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Student Charged By FBI For Hacking His Grades More Than 90 times (sophos.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In college, you can use your time to study. Or then again, you could perhaps rely on the Hand of God. And when I say "Hand of God," what I really mean is "keylogger." Think of it like the "Nimble Fingers of God." "Hand of God" (that makes sense) and "pineapple" (???) are two of the nicknames allegedly used to refer to keyloggers used by a former University of Iowa wrestler and student who was arrested last week on federal computer-hacking charges in a high-tech cheating scheme. According to the New York Times, Trevor Graves, 22, is accused in an FBI affidavit of working with an unnamed accomplice to secretly plug keyloggers into university computers in classrooms and in labs. The FBI says keyloggers allowed Graves to record whatever his professors typed, including credentials to log into university grading and email systems. Court documents allege that Graves intercepted exams and test questions in advance and repeatedly changed grades on tests, quizzes and homework assignments. This went on for 21 months -- between March 2015 and December 2016. The scheme was discovered when a professor noticed that a number of Graves' grades had been changed without her authorization. She reported it to campus IT security officials.
Smart would have been to study, do the homework and pay attention.
Hey, let's get the exams and test questions in advance so I'll have a good score!
Fails.
Hey, let's enter the system and change my grades since I failed even when I had the exams and test questions in advance!
That guy's C.V. can be resumed in one sentence: Can't even cheat his way out by cheating. I'd never hire that guy in a million years.
#DeleteFacebook
The amount of learning needed is fairly minimal.
You buy a keylogger for $30 or so.
You plug it in between the keyboard and the PC.
Later, you unplug it from the keyboard and the PC, and look for passwords and userIDs. (easy to spot as they're the first after several hours idle).
Now, you simply type in the username and password, or use remote access if that's an option, to access the software in the same way the teacher would enter your grades.
This is not a complex attack.
There is a saying in the Army - never give an Order that will not be obeyed. It just breaks down the respect for Authority which is needed for soldiers to take an order which will mean risking their life but will probably save lives during battles.
A similar principle should apply to laws - dont pass laws that will not be obeyed. The 21 yr drinking age is a stupid law. If someone is old enough to fuck, go to war, get married and be executed for a capital crime they very well should be old enough to drink.
Once you pass laws that are stupid people feel no guilt breaking them and breaking other laws like forgery laws to get around the stupid law.
**Life is too short to be serious**