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Top Student Charged With Fixing Grades For Cash

alphadogg writes "A Nevada student who gave the opening address at his high school graduation last year has been charged with breaking into his school district's computer system and bumping up his classmates' grades for a fee. Police say Tyler Coyner, 19, was the ringleader in a group of 13 students who have been charged with conspiracy, theft and computer intrusion in connection with the case. Last year, Coyner somehow obtained a password to the Pahrump Valley High School's grade system and, over the course of two semesters, offered to change grades in return for cash payments, police say."

135 comments

  1. Wargames... by Kazzerscout · · Score: 2

    So for anyone who has seen that film, doesn't this seem remarkably similar? (Aside from starting a nuclear war...)

    1. Re:Wargames... by Lennie · · Score: 3, Funny

      I guess we'll know when defcon changes to something other then the current 5

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    2. Re:Wargames... by neokushan · · Score: 0

      6?

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    3. Re:Wargames... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it's unremarkably similar, but for some reason you felt you had to anyway.

    4. Re:Wargames... by avgjoe62 · · Score: 1

      I was thinking more along the lines of "BUELLER!!!!"

      --

      How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

    5. Re:Wargames... by hedwards · · Score: 1

      11, definitely 11.

  2. Re:Top Student My Ass by schmidt349 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You mean he forgot that his institution probably had a weighted grading scheme where honors and other high-level classes were scaled to a 5.0 GPA whereas regular classes were scaled to a 4.0 GPA? No, he seems to have had that pretty well down.

  3. was the password on a piece of paper in the office by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    was the password on a piece of paper in the office and he just know where it was stored it?

  4. Somehow by clang_jangle · · Score: 3, Funny

    Last year, Coyner somehow obtained a password to the Pahrump Valley High School's grade system...

    "password", mmm, no. "123456" Oh, hey -- we're in!

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
    1. Re:Somehow by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 1, Redundant

      "123456" Hey, that's the combination on my luggage

      --
      Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
    2. Re:Somehow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good thing I use ******* as my password.

    3. Re:Somehow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about Username: Guest Password:

  5. doing it for free is not the same as doing it for by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    doing it for free is not the same as doing it for cash.

    If you do it for free maybe you get a F or get kicked out but for cash may mean doing some time.

  6. They cut right through.. by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    his ROT-26 encryption!

    --
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  7. Get out, Lightman! by schmidt349 · · Score: 5, Funny

    We need to come down hard on miscreants like this. Sure, right now he's stealing passwords from the school office and changing grades, but soon that won't be enough for him, and before long he'll be wardialing military contractors with his IMSAI 8080 and acoustocoupler modem.

    1. Re:Get out, Lightman! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worse, he may start up a software company, stealing stuff from others, reducing the quality of programming overall, and eventually become the richest man in the world, while having the most porous software in the world. Oh wait...

      Or maybe he could go on celebrity apprentice? Or change the ratings of those who do, for a fee.

      Or maybe he could go into politics, and have the taxpayers buy his buddy's electronic voting machines, and...

    2. Re:Get out, Lightman! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      reducing the quality of programming overall

      ...So, wait - the guy behind PHP is the richest man in the world?

    3. Re:Get out, Lightman! by bunratty · · Score: 1

      But who else will convince Prof. Faulken to teach Joshua that the only winning move is not to play? And besides, grades want to be A's and I don't believe in GPAs. Also, the entire education system is broken, so it's our moral imperative to break the rules.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    4. Re:Get out, Lightman! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worse, he may start up a software company, stealing stuff from others, reducing the quality of programming overall, and eventually become the richest man in the world, while having the most porous software in the world. Oh wait...

      Why would he want to be Steve Jobs?

    5. Re:Get out, Lightman! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This kid should get a free pass based on his entrepreneurial spirit of hustling, and also being able to guess the password of 1234 to his local high school's AS/400 system. Don't be hatin on people who had more adventures in their younger years than you did.

      Like high school grades mattered anyway. Pahahaha!

  8. I gotta know by way2trivial · · Score: 1

    was it "pencil"?

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
    1. Re:I gotta know by KneelBeforeZod · · Score: 1

      No, the password was probably "#2 pencil"

    2. Re:I gotta know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      was it "pencil"?

      it had to be crayoned on the monitor.

  9. I bet it was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    asdfgh

  10. Spaceballs by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 4, Funny

    > "password", mmm, no. "123456"

    Remind me to change the combination on my luggage.

    --
    -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
    1. Re:Spaceballs by antdude · · Score: 1

      "So the combination is... one, two, three, four, five, six? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! The kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!"

      Yeah, six wasn't in the original quote. :P

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    2. Re:Spaceballs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because they made it more secure since then by adding another character.

    3. Re:Spaceballs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's amazing! That's the same combination I have on my luggage!

  11. Re:Top Student My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why stop there? He should've given himself a 4.99 GPA.

  12. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by Lennie · · Score: 1

    I guess we'll know when defcon changes to something other then the current 5.

    --
    New things are always on the horizon
  13. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by Lennie · · Score: 1

    Sorry wrong thread. :-(

    --
    New things are always on the horizon
  14. Re:Top Student My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The best graduates have trouble with basic arithmetic and are functionally illiterate?

    At best that is pure bull shit, but I am afraid that you may really think it is true.

    Please post some evidence.

  15. Not really cheating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He just misinterpreted the rules.

  16. IT staff got some 'splainin to do by sandytaru · · Score: 1

    Not changing a password at least once in two semesters, i.e., a whole school year. Tsk tsk.

    --
    Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
  17. kid has a great career ahead by toby · · Score: 1

    I'm sure Goldman Sachs and major banks are scrambling over themselves to offer him a fat six figure starting salary.

    --
    you had me at #!
  18. Top Student by neoform · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Was he really the top student, or did he fix his own grades too?

    --
    MABASPLOOM!
    1. Re:Top Student by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's in TFA. He shouldn't have been on the podium giving the graduation address.

      Great controls from the administration... nobody raised any questions when this kid teachers had tagged as a good, but not outstanding student turned up with the second highest GPA?

    2. Re:Top Student by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From TFA: "He was selected as his school's salutatorian at the 2010 graduation, an honor he never legitimately earned, according to the Nye County Sheriff's Office."

    3. Re:Top Student by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you shitting me? This got modded insightful? That is specifically mentioned in the fucking article. Christ, this place is as bad as digg sometimes.

  19. Re:Top Student My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, that goes without saying. It's common knowledge that 110% of American graduates have trouble with basic arithmetic. And, as you point out, the best graduates are no exception. By my calculations, they might be worse! Instead of wasting time on an "honors" American high school education, clearly children should be working in factories. We also need to import more Chinese, since I'm sure that mathematics is probably important for something.

    Agreeing with you was more fun that simply calling you an idiot. :-*

  20. Oh Yeah! by sharkey · · Score: 1

    Save Ferris

    --

    --
    "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  21. And he dreams of being a hedge fund trader by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    In the Pahrump Valley Times profile, Coyner says he dreamed of attending an Ivy league school like Harvard and that he wanted to become a hedge fund trader.

    Wow. A lying, cheating, bastard dreams of being a hedge fund trader. I'm sure that the guild of hedge fund traders will bar him preemptively from joining them, thereby preventing everyone's pristine reputation as ethical and trustworthy human beings from being sullied by association.

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    1. Re:And he dreams of being a hedge fund trader by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow! That buried the needle on the sarcasm meter!

  22. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by neokushan · · Score: 1

    Haven't you played Deus Ex? The password was probably left on the Bathroom floor, or behind a few stacked up boxes in the Gymnasium.

    --
    +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
  23. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Turn it up to 11

  24. ROFLMAO by ub3r+n3u7r4l1st · · Score: 0

    "Hedge fund trader", "ethical", "trustworthy" being used in the same sentence = ROFLMAO

  25. Re:Top Student My Ass by jedrek · · Score: 0

    This contrasts many eastern european schools where "honors" students come out knowing aprox 3,000 equations but don't have enough practical life skills to open a bank account or form an original thought.

  26. Questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OK, so reading this I ended up with a few questions

    1. How often was that password changed? For something like the grade system I would be thinking more than once a year. Unless they knew where the password was being kept which leads to
    2. Name on account. I'm going to assume that this was some sort of administrator (as in school, but maybe computer) that had access to change the grades for anyone. But then, maybe they give every teacher an ability to change any one's grade, for any class.
    3. Location Access. Did they not track where it was being accessed from? Or was this account used in such a way that they didn't care where it was accessed
    4. Audit Trails? Any sort of audit trails showing what got changed and when? Maybe for an account that can change anyone's grade like that they should also include where it was being changed from.(See location access above) Maybe if they are running some software on the local box, the name of the logged in computer user as well as the grade system user.
    5. Changing grades. What procedure is in place for changing old grades? If a grade gets changed 3/6/9/12 months after the end of the grade period, does the system not flag and ask any questions as to why? And if an admin can change it without the system reporting it to anyone, then how can we be sure that the administrators aren't doing that. (Oh that "A-" last year was a surely a typo. Let's fix that to an "A". No one will ever know, Mr. and Mrs. Doe)

    Or, is this an all grades get entered for everything as opposed to a just final grade, and the system computes the final grade for the course. Most of those points still apply. And I would want to think that some teachers are going to have some idea of what grades they gave the student and would be able to notice a drastic change.
    But then, an "A-" to an "A" might not be noticed depending on what all the student did over the grade period because it isn't too drastic.

    1. Re:Questions by mochan_s · · Score: 1

      I suppose all these questions only matter when you're going through the web-pages to modify the grades. If you had access to the database and could run SQL commands on them, then all these questions would be void. Passwords for databases don't get changed since it's assumed no-one but internal scripts use them.

      On the other hand, the software that manages things like grades and such are big bloated turds that no-one wants to get their hands dirty with beside the minimum requirements. It could be just that nobody cared to analyze the logs until the anomalies just became too big. Just like you said, each procedure is a boring, tedious list of requirements that no-one wants to learn and follow and when things go wrong it's not obvious to anyone.

      Leading to the next, if the guy hadn't gotten greedy and doing it for money, he would never have been caught. How many people out there change grades and are never caught? Grades are all hush hush and even if things get changed, nobody would really know.

    2. Re:Questions by swalve · · Score: 2

      So what? Those might explain why the system was able to be penetrated, but it does nothing to reduce the accountability of the student that made the changes.

    3. Re:Questions by lamber45 · · Score: 1

      Not a direct answer to your questions, but based on the links on the lower-right of the school's homepage they're using Pearson PowerSchool, which has a teacher's gradebook module as well as several categories of central-administrative functions. I'd guess he shoulder-surfed, found written or guessed someone's password at some point, but as to whether he used the normal system UI or directly edited some back-end database, I wouldn't bet either way.

      Based on other public information, last year's senior class was 203 students ... so almost 10% wanted to buy higher grades? No wonder he got caught...

    4. Re:Questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because they can run the SQL commands doesn't mean that an audit table would not have helped with damage control (ie, correcting changed grades, seeing who might have had their grades changed by correlating times). (Assuming they didn't have a DB Admin account).
      Standard audit tables stuff. Make the audit table INSERT only (as in no SELECT, DELETE, UPDATE, or anything else) with a trigger on insert/update/delete on the grade table. A normal user has no access to see in the audit table, and with some systems, users can't even see the insides of the trigger. Any updates? The old data gets stored in the audit table along with the date and user name that did it. Deletes? The old data gets stored in the audit table along with the date and user name who did it. Inserts? Copy of new data stored in the audit table along with the date and user name who did it.

      In addition, an auto-incrementing number in the audit table, so that if a row in the audit table is deleted, then all the rows following would that have to have their numbers changed so there wouldn't be a gap. (A suggestion I got from someone else)
      While that wouldn't be hard to change if they had admin access to the DB, it would still be one more thing they would have to change. If a row is just missing, you have a timeframe to go looking at other logs.

      All bets are off if they have DB admin access. But if they had DB admin access, there is a much bigger problem at hand.

      But then as you said, "It could be just that nobody cared to analyze the logs until the anomalies just became too big."

  27. Overheard At The Town Council Meeting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "I didn't get a 'Pahrump' out of you."

    "Pahrump!"

    "You watch your ass."

  28. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by mlingojones · · Score: 2

    That's what happened in my high school — the school IT people would store the administrator password on sticky notes. Inevitably one fell off in the hallway, and my friends and I found it, and decided to pull a few pranks.

    The administration and IT people got really pissed and changed the password. Which, of course, we found a few days later sitting on a sticky note in the hall...

    It's really more sad than funny, actually, because not only did the IT people use the same administrator password everywhere, our school actually served as the ISP/host for a lot of municipal services around our county, including the police department.

  29. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by commodore6502 · · Score: 1

    >>>Turn it up to 11

    DEFCON goes from 5 (all clear) to 1 (nuclear extinction). Cmon. Haven't you ever watched Stargate or those old Cold war movies? ;-)

    --
    Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
  30. He has a good future. by unity100 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    After college, he will probably get tapped by a rating agency right away. Standards & Poors, Fitch, whatever.

    lucky brat. then he will be able to fix grades all he wants, and will be paid for and applauded for it.

  31. Re:Top Student My Ass by Dunbal · · Score: 1

    Or perhaps you forgot that some school systems use a 4 point scale to calculate GPA, while other systems use a 5 point scale. Guess which one his school belonged to.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  32. Password. by generic · · Score: 0

    Was probably pencil.

    --
    Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
  33. No worse than most corporations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Greed is destroying America, indeed, the excessively rich are evil traitors. Scumbags.

  34. Re:Charlie.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mr. Sheen....is that you?

  35. He is getting more offers now. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Funny

    Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, McKenzy etc are all at awe by the precocious ability shown by this young man. Mr Werobam Erica, spokesman for the Cleptolegit Institute, a think tank where finance managers of the top companies exchange ideas about how to rake in millions of dollars and amending the laws post-facto to make it legal, said that this man is CEO material and predicted great things in store for him.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:He is getting more offers now. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A five year old could take a password off a post-it-note and break into a system. Let's not give him more credit than he deserves.

    2. Re:He is getting more offers now. by Strange+Ranger · · Score: 1

      Rather..

        "Anyone worthy enough to work at here at high levels has a father who can buy the school some stadium lighting or library donation to hush it all up. No need for police here.

      Only a clod would make it all the way to /."

      --

      Operator, give me the number for 911!
  36. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by BinBoy · · Score: 1

    >>>Turn it up to 11

    DEFCON goes from 5 (all clear) to 1 (nuclear extinction). Cmon. Haven't you ever watched Stargate or those old Cold war movies? ;-)

    That may have been a Spinal Tap reference. http://youtu.be/UeOXsA8sp_E

  37. This is a great teachable moment by DataDiddler · · Score: 1

    When a user complains about a sound password policy, this story is a good explanation of why it's really not just the admin's special way of annoying everyone.

    --
    Working...
    1. Re:This is a great teachable moment by hedwards · · Score: 1

      I changed brokerages recently to one that has some annoying log in policies. I just remind myself that banks should be going the extra mile to make things annoying, even if it is annoying at times.

    2. Re:This is a great teachable moment by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      the key is getting the balance, too short and/or simple and it's easilly shoulder surfed (and if someone gets the password hashes or you have a login system that doesn't limit retries too easilly brute forced). Too long and you risk it getting written down on a post-it note that somehow finds it's way into student hands.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  38. "I asked for a car.... by DustoneGT · · Score: 1

    And got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign?". Meanwhile across town..."...nine times......GRACE! GRACE!"

    1. Re:"I asked for a car.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I'm the sausage king of Chicago.

  39. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by hldn · · Score: 1

    we ran a windows password cracker on a shared PC in high school and ended up with hundreds of account passwords, including the principal's. it was hannah, leading to much lulz -- WE'VE GOT HANNAH MR PRINCIPAL. +10 to anyone getting the reference.

    --
    http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
  40. Re:Top Student My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This contrasts many eastern european schools where "honors" students come out knowing aprox 3,000 equations but don't have enough practical life skills to open a bank account or form an original thought.

    Two things: first, the person you're replying to is obviously wrong. We have "graduates" with quite a few issues, but our best graduates are certainly not having problems with basic arithmetic. I have no idea why someone would get that idea.

    Second...I'll take academic skills over "practical" ones anytime. Who the hell cares if I don't know how to open a bank account? If I didn't, I'd walk into a bank and ask someone who works there to help me out. There are plenty of people whose job is financial advising and planning, I'll gladly pay them. Division of labor: it's the new thing!

  41. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pretty crazy how few people are getting the reference. Kind of makes me wonder who exactly reads slashdot.

  42. but the grade system may just have 1 login that is by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1

    but the grade system may just have 1 login that is used by more then 1 person or it's some system that does not have policy's.
    Also schools some times still use lots of old software.

  43. Re:Top Student My Ass by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 1

    Did you just say American high schools teach practical life skills or how to open a bank account or form an original thought?

    I have a friend who teaches freshman comp at U Arizona. Most of the freshmen do not know how to have abstract thoughts. You have to teach them.

    Don't get me wrong--there are a LOT of very capable American high school students and graduates. But most of that isn't from stuff they learn in school. It's from parents (the number 1 factor in determining future education level is education level of parents) or reading or the net or friends or social organizations they're in or (to some very limited degree) enrichment programs, perhaps offered by local colleges.

    I know someone else who taught in NY at a school where the kids beat up a cop in front of the school, so the cops came in and harassed the students for a week. In an unrelated incident he had to pull a student physically off a female teacher's leg. Some schools do teach a lot... but even the good ones, for the most part, do not teach you how to open a bank account or form an original thought. And the bad ones are struggling to teach reading.

    --
    -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
  44. Re:Probably hard-coded. Behold... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In Missouri, the state-wide records software has [had] a hard-coded backdoor password for the administrator account, and using it bypasses all logging features. The effected software is still deployed today, and was used everywhere from '94 thru my graduation. All it took was physical access to a machine with netware client or a network logon... heh.

    I discovered this by downloading the executables (free) from the company's website and doing 'strings sism.exe | less'. Behold, 10 minutes into tinkering, I had a 0day vuln for every school in the state. Not just grades, but lunch money, too... everything.

    -NIKOB. =).

  45. Some schools don't even have IT staff or it's tack by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1

    Some schools don't even have IT staff or it's tacked on to someone job and is not done full time.

  46. Re:Some schools don't even have IT staff or it's t by hedwards · · Score: 1

    Honestly, it's not that hard. If you're changing them by hand on more than a few machines then you're doing it wrong.

  47. Re:doing it for free is not the same as doing it f by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When I was in high school we had a kinda similar situation, but nobody tried to change grades for profit. They just altered their own grades. Funny enough, I was the one that discovered the flaw. It was incredibly simple, they left a link to the administration backend on the site and didn't use authentication for any of the grade changes. I told the school about the issue, and they ignored me. Six months later a bunch of my friends started changing grades and we all got kicked out of school for two weeks.

    I'd be willing to bet if this kid had just found they keys to the filing cabinet with all the permanent records and was changing grades for cash, they wouldn't be filing criminal charges...

  48. Would you like to play a game? by idji · · Score: 1
  49. Future hedge fund trader by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "In the Pahrump Valley Times profile, Coyner says he dreamed of attending an Ivy league school like Harvard and that he wanted to become a hedge fund trader." No surprises here.

  50. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

    was the password on a piece of paper in the office and he just know where it was stored it?

    It doesn't matter under the law. If you enter my house and remove my property from it, it's irrelevant that you found the key under the mat - you're still guilty of breaking and entering and of theft.

    (And no, my key isn't under the mat, I'm smarter than that. A fellow geocacher might find it, but not an ordinary burglar.)

  51. Local information and link by NewToNix · · Score: 3, Informative
    I own some property in Pahrump (but don't live there, although I'm there quite a lot). So I can tell you the level of technical savvy in Pahrump is unbelievably low.

    Even basic things, like fairly well established 'net conventions have not penetrated very far. For example, many local Gov. officials send all caps emails (but then so does a fairly large % of the local populace).

    Nevada in general, and Pahrump in particular, are among the nations lowest ranked in education. The Nevada educational systems are in desperate need of overhaul.

    It is also worth noting that when arrested in his University of Nevada, Reno dorm, he had a stolen TV and equipment for making counterfeit drivers' licenses.

    Here's a link to the local paper, with pictures and local comments; http://pvtimes.com/news/grade-change-scandal-rocks-pvhs/

    A quote from the comments by "3rd year Engineering Student":

    @Isaac- I don't know the kid so I can't comment on his actual personality in different situations. It is unusual to have a smile when being arrested for a felony charge. Also hacking a system is really just the same as getting a code to access it without authorization. He also "hacked" when he changed his GPA. Given he actually did these things, he would be considered a "Black Hat Hacker" which is the worst type of hacker(there are good hackers like web designers). You need to check the definition of a hacker.

    I think "3rd year Engineering Student" may need to check some definitions himself... but the pathetic part is that no one questions his expertise, or the definitions he offers.

    Pahrump is a nice place in many ways, but it's also a lot like stepping back in time in many ways. The population is about 35,000, and it's about 50 miles from Las Vegas.

  52. Remember guys... by Draconis183 · · Score: 1

    GOD is not a good password.

  53. Re:Top Student My Ass by Cryacin · · Score: 2
    Two things in response:

    Two things: first, the person you're replying to is obviously wrong. We have "graduates" with quite a few issues, but our best graduates are certainly not having problems with basic arithmetic. I have no idea why someone would get that idea.

    They are getting that idea because there are an unacceptable level of students "graduating" who's skill level is well below par. If everyone get's the same elephant stamp coming out of an institution, it's hard to judge from a set of "qualifications" who is talented, and who simply drank beer for a few years.

    Second...I'll take academic skills over "practical" ones anytime. Who the hell cares if I don't know how to open a bank account? If I didn't, I'd walk into a bank and ask someone who works there to help me out. There are plenty of people whose job is financial advising and planning, I'll gladly pay them. Division of labor: it's the new thing!

    Know everything about something, but something about everything. If you don't have a clue about a topic, how do you ensure the "expert" you delegate to has talent, and isn't just a drip under pressure?

    I would certainly hire an expert to provide me with an opinion on which investments are best, how to manage risk, which loan instrument would be suitable to purchase a house for either investment or personal purposes. But opening a bank account? Surely you must have the level of skill to do this yourself to adequately function in society.

    --
    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
  54. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by FLEABttn · · Score: 2

    This happened at my high school years ago (aside from the grade selling). The student in question put keyloggers on a number of PC's in one lab trying to get a friend's Ragnarok Online password, but instead got the system admin login info. He was caught when his calculus teacher went to change the grade of one of her other students from the semester before and discovered his D- became a straight C.

  55. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Posting for reasons that will become clear...I may have shared this story as an AC in the past.

    When I was a freshman, I guessed the password to the instructors application (which had been freely deployed to a PC in the library -- this was in '90, I think). I typed "teacher" for a username, and then had to think about the password choices... Well, I was attending [cityname] West High School. Most of us might say, "Yes, I go to West High". And of course everyone understood that. So after three other failed attempts, I typed "westhigh". Ta-da! In.

    The app actually only controlled student registration for the different courses and had nothing to do with grades. But I made a mistake of showing a classmate, (we'd changed the password) who then continued to play in the app, screwing with stuff, we'd changing the password, and got caught. And of course he fingered me as being an accomplice. Asshole. We got off easy -- gave them the password so they could get back in (apparently, there's no main administrator password??) and paid a $50 "fine" directly to the school. No mark on my school record.

  56. I had a 4.25 GPA in high school by jmcbain · · Score: 1

    Indeed, I had a 4.25 GPA on a 4.0 scale way back in high school. I took a bunch of honours classes (chemistry, physics, calculus, english, US history) to get the extra grade points.

  57. Re:Top Student My Ass by mcneely.mike · · Score: 0

    But if 110% can't do 38.3% of the 76.4% needed to graduate, how are the other 3.2% going to graduate out of the 680% you didn't mention?

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  58. Re:Top Student My Ass by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

    Well to be fair if the subject the GP was talking about went to what we in the south call a "football school"? Then yeah it is possible to graduate HS with lousy math skills, and if they were on the team probably illiterate to boot. How would I know? Well I managed to graduate with honors and never actually walked into a class.

    How did I do that? Well I got to spend my Junior HS years being tutored thanks to eating pavement at 65MPH plus in a bike wreck, but the tutors wanted me to try to do the last two years with a most likely shortened schedule (ended up 3 day on, 2 day off with 1 day of tutoring) just so I "wouldn't feel isolated" and get to know my fellow students. Now I personally didn't care because my mom had and still has one of the best Sci-Fi collections in the area, I was quite happy with Asimov and Heinlein thanks anyway.

    So the first day first class is PE and the teacher says "Anyone not ready to run 20 laps can just get out of my class!" so I left, and took about 1/3rd the class with me. Apparently he had been using that line for awhile and nobody had called him on it, but I just looked at it logically and did what I was told and the others said "Hey he's leaving~we'll follow him!" so after the VP gave the moron a "Don't tell them they can leave!" speech he stuck me and the others in study hall, which was run by the head football coach.

    He takes one look at the cover of my "Best Sci-Fi authors of 1976" paperback and thinks I must be hiding girlie mags. He calls me to the front and when he finds it not only doesn't have a hidden girlie mag, but I could sit there and discuss the grandfather paradox and whether time was fixed or changeable he said "How would you like get to straight As and never go to class?" which considering what I had seen so far sounded good to me.

    So he takes my class schedule and takes me into each teacher's class on the list and informs them I'll be on "special projects" and they should just give me an A, I of course being a smartass said "Why not an A+?" but got told not to push it. He then sat me up in my very own classroom! where I got to sit and enjoy my books and when any footballer was in "study hall" they were actually in my class being taught how to do basics like spell "flower" and "Stood" and do checkbook math so they could pass eligibility requirements. I swear the first day I was getting "Flower...Floer" and "stood...stuud"

    I was quite happy for those last two years, I got my own classroom, I got to sit on the bench during practices and teach the players not in the field, and I'm quite happy to say not a single player I taught was benched for lack of eligibility. Now of course I was lucky, in that I liked to learn new things and that while others got "Horton hears a who" I got stories of worlds with three suns and rivers that looked like liquid mercury which fired up my imagination, but if someone went to a football school and fell through the cracks, or if they had to keep dumbing down so the players could play? Yep I could see you graduating some pretty sad kids.

    As for TFA sounds like capitalism 101 to me. Kinda hard to bitch at the kid when you see CEOs cooking the books all over the place. I say you go kid, I'm sure you make a great CxO someday.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  59. Nothing Special by Krovik · · Score: 1

    At least not in my opinion. My buddy did the same thing when we were in high school about 6 or 7 years ago. Booted up in Linux, copied the SAM file over, cracked it at home. Did it a few times until we found one that the administrator account had logged into. He was never caught until the end of the year because we decided to pull a prank and change the standard wallpaper for all the student accounts to this http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/7629/gib.png. He was caught because as it turns out, the system was setup to capture screenshots of anyone logged in every 10 seconds, combined with the fact that he signed in to the library to use the computer, they were able to catch him. I don't think they ever found out about changing some grades, but I'm not sure about that.

  60. Sounds good to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seems smart to me, other than getting caught. If I could have changed grades in highschool/university, I would have. I cracked the password to a high level account in hs, but all it did was let me install applications and change other people's passwords.

  61. It's a movie reference by name_already_taken · · Score: 2

    Whoosh...

    Pencil was the password Matthew Broderick's character used to break into his school's computer system in the movie Wargames.

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  62. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by khallow · · Score: 1

    So how many fail points do I pick up for googling the phrase and still not getting it?

  63. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by GNious · · Score: 1

    We were given an assignment to spend 45 minutes of (self-)learning about computer security.
    I looked at WinNT security, then managed to change the Local Admin account's password, and finally walked down to IT to ask them to reset it (never figured out the original passwork). Was given a lecture about how this was reason for expelling me, which I turned around to a lecture on having proper security, and then reminded them that I was one of their best students.
    Back in class we had to recount our 45 minutes for the rest of the class - teacher ended up with a completely blank look on his face after I told the class what I had learnt.

  64. ...and now you're posting on slashdot.... by fantomas · · Score: 1

    'nuff said ;-)

  65. Give him a bonus by Sprouticus · · Score: 1

    I don't see the issue here. We raise our children to believe that money is the most important thing in the world, and they act accrdingly. Why on earth would that surprise anyone?

    The hedge fund thing just highlights the point.

    1. Re:Give him a bonus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pahrump! Pahrump!

  66. Re:doing it for free is not the same as doing it f by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sure they would, they'd charge him with larceny, trespassing, etc.

  67. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by mkiwi · · Score: 1

    In my day we had token-ring IBM machines all hooked into a netware setup. For those of you who don't know, there's a really serious exploit possible by faking out netware when running over token ring–something that would give you full admin privileges. I believe the packet interception tool was called Pandora, but it's been a long time.

    Anyway, one could just go to Barnes and Noble, buy a book about security exploits, and be in business. I never went that far, but there was someone who posted some nasty things about child porn on the admin servers. I'm not sure if they actually used the token-ring method to get the password, but the idea behind what 4chan's /b/ is today was on the root writable part of the netware server at my school.

    I found the problem and told the IT admin, who then asked me what the hell I was doing looking around at his filesystem. I told him it was world readable and that he had a bigger problem that he needed to deal with before he went after me. I'm not sure they ever found out who did it. They never bothered me about it after I told them.

  68. Re:Top Student My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll
  69. "top" student charged by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The school official who left the grade system wide open should lose his/her job.
    I would imagine he thinks of himself as a "professional"; therefore, hold him professionally accountable.
    What school software is this that doesn't have a higher level of security for something as important as grade changes?
    Heads should roll in the school district. Give the kids a second chance.

  70. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by mapkinase · · Score: 1

    That is in addition to the fact that it seems to be remained the same "over the course of two semesters"

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  71. Re:Top Student My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hell, if he was a CxO he'd probably get a bailout. That's a fascinating and terrible story you have there. No offense, but those kids needed a real teacher. Sounds like you had quite an interesting time though, and they needed all the help they could get, but fuck me I'm on the other side of the world and only have a vague idea about what a football school is but it sounds appalling.

  72. Re:Top Student My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you don't have a clue about a topic, how do you ensure the "expert" you delegate to has talent, and isn't just a drip under pressure?

    Well, he charged as much as someone who knew what he was doing!

  73. recipe for admin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    intelligent + duplicitous + brave + belief that he is above the law = top leadership position in government

  74. Re:doing it for free is not the same as doing it f by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure David Lightman was hoping for something in exchange for his services.

    Awwwwwww yeah.

  75. Conspiracy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Police say Tyler Coyner, 19, was the ringleader in a group of 13 students who have been charged with conspiracy [...]

    Conspiracy to do what? Or is just plain "conspiracy" enough to get you charged nowadays? "Theft" does not seem applicable, but it's a real crime at least, and "computer intrusion" sounds relevant enough, but what kind of crime exactly is "conspiracy"?

  76. Re:Top Student My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You'd actually be surprised how many people don't actually -have- a bank account so...

  77. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by monkyyy · · Score: 0

    it wouldn't surprise me, i know where the students user/passwords sheets are for my school but thats because multipliable teachers(usually tech classes taught by gym teachers) have it to hand out whenever, without sending u to the office or tech guy or something, but just sitting unguarded most of the time.

    im guessing it isn't much better for teachers, they may even have it in a back room and in a locked drawer

    --
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  78. Re:Top Student My Ass by pspahn · · Score: 1

    They are getting that idea because there are an unacceptable level of students "graduating" who's skill level is well below par. If everyone get's the same elephant stamp coming out of an institution, it's hard to judge from a set of "qualifications" who is talented, and who simply drank beer for a few years.

    Irony and grammar. BFF.

    --
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  79. Mutually exclusive goals now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "In the Pahrump Valley Times profile, Coyner says he dreamed of attending an Ivy league school like Harvard [1] and that he wanted to become a hedge fund trader [2]."

    [1] Not a fricking chance.
    [2] Very good chance.

  80. Typical by CaseyRM13 · · Score: 1

    I wonder if this is one of those schools that gives its students laptops? There are schools in the area who have a wireless access point in almost every classroom. I had a friend who would bring his own laptop in, knock out the access point (not entirely sure how), and just man in the middle everyone in the room when they tried to reconnect to the router. Bam, every single kids password, including any teachers/administrator who also tried to reconnect. He got kicked out of the first school for changing grades (A to F will do that). But at the second school he never got caught, just change. Technology is great, but these schools don't do a very good job teaching their students how to use it safely.

  81. Everything that's wrong with our education System by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This shows EVERYTHING that's wrong with our education system.

    GOD FORBID some kid TAKES IT UPON HIMSELF to LEARN something valuble. Yeah, he shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. But why not offer him the opportunity to make good and show the IT tards in the school district how to fix it.

    This kid obviously has a future in security, why not harness this energy for good as opposed to tossing him away and telling him he shouldn't use his talents. Finding each student's strong suit and harnessing that energy to get them into a good career should be the goal of education. Not passing bubble-fill tests and molding them into "good people"

    Lord knows, half the kids on the student council at your local christian/catholic/private high school will die of alcohol poisoning at their first spring break of college anyway.

  82. The only crime by 12WTF$ · · Score: 1

    is getting caught

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  83. bah! by Blymie · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You know, 25 years ago I managed to get a hold of a teacher's grade book. I modified my mark on one test, just because I was annoyed at having an overall average under 90%.

    (We didn't have A or C grades, nor GPA... just a mean average of all tests in the year. 85% right, 97% right, etc)

    Funny thing is, first -- he did not notice until a friend of mine kept saying 'doesn't that 8 look weird?' to the teacher. ;) It was all good fun, in that, we could not believe he had not noticed.

    However, the downside was -- woha, the mark I changed were zeroed out. He felt that was punishment enough, in that, I had moved from 87% to 83% in terms of my new average.

    How the *hell* does any of this result in criminal charges. My *god*, these are *kids*. Criminal charges?! Teenagers do *stupid* things. They do them on the spur of the moment. Punishment is required so one can learn that there are repercussions, but come on!

    Suspend them for a week, if you must. Force them to donate the money to charity, or some such. Zero out all the grades they changed, if you must.

    Call the police?! What is *wrong* with people?!

    1. Re:bah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Strong punishments are used to scare the other students from doing such activities.

      1 week of suspension? that's heaven.

    2. Re:bah! by Blymie · · Score: 1

      When I grew up, a week's suspension would be no such thing. Not once your parents found out (and they would).

      In fact, the school's response was mostly there to elicit a response from the parents....

    3. Re:bah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This was hardly a spur of the moment thing. If it was he would have maybe altered a few grades then and there but once he graduated (excuse the pun) to soliciting for money it became far beyond just 'good fun.' At that point it became an organized endeavour.

      Now, I don't mean to rush to the opposite end of the spectrum and call him someone who should be punished to the fullest extent of the law or anything, but I do believe this goes a little further than just the school troublemaker(s) stealing tests and selling the answers. It may not be much further but access to that login may have other areas that could be affected in a way stronger than just cheating on a test (or in this case, test score/grade).

      There's certainly a case for a middle ground, but being 19 and now out of the school, it's a little hard to punish him otherwise. The judge will likely take his level of remorse, previous good standing/reputation and first time offender status into account and give him community service, dropping the more serious charges anyways.

  84. Seriously? by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

    Do you mean that the horribly inefficient school system that relies on grades instead of actual knowledge makes it desirable to cheat for higher grades? Really!? What a surprise!

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  85. Re:Top Student My Ass by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

    Hi MR AC! As someone from the other side of the world allow me to elucidate. A "football school" is where a lot of the extra cash and support comes from alumni supporting the team, which means sucky team? Sucky money. Here you will often see schools where the PCs are nearly a decade old but the gym will beat most college athletic depts. While the regular students get a cookie cutter "another brick in the wall" education, the footballers almost from the time they first step on a field are treated as Gods among men.

    I can see why so many NFL players end up convicts, they have been giving the footballer treatment almost since grade school. Any crime short of mounting a head on their car is quietly swept under the rug, nobody cares what they do as long as they continue to rack up the yardage. They get money, pussy, better treatment than anyone else, hell to a kid it is like being a rock star!

    But sadly the schools have been hit with so many "You're discriminating against my little thug!" lawsuits that they pretty much don't toss anyone for just not giving a shit, so you have overcrowded classes and overworked teachers, which is where "special projects" comes in. Now to be fair frankly I believe I got a better education simply diving into that which interested me than the cookie cutter bullshit they were pushing, and I did try my best with the footballers.

    But when you have been coddled since 5th grade and told "don't worry about it, you just concentrate on the game" for years frankly the best tutors in the world ain't gonna help, but at least I did make sure they had practical skills like how to deal with a checkbook or balance their money.

    So yeah football schools just aren't gonna give you much anyway. Funny part is when I had to take a remedial algebra class to get a degree the corp wanted (always hated algebra so never bothered) and when the teacher who was from NYC heard my story he too was appalled, but a girl in the class popped up "You too? I did the same job at my school!" and all I had to say was "Go Lions!" and she said "Go Panthers!" and we instantly knew all about each others location and history thanks to our teams playing each other. Pretty much life at a football school is all about the game, everything else? meh.

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  86. In high school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In high school a buddy of mine did this. Put a keylogged on a teachers computer then logged in and changed our grades. He got busted but my grades never did :)

  87. Re:Top Student My Ass by oddaddresstrap · · Score: 1

    Come on, at least give 'em partial credit for getting "it's" right.

  88. Oh Come on moderaters by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 1

    I'm paraphrasing Space Balls. You mod me down for that? What, are you pissed because somebody made a movie making fun of Star Wars? God, you guys live up to my signature and that's just sad.

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  89. Re:Everything that's wrong with our education Syst by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If by "future in security" you mean mall cop, then yes he does! He's talentless, lazy, moron. The only reason he did this is because he didn't actually want to learn anything. Hence the requirement to cheat.

  90. Re:doing it for free is not the same as doing it f by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am semi surprised that DHS didn't b ecome involved and name everyone terrorists.

  91. Price to Pay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is really a price to pay when you use your intelligence for bad things. Just look at what happened to these guys. :)
    choosehottubsdirect reviews - choosehottubsdirect.com

  92. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 2

    When I was in high school I got a summer job with the district IT department installing computers.

    Amusingly, the district IT admins decided to add my account to the domain administrators AD group (which gave us full access to every server in the district, including the ones with the grade databases). They also gave us the GGM key (which opened every lock in the district) and a sheet with the alarm codes to every school.

    We didn't do anything, but that's a surprising amount of trust to place in a 16-year-old student with zero work experience. Especially considering that their total knowledge of me came from a 30 minute job interview.

  93. Net by choko · · Score: 1

    Someone should tell them that not every computer NEEDS to be attached to a network all the time.

  94. Huh? by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 1

    Hedge fund traders have never been accused of being ethical or trustworthy except by their defense attorneys.

    Sentence is entirely valid and works just fine. Your comment is just invalid :)

  95. Why an Ivy League school? by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 1

    Why would you go to an Ivy League school to become a salesman who gambles for a living. Frankly, I think the biggest problem with professional gamblers like hedge fund traders and other financial traders in general is that instead of a cheap trading license (which I actually got when I was 19 after 1.5 weeks of studying part time, never used it, I don't approve of gambling), traders should be required to have a degree from a university with a specialization on statistics and probabilities.

    So far as I can tell, the only justifiable reason to get an Ivy League education when becoming a 3rd party professional gambler is to find people to swindle while you drink and party at school.

  96. Re:was the password on a piece of paper in the off by pnutjam · · Score: 2

    Respect and trust is usually reciprocal and what is given is usually returned. Likewise, if you treat someone like a thief, they will steal from you.

  97. Highschool matters little anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ok so he cheated through highschool (and got caught). That will allow him to get *some* minimum wage jobs in the future. Less if his charges stick to his record.

    Now he still has to "manage" his way through college before most places will even look at his resume in the future. Assuming of course the colleges themselves don't see the cheating charges and decide to deny him.

    He may look smug now but what he did was in reality the *opposite* of "smart". He screwed himself.

    Good luck buddy!

  98. Re:Top Student My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He wrote "whose" as "who's" - unforgivable.