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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."
So for anyone who has seen that film, doesn't this seem remarkably similar? (Aside from starting a nuclear war...)
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.
was the password on a piece of paper in the office and he just know where it was stored it?
"password", mmm, no. "123456" Oh, hey -- we're in!
Caveat Utilitor
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.
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.
> "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!
Was he really the top student, or did he fix his own grades too?
MABASPLOOM!
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.
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.
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.
Read radical news here
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
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.
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":
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.
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
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.
Whoosh...
Pencil was the password Matthew Broderick's character used to break into his school's computer system in the movie Wargames.
Putting moderation advice in your
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.
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.
Cheap storage VM.