Felony Charges For H.S. Hacking

jayrtfm writes "Last year the Kurtztown Area High School approved a program which gave every student an iBook. Now 13 students face felony charges for violating the district's usage policy." From the article: "Shrawder said the secret password '50Trexler,' was widely-known among the student body and distributed early in the school year. It allowed between 80 and 100 students to reconfigure their laptops, he said. The more computer-savvy students began to disable the administrations' ability to spy on the students' computer use. For others, it became a game, trying to outsmart the administration and compete with fellow students who held the secret, Shrawder said."

password

[bnitsua]

I hope they had the sense to change their password...

Now everybody knows my password.

[rminsk]

Thank you for posting my password. I guess I will have to change it now.

Barely even hacking?

[Primotech]

Some friend of mine installed Firefox on his network drive at school and caught a great deal of flack for it. Because we know what a great risk a proven, secure web browser poses...

Re:Inept school officials

[NoImNotNineVolt]

destroyed? i've been charged with a felony as a minor and now i'm working for nasa :P

Incorrect Story

[Manip]

Should read ... - "For the administrators to monitor the students computer usage and for students that held the secret password to monitor one another. In order to keep the student's privacy safe while using the badly configured laptops the students had to get in and change the password. Upset by the fact they where made to look like noobs the school district are now bringing charges on all students that changed the password. When ask for comment the network admin had to say "I have an MCP, I think I can configure some laptops securely, the students are just messing with stuff using illegal haxor tools that they downloaded off P2P, I have contacted Microsoft, Apple and the MPAA about them!""

Re:Congrats

[louden obscure]

maybe the students coud end up making something better

yeah, with felony charges they may have the chance to learn how to make license plates...

Yeah, right

[P0ldy]

TFA:

"I don't know why this is such a big deal," he said. "At no time was the security of the server breached, and I don't know that it has cost the taxpayers any money."

A server breach does seem pretty impossible. Considering the complexity of the password and how few people knew it, it's doubtful they wouldn't know if the server was breached anyway.

Set the administration of the school on fire!

[rvalles]

They offer the laptops into such conditions that revolutions are bound to happen. What's this "can only use school's laptop and not your own" shit? and "You take care of the laptop" shit? and this "cannot install programs" shit? and this orwellian monitoring crap?

Death to them. They've done it exactly the wrong way, and it's only natural for students to protest and disobey the dictatorship. Under this conditions, it's alright to set up a resistance armed with AK-47s.

What were the technology adminstrators doing...

[gozar]

The administrative password for the machines was 50Trexler.... Ummm, where did this come from? Why it's the address of the high school!

Re:It was an asinine password anyway

[Dhalka226]

50 Trexler Ave.
Kutztown, PA 19530

I originally read that as "Klutztown." I was laughing at the irony when I realized my mistake. What a let down.

Re:I just don't get it

[KlomDark]

Yes, it IS legal advice. Don't bullshit us, boy. You're going to jail, soon as I can get your school administrator to press charges. Don't leave town in the meantime.

Re:Inept school officials

[st0rmshad0w]

That would explain a few things....

Houm Skooling

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, i fer wun gona houm skool me kidds. The whol worl gon crazie.

Analog Mayham

[Tablizer]

I remember the good 'ol days when we would get into simpler trouble by dipping the girl in front's pony tail into the desk ink well. You young wippersnappers get into trouble all the wrong ways. -Fogey

Re:Inept school officials

[ColaMan]

I have no putty for people who comit a crime

You heartless person! Criminals sometimes have to deal with broken windows,just like everyone else. Have some pity and lend them putty.

I got detention for wiping teachers hard drive

[bxbaser]

Of course when i was in school this meant erasing the chalkboard when he was in lunch.

Wait... you can hack an iBook?

[ISaidItOmega]

They hacked their iBooks..? What, did they change their desktop wallpaper or something?..

I joke! I joke!!

Death Penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they should go for the death penalty. It is important to send a message to teens across the US that surfing the Internet is not to be tolerated and will be quickly and decisively punished. Not allowances for the, we didn't know defense. They need to learn early and now, that their actions contitute a grave threat against this country and that grave actions will be meet with grave concequenses.

So, please, everyone rise up with me and insist that the death penalty be employed to send the right message, to help protect our children.

Re:Lets get the facts straight

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, I'm TJ '93, and I remember getting in trouble in the library when their stupid catalog system crashed and left me at the DOS prompt. I helpfully rebooted the system for them, and the librarian came down on me for "hacking their computer" (seeing a prompt and then a "suspiciously hasty" reboot when). Pissed me off, she was too dumb to even understand my explanation of what happened. Got off with a length lecture on not fooling around with their computers, and how "lenient" she was being in giving me a slap on the wrist.

Also caught once by Pete Morasca, dropping down to the prompt in the math labs when we were forbidden... happened to be grumbling about how obnoxious his policies were at the same time he walked up behind me... :)

A few minor incidents in the CS Lab with Don Hyatt, but most of my "hacking" incidents were on the TJ node of VaPEN, where we got our Usenet feed. It had some menu-driven system, but I'd escape out of it and fool around in Unix. They took that away, but I got around it by using vi and shelling out. Then one of my friends wrote some program which accidentally filled up their hard drive and they threatened to kick us both off, but I wrote an apology letter for him (better at smooth-talking) and we got off.

Re:Wow....

[chris_eineke]

a hunk of flesh off of another one's chest

Boobies!