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Unable To Hack Into Grading System, Georgia Student Torches Computer Lab
McGruber writes: A 15 year-old Douglas County, Georgia high school student has been charged with five felonies, including burglary and arson, after sheriff's deputies caught him while responding to a 1 AM fire at Alexander High School. The boy admitted to investigators that he set fire to a computer after trying, unsuccessfully, to hack into the school computer system to change his grade on a failed test. "It's very sad and tragic. He could have very easily come to one of his counselors and asked for help," said Lt. Glenn Daniel with the Douglas County Sheriff's Department. "From what we can tell, (the student) was mad and frustrated because he could not hack into the system." Lt. Daniel said the charges could land the young man in prison for several years. The computer lab was cleaned up and re-opened in time for the start of that day's classes.
He did the crime (actually several), he must do the time.
If he wants to play big boy games then he must accept big boy penalties. Fuck your PC "Oh but he's a kid with his whole life ahead of him!" bullshit, he's chosen his path, let him reap the consequences.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
What kind of rational human being does this? Did you try to set fire to your schools property because of a bad grade? I'll look past the B&E and unauthorized access.
He is dangerous, to himself and others. If not juvie, then a psych eval and treatment.
Big boy games?
He was trying to change a high school grade?
He didn't realize it was harder to do it then it seems on TV, he probably thought he was some great hacker because he helped with a DDOS.
Then he got frustrated so he lit the computer on fire?
This doesn't sound like the actions of an adult. It sounds like the action of a standard undeveloped brain of a teenager.
Should he be punished. Yes, probably expelled from school, or in his case forced to take the year over again, and insure his transcripts for his high school tenure give him solid D-'s.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Let's assume he's managed to live in a world where the subject of cloud storage/backup never once reached the level of awareness.
So, what kind of dolt thinks that the grades are stored on machines in the school's computer lab???
Or was he burning down the lab in a fit or pique because his awesome computer skills weren't enough to deal with the grades being stored on a machine he had no access to?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
He issued an HCF instruction.
Shame I didn't have mod points- not just for the joke itself, but because- in a discussion thread that could otherwise have been mistaken for one on Fark or whatever- it says something that this is by far the most reminiscent of the traditional Slashdot audience and style.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Better question: What kind of kid who at least *thinks* he might be capable of hacking the school's system wouldnt be aware of cloud storage/backup? Clearly setting a fire would do nothing to cloud stored data.
In the western world we know that children think and reason differently, don't oversee all consequences of their actions, and because of that we try them differently, in juvenile court. A 15 year old who did not perform on a test, panics and does something stupid. Panic means: no reasoning, no oversight, and the existence of backups is totally forgotten, even if he knows about it.
In the US there is a tendency to try more children as adults, especially when the crime is big, like murder. This is the general tendency resulting from rage and frustration when people are not satisfied with their own situation, and they need someone to blame. They need a black sheep.
This is not a big crime. If the school burnt down, if someone died, that would have been something else. It could have, but it didn't. It's the same when you stab someone with a knife. If two people do this to two victims, stab them in a similar way, and one dies, the other not, the sentences will be different, although intentions and acts in this (imaginative) case are similar.
Nobody was hurt, the next day it was business as usual. So give this kid a reasonable sentence for the damage done, and let him have a chance to see his error and learn from it. The lesson should be that he was lucky that this didn't turn into something really big. Next time his luck may change, and this experience may hold him back then. Send him to prison for seven years and he will come out as a wreck or as a professional criminal. Who wants that?
I think jellomizer was referring to the fact that hormonal adolescents who do not yet have a fully formed prefrontal cortex have a much higher incidence of indulging in risky, violent, and/or unwise behavior as compared to fully grown adults due to the fact that they lack both the experience and the actual brain grey matter to fully think things through which would help inhibit such adolescent behavior. That does not excuse such behavior, but it does not mean we should treat children as if they were adults who generally have a better ability to control and channel their emotions.
I'm unsure why you believe "adult behavior" is on par with teenage adolescent behavior simply because adults can and do engage in similar behaviors (though it is worth noting that often when adults do this sort of thing, their judgement is impaired by alcohol or drugs which puts them into a more uninhibited mental state similar to juveniles). Psychologists would strongly disagree with you if you're making the case that adults and teenagers have the same incidence of such behavior.
You don't treat a 5 year old like you would a 12 year old... nor a 12 year old like a 16 year old. Even still, one should not treat a 15 year old like an 18 or 21 year old.
Personally, I say send the boy to counseling and to juvenile detention, make the family pay restitution. Wipe his record and seal it when he turns 18 so he can have a normal life. Maybe he'll make better decisions when his brain is fully formed and learn from his mistakes. Maybe not. Giving him a felony record and shoving him in a state prison with hardened felons is not great way to reform this child. It may just turn him into a lifetime criminal with new criminal connections and no job prospects due to his record.
I would agree with you, but what we have here is an opportunity to demonstrate our upstanding character to our peers by venting self-righteousness against someone of lesser moral virtue. Before you know it, we'll be arguing over which method of execution is most appropriate, and whether the boy's family ought to be punished as well. No punishment will be quite harsh enough to quench our indignation over what this evil, horrible boy has done. We're an angry mob, and we want everyone to see it because we imagine that it makes us look virtuous. It's the American Way.
That depends on whether he's black or white, and on whether his parents can afford to hire a good lawyer or he has to depend on a court-appointed public defender.
Actual life doesn't work like that.
Actually, life works like that. Your daughters BF was just a lucky ass.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
154 posts and no reference to Milton...
Milton Waddams: [muttering] I could set the building on fire.
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That's one anecdote. I'll give you another anecdote. When I went to Stony Brook U., a bunch of guys I knew were driving in a car and got busted for pot. One guy was a working-class guy from upstate New York, first in his family to go to college, working his way through school (that's why he was selling pot). The other guys in the car were rich kids from Long Island. The working-class guy got a public defender, who told him to plead guilty, and I think he served a short sentence in jail. The rich kids' lawyers fought the charges, contested the search, and got them off. Same offense, same car.
Another important issue is how much pressure the cop and district attorney have to get "results". In Baltimore, New York, and most other urban areas, the cops and DA are under a lot of pressure to get "results," i.e., mess up somebody's life. The cops live in the suburbs, they don't care about these people. In rural Virginia, where everybody knows everybody else, the cops may be more concerned about real policing where they just protect people from real crimes and don't concern themselves with the numbers.
But if you want to be scientific about it, there are lots of statistics that show that black people are more likely to be stopped by the cops, more likely to be (illegally) searched, more likely to be prosecuted, and more likely to be sent to jail for the same offense. That came out in the New York City lawsuit against stop and frisk. Don't forget, Freddie Gray was arrested illegally. The cops had no legal reason to suspect that he committed a crime, even after they (illegally) searched him. It's not illegal to look a cop in the eye (unless maybe you're black and it's in the south).
Some of it is race, and some of it is social class. I used to think that it wasn't race, and you could explain everything with social class. But when I looked at the data, I had to admit -- social class was a lot of it, but race was a lot of it too. America is just a racist country. The sooner we face it, the better off we'll be, although the way we're going I think we'll still be racist a generation from now.
Here's a lawyer who explained it better than I can:
https://www.baltimorebrew.com/...
OPINION: Justice for all? Why hasn’t Bishop Cook who struck bicyclist Palermo been charged?
A defense attorney says justice is being mocked by the failure of city prosecutors to charge Bishop Heather Cook
Todd H. Oppenheim
January 5, 2015
(Oppenheimer, an attorney in the Public Defender's Office for 10 years, compares the treatment by the State Attorney's Office and police of the upper class criminals such as Episcopal Bishop Heather Elizabeth Cook, who killed bicyclist Thomas Palermo in a drunken driving hit-and-run, with his own mostly African-American clients. Oppenheim's clients are immediately charged or jailed, while Cook was allowed to go home.)
Instead, she remains free and “lawyered up” with a veteran Towson attorney who has represented many high-profile clients for a substantial fee. My clients can’t afford an attorney of their choice, and they certainly never get the opportunity to preemptively hire an attorney.
The clients I represent never get such treatment. They are informed of their arrests – and not necessarily for what – with a bang at the front door and a swift take-down by an arrest team of officers.
My clients often sit in jail as the state’s attorney’s office sorts out the charges.
(Other examples of wealthy, connected clients who were given special privileges by the legal system.)
Yawn, not this again.
While I do think the US penal system is very broken... this research is trivially shown to be a pile of garbage.
It ASSUMES the only cause of recidivism can be the length of prison sentence, and therefore that relation is cause.
It totally ignores that harder criminals, when caught tend to end up with longer sentences (because, well, they do worse crimes..) and that
these same harder criminals are more likely to not change their ways.
Having spent some significant time with people who actually work with criminals in the prison systems I can tell you that the VERY unpopular
but well proven fact is that there are generally two types of people. The prison psycologists often call them the sheep and the wolves.
The sheep are usually these because of a bad situation or foolish mistake that spun out of control. They were late for a meeting, not thinking,
and crashed into someone in their car killing them. Their personal/family situation got desperate so they had to steal to make things meet. They
didnt usually drink much, but had a few that night, arrived home to find their partner in a screaming rage and punched them. etc. All very stupid
and faulty, but not their usual actions. Punishment usually gives them a pretty big reality check.
The wolves however are very different, and not that rare. To them things are for the taking. They have the 'right' to do these things, and the
punishment is just an unfortunate side effect. Next time they will just be 'tougher' and wont get caught. These people tend to spiral up not down
and little if anything works to reduce their damaging effects on society because they see society as theirs to use/abuse as they want.
Prison is often, but not always, overkill for the sheep - they will usually see their mistake.
Prison is often a requirement for the wolves, because is KEEPS THEM AWAY FROM SOCIETY.
Prison is not primarily a punishment, it is a way to protect society as a whole.
This is where the system is falling down - we are not separating those two groups and treating them suitably... because the crime itself does not
tell you which type they are.
Unfortunately there is a strong feeling among quite a bit of modern society that 'bad boys will become good, they just need more love'. The wolves
live on this..It is their free ride and they know it.
We need to judge more on intent and less on crime.
We need a wider range of 'suitable' punishments, and many more 'unpleasant but not prison' options.
We need to accept that some people should not be part of society.
And we need to stop wishing everyone would just love each other more.. Because some people are good, some are bad. Deal with it.
This kid, of course, needs a damn good kick in the entitlements. Not a prison sentence (yet). Only time will tell where he goes.