 felony counts of stealing and secreting public records
7 felony counts of illegal computer access and fraud
6 felony counts of burglary
4 felony counts of identity theft
3 felony counts of altering book of records
2 felony counts of receiving stolen property
1 felony count of conspiracy
1 felony count of attempting altering of a public record
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
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.
"You know, a D turns into a B so easily. You just got greedy."
Just wait until they find out what he has done to WOPR.
My humor is probably your flamebait
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
Check out my sysadmin blog!
My school server (NetWare) is just as bad. Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.
:)", freaked a lot of people out).
First off, desktops are fairly locked down. But the server itself allows for RDP connections with any username (not just teachers or students).
When you're on any old desktop, you can only access your own network share as a virtual drive. When you're connected to the school server, you get:
-Any documents (class of 2006 or 2007, class of 2008-2011, teachers, ADMINS)
-Network shares with installer sources and keys in text files (e.x. Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Plus with VLK, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9, EasyGrade Pro 3, Houghton Mifflin Test Generator to accompany textbooks, etc.)
-Access to the attendance share (which is outsourced, but the administrative login is kept on said server in house)
-Access to backups from the other schools (junior high, intermediate, elementary)
I was appalled when I found this out. For ethical reasons (and the legal penalties), I decided not to tell anyone or anything. Mainly because in 8th grade, my friend got his computer privileges suspended for the year when we told the computer staff that you could get a command prompt through Internet Explorer, and he almost got a disciplinary record over it.
We tried to help them, and he got in trouble (luckily, no legal issues).(We'd send NET SEND messages to other computers - e.g. "Jane, this is the computer. That's a nice purple sweater you're wearing
Ever since, whenever I've found a computer issue, I've kept my mouth shut, because it's not worth the trouble.
More on topic...this guy has what's coming to him. I think 38 years is too harsh (maybe a couple of years and more punishment in probation), but his malicious intent and clear intent makes me have no sympathy for him.
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?!
You're post. suggests that perhaps you USian may have needed to. Change a few grades to survive in skool.
Because its not about 'Us vs Government' in this case, its about 'Us vs Us' - this wasn't a crime against the nation or government, it was a crime that has the potential to reduce other peoples efforts at education.
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.
You mean KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNN?
(additional caps-filter dodging text goes here)
Is at Gizmodo
The kid is also facing burglary charges because he stole a key to the school and used it to break in several times. The first thing to remember in this case is that it's not just a simple computer crime case, and that 12 other students also had their grades changed.
Further, of course the kid faces 38 years; every one of the small crimes he committed carry a maximum penalty. If you add them all up, you get 38 years. Obviously that doesn't mean that the kid is going to serve anywhere near that amount.
Now, I'm not sitting here saying that this kid should get 38 years. Far from it. But I do think that some jail time is called for. In addition to the burglary charge and the financial hit to fix the problems he caused, he hurt a lot of students. Consider this: For every one of the 13 kids who moved into the top 10% ranking, someone who had earned their spot had to leave. That student may not have been able to get into the college of his or her choice, and - far more importantly - may have missed out on substantial scholarship money. This kid wasn't just harming his high school through the added expense to audit records and security policies, he was hurting totally innocent fellow students.
I'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.
Also, he is an outright criminal. This isn't just Ferris Bueller slipping in to adjust his grades a little because he's too cool for school. Burglary, identity theft, multiple counts of fraud? Bueller? Bueller?
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.
Whilst I'm really not a lawyer, it's worth pointing out that the legal use of the word "Conspiracy" doesn't necessarily imply that it was a Government/Anarchic/Terrorism related thing.
As ever, Wikipedia has something to say on the matter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(crime)
"In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between natural persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement."
This is one of the comments on the newspaper story:
He's NOT a hacker!
Jun 19, 2008 08:21
He's just lazy and stupid.
First off, this idiot goes to the same high-school as me - Tesoro High School. The guy is a total loser who just wastes his time trying to act cool and trying to "party it up" cause his family is relatively well off.
The "38 years in prison" is just a tagline. He *faces* that much time in prison because of the 69 seperate counts of felony charges, but he'll probably get a fine and probation and that's about it. (Well, that and getting blacklisted from the major schools that he had no shot of getting into.)
Secondly, since when has installing a keylogger program on a computer been considered hacking? In which case, we're all "hackers" cause we installed software on our PC. He doesn't know the first thing about programming. He asked me to fix his spyware infested computer on repeated occasions. The guy would get others to do his work for him and pay them off. He even asked people to take the SATs for him! jeez!
Lastly, he's a lazy idiot. He got caught AFTER he was denied admission to the UCs (yes, he still got rejected with his modified transcripts), when he tried to appeal the decision and have more transcripts sent out - that's when the counselor noticed the discrepency. If he had taken the time to study for the SATs instead, he'd be in by now, even with his terrible GPA.
What a ridiculous world we live in.
Amit
incoming government rays... put on your tin foil hat... must*not*get*along*with*rest*of*the*world!!!!
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
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.
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?
1 day your hacking grades the next day NORAD just to play a game.
I can agree to that. When I has in grad school I was applying for a scholarship (because I could not afford the school) and was told I was beat out by a foreign student with much better grades than me. A month later they offered me the scholarship (and instructor in charge told me that the transcript they received was forged and the student did not have perfect grades). So what this Omar guy did was trivialize the grades of the students who actually got good grades and worked hard for them (possibly ruining their chances at getting into a great school). The real victims are other students not the government or the education system.
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.
That's a good idea. A good way to do this is fill them with people who aren't criminals, then they can't pass on their knowledge of crime to other prisoners. But I think they are doing this already!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Of course it isn't. Unfortunately, we've outlawed all the fun stuff as "cruel and unusual punishment".
http://outcampaign.org/
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.
Actually, that should be funded by "state" taxes. Very little federal money funds the public education systems of various states and that money is generally earmarked for specific purposes outside education like the school lunch and breakfast programs.
When you look at the dollar amount spent on public education in any given state, the entire federal budget for education is generally a small in comparison of that. Take ohio for instance, It spends around 11-19 billion in primary and secondary education each year before any federal money is assessed. In comparison, the feds (NEA) only spent 38 billion on the same education. If that were divided by the 50 states, that's like 700 million or so per state and this isn't counting DC or outlying territories. When we look at the fact of some stated being poorer then others, needing more funding, it goes down even more. But for the majority of situations, federal funding is going to be only a small fraction of most every state's education funding.
I will agree that the school represents the government but for different reasons. These reasons are that the government has put their faith behind the results and reporting of these schools to provide legitimacy to them. The federal government has an interest in a state's credential too. When someone undermines that by purposely presenting false information or altering information certified by the state, then there is a reason to be concerned. In essence, I see changing grades as being no different then fake IDs or impersonating a police officer to defraud someone.
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.
Yes you do, the 38 years quoted in the article is particularly inflammatory as its the maximum he could get for all of his charges back to back. He won't get the maximum on any convictions (people rarely do), and he almost certainly won't get back-to-back sentencing, his terms will be concurrent. If convicted, he will most likely get anything from a suspended sentence to a couple of years.