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Investigation Finds Inmates Built Computers, Hid Them In Prison Ceiling (cbs6albany.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from WRGB: The discovery of two working computers hidden in a ceiling at the Marion Correctional Institution prompted an investigation by the state into how inmates got access. In late July, 2015 staff at the prison discovered the computers hidden on a plywood board in the ceiling above a training room closet. The computers were also connected to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction's network. Authorities say they were first tipped off to a possible problem in July, when their computer network support team got an alert that a computer "exceeded a daily internet usage threshold." When they checked the login being used, they discovered an employee's credentials were being used on days he wasn't scheduled to work. That's when they tracked down where the connection was coming from and alerted Marion Correctional Institution of a possible problem. Investigators say there was lax supervision at the prison, which gave inmates the ability to build computers from parts, get them through security checks, and hide them in the ceiling. The inmates were also able to run cabling, connecting the computers to the prison's network. Furthermore, "investigators found an inmate used the computers to steal the identify of another inmate, and then submit credit card applications, and commit tax fraud," reports WRGB. "They also found inmates used the computers to create security clearance passes that gave them access to restricted areas."
H1B Visa cheap labor? Pft. Just look at home and hire some inmates
That cabling is a crime.
They sound like better job candidates that the millennial types that come through our doors. US millennials especially, they seem to think they deserve a cookie for knowing very basic things.
Free housing, free food, free computer parts ... sweet!
How many slashdotters do I need to murder before I'm living the dream?
See? All you need to overcome the most insane obstacles is motivation. Just think of all the things these poor people had to go through to get internet access!
It's kinda humbling.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They found a pirate copy of doom on the computers, which is the thing that turned em into criminals.
They seem to be able to get things working, which is better than most...
...we would all be mocking it's unrealistic plot.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Suuuuure.
You always confirm your stereotypes this way?
what did you expect them to do? sell their cell-made shivs on Etsy?
How does an inmate goes about building a computer "from parts" as if you could join copper pipes, rocks and whatnot together and magically transform it into a computer? That's not how it works! xD
Did the inmates have access to electronics recycling centers or something? Were people smuggling RAM chips, CPUs and whatnot inside somehow? This story is so weird...
If only they had born in .ua or .ru or even in .ng they would have had flourishing careers as top dons or at least as top henchmen to top dons. Sad they ended up in USA. Their local don, the for-profit-prison industrial complex cronies do not see the value in the phenomenal access they have to local talent.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You just have to get a VLSI design tattooed on your back.
Yes, I use actual examples to form my opinion of the world.
In my experience, fire is always hot, water is always wet, criminals are always criminals.
--XYZZY--
They could have changed my view by doing something good with their new founds tools, but no, those chose to continue doing criminal activities. They won't change when getting out either.
--XYZZY--
I would guess that the major thing would be the screen. Given that phones are basically devices that let you on the Internet, that would be the size that is needed.
From that device you can easily telnet, ssh and obviously a browser. So that will cover about 99.9 of the Internet usage.
If they have a screen and remote, a computer stick is all you need. Plug it in and you are done. No need to do any hacking on building.
If this where a desktop with a full size keyboard and mouse and 24" screen I would be truly impressed. The fact that cellphones are found on a regular basis, I am less impressed as that is what you need to make a network connection.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
he just looked through the ODRC system for a young inmate with a long sentence, then used his information to get the cards.
If the bank is giving a credit card to a prison inmate with a long sentence, I feel like there's a moral imperative for someone to take advantage of them, for their own good.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Somehow I not excited when I then see show how they get a free education to then work in the computer industry and yet I had to pay for mine.
Sounds like you should seek a refund.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Yes, I use actual examples to form my opinion of the world.
In my experience, fire is always hot, water is always wet, criminals are always criminals.
--XYZZY--
So you're incapable of nuanced thought. Well done you.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Sounds like a reeeeeeaaaaaaallll secure prison.
The phrase "Raspberry Pi in the bum" got a whole new meaning.
WTF is a prison doing with easily accessible drop ceilings, anyway? That's insane.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The inmates were able to get the parts from a program where inmates break down computers in order to learn computer skills and recycle the parts.
To be fair, it seems that this program was a complete success.
Yes, I use actual examples to form my opinion of the world.
In my experience, fire is always hot, water is always wet, criminals are always criminals.
--XYZZY--
So you're incapable of nuanced thought. Well done you.
Lots of people are incapable of nuanced thought. See:
"basket of deplorables"
"Trump voters" becomes "racist voters"
"Unable to support Anita Sarkeesian/Brianna Wu/etc" becomes "Misogynist"
Oh, wait, you thought you were capable of nuanced thought? That's actually quite hilarious.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
their only mistake was not filing their own release paperwork?
I am debating as to whether or not this would look good on a resume, namely cyber crime\penetration testing type stuff. I would at least find it intriguing. Some of the crimes they committed indicate they were expecting to be released at least in the next few years. I suppose that will no longer be the case.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Damn does nasty criminales. Bad people. Steal a bread once, murder and rape the next day. Jaywalking? Off with their heads! Once a crooked bread eating thief, always guilty! Lest they -may- get some "free" knowledge whereas others had to pay. Yay capitalism!
I stand by basket-of-deplorables. I spent a decade working with the deplorables installing equipment across the rural US and I wish I'd thought of that phrase. It's perfect.
Investing in an education is worse than worthless. I paid for my education and still I didn't get to work in your tech industry, because I'm not social enough, I'm not trendy enough, and people just don't like me. You can shut the fuck up, you incredibly lucky piece of shit.
Because "social" and "trendy" describe any computer person never.
I don't want to know how they smuggled in the motherboard.
You are welcome on my lawn.
and it didn't cost them a dime...
...once a crook always a crook...
Were the inmates who did this incarcerated politicians?
what the guy who stole a car one piece at a time?
Fire The Prison Staff. The Prisoners are already in charge, leave them in-charge and continue to not pay them. Problem solved.
I want to see the anus that smuggled in a monitor.
Using Java.
With a smartphone it'd be way easier!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Managers at my government IT job are supposed to return the PCs for reimage and deployment when an employee leaves or a department has layoffs. Some managers don't return the PCs, claiming that IT already took them away. A popular place for storing unused PCs is the utility closet inside women restrooms. Since the site techs are males, they have no business being in the women restroom. The female cleaning crew usually blows the whistles on these PCs as they manage the utility closets. Strangely, only the women restrooms have these utility closets.
> and people just don't like me. You can shut the fuck up, you incredibly lucky piece of shit.
There's a correlation there, and you probably can't see it.
Dude. You need to read this.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Win...
In the old days you had to spend weeks filing a spoon into a shiv to take out Big Vinny. Today you hack into his mob family's bank account to get even.
Showing contempt for the majority of the nation is ALWAYS a good winning presidential strategy.
Stay in your urban bubble with like-minded clones, our president needs a second term.
I can understand that keeping physical contraband from sneaking around a prison might be rather tricky; but it sounds like the admins were, perhaps literally, asleep at the switch if unauthorized devices and users were able to get network access without being noticed.
He won't need a second term. Pretty sure we won't have a country left by then.
"Hooters, cooters, tutors, computers!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [Shamwow Guy in Jail Parody]
I tend to rant.
Is sit on your butt, you will think of ways to pass the time of day. Stills, tattoo guns, computers...
at fox river you use to just needed to payoff the guards but then they got a new warden after some guys got out and things changes. But they still have cheap payphones that take coins there.
Furthermore, "investigators found an inmate used the computers to steal the identify of another inmate
I... eh. Don't care.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
There is a new MacGyver. I loved the original, so I watched part of one new ones. I quickly came to the conclusion that it was made for children. It was ridiculous. Then, reflecting back, I had the revelation that the original was also geared toward children. It was ridiculous too. The difference is that 30 years ago I was a child and Mac was fun. I've aged considerably since then. Most of us have.
Mac wouldn't need to build a spare parts computer. He'd just use his shoelaces and a pulley to bend the bars and escape.
And to be fair... Water is never wet. It makes other things wet. So XYZZY fails there too.
I am glad you mentioned "lucky", as that has a lot to do with it.
I was "lucky" enough to randomly pick a degree program that had something to do with my interests and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, no research involved! I was "lucky" to have a job fall in my lap after completing that degree program. I was "lucky" enough to have the opportunity to apply things I had learned and knowledge that had been imparted to me (in my wee little brain that I was also "lucky" to have been born with!). I am "lucky" I am not measured by how social or trendy I am, but the quality of my work. I am "lucky"...please, I hope you get it by now?
Maybe replace "lucky" with "worthy human being who worked hard (or at least more than the AC poster) to get where they are". Oh, and we can't all be porn stars and presidents, because the world still needs fluffers and patsies. ;-)
And that's why you use MAC authentication on switches. Fucking noobs.
"tipped off to a possible problem in July, when their computer network support team got an alert that a computer "exceeded a daily internet usage threshold."
Might want to run a black light over that room, then maybe bleach...
Twenty seconds of Google shows me that Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio is a minimum and medium security facility. wiki link
Now, my understanding of minimum security facilities is only based on Canadian sites, but it is that they're basically a locked dorm complex, so the whole 'drop ceiling' and 'secure network' parts may not really apply.
They are taught at most basic computer repair. If you are worried about you loosing your job to people with records and only know basic repair then you have bigger issues. These guys aren't managing servers, and aren't programming anything complex.
i guess that explains why imgur has sucked lately, i think those guys were probably producing 80% of the daily memes that didn't completely suck.
where they will ask what computer the person wants to use.
And the sadistic warden gives them a different one. Haha! That will teach them.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Yes, I use actual examples to form my opinion of the world.
In my experience, fire is always hot, water is always wet, criminals are always criminals.
--XYZZY--
So you're incapable of nuanced thought. Well done you.
Lots of people are incapable of nuanced thought. See:
"basket of deplorables"
"Trump voters" becomes "racist voters"
"Unable to support Anita Sarkeesian/Brianna Wu/etc" becomes "Misogynist"
Oh, wait, you thought you were capable of nuanced thought? That's actually quite hilarious.
Glad you chose only one side's lack of nuanced terms to point out. Very fair and open minded of you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You'll also find competent people who did everything right and wound up a lot worse off than you.
I was born to a middle-class US family living in an area with a good school system. I am very intelligent, with high analytical skills. I was raised with a halfway decent work ethic. I can take credit to absolutely none of these, and none of this makes me more worthy than anybody else. It's luck.
I've done some things that I can be legitimately proud of, but most of my earning potential was luck.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Significantly fewer people voted for Trump than voted for Clinton. The deplorables are, fortunately, in the minority.
Seriously, I made an effort to figure out where the Trump voters were coming from. Aside from the fact that they fell whole-heartedly for the most successful con job in history, they appear to be entitled assholes, wanting to live in homogenous communities, enforcing their values on others elsewhere, and demanding jobs that pay decently for low skill.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
...this is pretty badass.
Would of been easier.
They do a lot of manufacturing. My factory made high end office furniture (desks, tables, credenzas) and some wooden games. The furniture went to government offices only (FBI, military, SSA, INS, etc.) and the games went to private industry. Inmates did production control using SAP and manufacturing using CNC saws and mills. The staff lived in fear of the clerks (inmates) getting in trouble because we had such a hard time finding guys who could use the computer.
Significantly fewer people voted for Trump than voted for Clinton. The deplorables are, fortunately, in the minority.
"About a a single percentage point" divides the Trump vote from the Clinton vote. That is hardly "significant" no matter how you look at it.
(Out of 250m or so people, 66m voted Hilary and 63m voted Trump. In no statistic would we call 3/250 "significant". It simply isn't).
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Yes, I use actual examples to form my opinion of the world.
In my experience, fire is always hot, water is always wet, criminals are always criminals.
--XYZZY--
So you're incapable of nuanced thought. Well done you.
Lots of people are incapable of nuanced thought. See:
"basket of deplorables"
"Trump voters" becomes "racist voters"
"Unable to support Anita Sarkeesian/Brianna Wu/etc" becomes "Misogynist"
Oh, wait, you thought you were capable of nuanced thought? That's actually quite hilarious.
If you're addressing me, all I can state is that I have no fucking idea what you're on about or why Trump or Anita Sarkeesian are relevant. Thanks.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
+1 Destroyed political strawman shoehorned in.
I actually fit the description you posted also. And I agree with you except for the last part of the last sentence. That word "potential" I don't agree with. It's hard for me to debate it with you though, because I really don't have an argument against it, just don't like it. Maybe someone else with a care and a working brain this morning could fill something in.
Anyway, I have been analyzing what you wrote, got side-tracked thinking of potential energy and current flow, and now I'm back. The poster I was replying to said "Investing in an education is worse than worthless". Is it? It would be nice to know in which fields of study and occupations a person can increase their earning potential through learning rather than depending mostly on luck?
Counter to my own previous paragraph, sometimes I have been presented with "XYZ degree is required for this position". I've never had that be a true barrier to getting that position if I really wanted it and was willing to work to get it.
Given the typical election results, 66 to 63 is significant. Traditionally, we don't count people who don't vote.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
What I mean by "potential" here is not really well-defined. It's the amount of success I'd get for a certain amount of work and luck. Someone who grew up malnourished in a boring slum with parents who didn't care and crappy schools would have had to work a lot harder than I did to get to where I am now. To give a car analogy, my car currently has a supply of chemical energy in its tank, which presumably counts as potential energy since it isn't doing anything, and so I can move it much more easily than if I had to put it in neutral and push.
It's more expensive to get a degree than it used to be. Having one is very definitely better than not having one, but right now I don't know if it would be worth the expense to a given person, which I find sad. It's kind of like Tesla stock: I think the company is probably going to take off and become big, and having their stock would be really nice, but I can't see buying at that share price.
Luck is also a slippery thing. Having started luckily, of the more socially approved sex, race, and sexual orientation, I worked my way into a position where the only luck in keeping up my lifestyle is avoiding major medical problems until I'm ready to retire, and that doesn't require much luck at all. I'm lucky in having found my present job, but I would have landed a decent one in any case (once I started dying my hair). If I was trying to be rich, I'd need my advantages, a whole lot of hard work, and luck.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Just another case of unqualified, idiot law enforcement staff.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
I work in a locked down environment, posting anonymously.
There is computer access here, and occasionally someone will figure out ( usually with help from someone outside) how to use proxies to access things outside the filter.
Do you know what they ALWAYS hit?
Here's a hint: It's not great books, or legal scholars, or morality plays, or videos on the 13th amendment.
It's porn. And maps to their enemies houses. And stories about their friends killing other people . And lots and lots of pictures of gang members standing around flashing gang signs.
There may be a few redeemable, but for the most part they're all looking to continue in the lifestyle.
I understand what you are saying, and also if I had more luck, I would be richer too. Not necessarily happier or as you said earlier, any more worthy.
I'm not social enough, I'm not trendy enough, and people just don't like me.
You are just one year older than their official age discrimination limit, aren't you?
It's a collection of stories from hackers who were willing to talk to him about everything and one of the stories is about 2 guys in a Texas prison in the 80s who did this with DIAL UP.
So about 10 fewer Anonymous Cowards on /. ?