Students using school issued notebooks busted for misuse

[Adam@NBF]

640 high school students in a Pennsylvania school were issued Apple laptop computers estimated to cost the state close to $850,000 in a four year time frame.

13 students now known as the "Kutztown 13" (ages 14-17) have been busted for misuse. The Kutztown Area School District has turned it over to police after trying suspensions, detentions, and other forms of punishment and failing. They're charged with computer trespass and court is scheduled for Aug 24th.

The students were able to get unrestricted internet access using the administrator password. The password wasn't meant to be distributed, but was reported as being taped on the back of some computers. So, with their read hacking skills they were able to crack it lol ;). Once unrestricted they began downloading chat programs and at least one surfing porn.

Some parents are upset at how far this is being taken, but the school district laid it all out in the policies and guidelines the students signed when taking the systems in the first place.

It's clear they want a zero tolerance policy to breaking the rules to make the move to notebooks work. Are the students too young to be even attempting this? Some feel it's the parents not passing on any level of responsibility giving some kids the feeling of they can do anything they want and others will just have to deal with it. Without a doubt most future jobs and tasks in life are going to require more use of computers vs a pen and paper, so the more experience the better to prepare them... it's just a matter how what time is right and how exactly to introduce computers as more of a tool with studies.

The students are firing back trying to gather support through a website:
http://www.cutusabreak.org/

We were not able to find any reports on how many of the other hundreds of students with these issued notebooks have had any misuse problems.

*Updated 8-26-05*
A deal was made with all charges dropped in exchange for 15 hours of community service, a letter of apology, a class on personal responsibility and a few months of probation.

[Jordan1]

Even though the students should not be doing that, it seems like they should have a little better security setup (taped password on the back of some computers). :lol:

On CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/09/kutztown.hackers.ap/index.html

[SolarFlare]

We had some people fined in our school for using the staff's account. The also used net send through CMD to send messages to every PC in the school, it was a bit stupid as it said where it was sent from. Now we have key loggers on every PC. As for the accounts the passwords were on a text document :saywhat: on a networked drive where everybody can see if you know where to look.

[CollegeStudent]

I don't know if I already posted this.. there was a kid at my school who had been hacking accounts all year until close to the end of the year (he was a senior) he went into a teachers grade program and changed grades. Long story short he was caught and sent to jail cause he committed a felony. People think this is a joke no one takes it seriously even when they know the consequences. Well I'm pretty sure he learned after being in jail and he will regret it for the rest of his life since everything is more difficult for convicted felons.

Oh kids used to use command prompt to send messages and everyone in the class got kicked off the computers even if they didn't do it... that means we head to handwrite multiple spreadsheet documents... I was pissed cause I didn't even do that command prompt junk but they learned quick.

[Peter Mount]

I've got to admit this seems to bizarre to me. First they were incompetant enough to give the students the password. But, if I read this correctly, they had restrictions on how they could use these computers in their own homes. I can understand if there are restrictions on using the school network for downloading pornography but it just sounds to me somebody higher up just hasn't thought this through properly.

I say the officials of the school district should admit there was incompetance on their part (accidently handing out the password for God's sake) and forget about disciplining the students. They should just learn from their mistakes and move on.

Peter Mount

[MitchellO]

This is a similar sort of thing that my friends and I did up until a short while ago.

I found several holes in the security restrictions that my school put on our user accounts. Each student has a user account with limited privilleges that we can use on any computer in the school (about 200 computers with either Windows 2000 Pro or XP Pro). We found several ways of accessing the C drive (Which was "blocked"). It really isn't hard for kids these days to do this. I even found that we could even use Firefox on a USB to surf the net at school through the hotmail server, and visit sites like myspace.com that the school blocked.

Now I am not advocating this sort of thing, its just that todays kids have computer skills that many adults don't, and think of ways of doing things that adults don't.

Our school simply patched these holes in the system, and now there are no exploits that we know of. We don't have laptops like these kids though. I have a laptop that I use for school, but I can't use it on the network. Well I can, because I can reconfigure firefox to work through the schools proxy, and logon to the net just like on the school PCs (with the same restrictions), and even access my own logon drive.

[MitchellO]

I don't know if I already posted this.. there was a kid at my school who had been hacking accounts all year until close to the end of the year (he was a senior) he went into a teachers grade program and changed grades. Long story short he was caught and sent to jail cause he committed a felony. People think this is a joke no one takes it seriously even when they know the consequences. Well I'm pretty sure he learned after being in jail and he will regret it for the rest of his life since everything is more difficult for convicted felons.

Oh kids used to use command prompt to send messages and everyone in the class got kicked off the computers even if they didn't do it... that means we head to handwrite multiple spreadsheet documents... I was pissed cause I didn't even do that command prompt junk but they learned quick.

Changing grades is simply wrong, and that is definately not a joke.

Our school has disabled command prompt, and up until recently we could use Winchat to chat to each other throughout the school.

[MitchellO]

I have actually heard of schools that get some of the smarter kids who are good at computers to try and find holes in the system, so that they can be patched. That is probably one of the better ideas of securing a school network.

[bigbangtheorum]

MitchellO, I have the same sort of situation in my school... I'm a Highschool senior, and I know more about windows domain architecture than my school's IT manager does.

The thing that really strikes me as wrong (especially in my case) is I used the security holes to send messages to the admin saying stuff like 'look, i can access the gradebook' or 'netsend still works', etc. To make a long story short, they didn't appreciate that too much... they disliked it so much they put a ban on all electronic devices in the school. :uhoh: needless to say I still bring my Dell and Sager in on a regular basis, but the older generation really needs to wake up and stop thinking they're so friggin superior.

Another fun one is to download a zip file (win 2k sp3) and rightclick -> properties -> advanced -> users.... tab over to the admin username and there ya go, you've got all you need to get at the passwd on the activedirectory machine :bouncy:

[MitchellO]

They have disabled the properties box on student logons :(

[MitchellO]

I have actually created a program with my limited knowledge of VB6 that lets you browse the C drive, execute programs, open files (like ini, inf, bat, txt and any other textfile, as well as BMP, JPG and PDF) and copy files from one place to another. It also can launch the builtin games of Win2000 (Solitaire, Pinball, Minesweeper, Freecell), even though the shortcuts have been disabled. It also incorporates a feature that mimicks the run box.

[Bahama.Llama]

Wow... the school used the ADDRESSS for ALL of the admin passwords? Wow... the school is lucky that the kids parents who got access to porn aren’t suing them!

[Chronobuster]

The school officials have to admit at least some responsibility for giving out the password.

At my high school, we would figure out how to get past our restrictions. It was pretty easy for me and some of my friends, as we just had to use usb keys, Knoppix cds, go into internet explorer and type in C:\whatever, or anything else that was viable.

[bazzel]

o god speaking of school disasters... and off topic quite a bit... some seniors at my HS last year (as i was a junior) were using the school's digital camera for photography class and found some... ahem... rather X rated pictures of two teachers (both married, one as recent as within the previous 6mo's, but not to eachother of course) having at it in an art classroom... all sorts of sick stuff... needless to say, they were forced to resign... and I'm amazed the kids' families didn't sue the piss out of the school...

-bazzel

[KevinN206]

A friend of mine (now at a university) uses the community college campus' computers to download over 76GB of movies and music using the famous bittorent (just 76GB of networked storage). The IT department eventually caught on and his account got disaabled (it says so when you try to logon). When he went to reset the account, the IT people told him he was downloading movies and music and that any further violation of the policy would result in permanent suspension of the account. The reset basically deleted everything from the account. They never said anything more.

[MitchellO]

At my high school, we would figure out how to get past our restrictions. It was pretty easy for me and some of my friends, as we just had to use usb keys, Knoppix cds, go into internet explorer and type in C:\whatever, or anything else that was viable.

That aint restriction. :moon: Our school has blocked all attempts to type addresses to any folder in the address bar. You can't type c: or z: (our allocated network drive, each student has there own that is mapped to z: at logon), or the location of a network share in the address bar with out the "Administrator cancelled" error.

That didn't stop me from working out how to access all the school servers by using a student accessible shortcut to go up in the folder tree to the workgroup of all the computers. :lol:

[johnhamler]

when i was kid, I went directly to the teachers' office to correct exams (my exams of course by coping results of other ). Teachers were in the cafeteria, and they let the office open.I did that for 1-2 years.
:)

[epp_b]

Oh, man. If an admin was STUPID enough to leave his password taped on the computer itself...oi. Whoever did that should be charged with "criminal negligence due to pure idiocy" :lol: But, yes, the students should have definately been honest in the first place.

The high school I went to had pretty loose security if you knew how to get around: CMD was only half-disabled, I could easily boot to a Linux CD by changing the settings in the password-less BIOS, installing apps was dead easy, registry was accessible through 3rd party apps, file browsing on certain volumes was only disabled directly through explorer.exe, I could completely clear by tracks by using Firefox (not that I had any reason to other than paranoia)...but I was honest :rolleyes: and was one of very few nerdy geeks there ;)

[Dozzit]

I don't know if I already posted this.. there was a kid at my school who had been hacking accounts all year until close to the end of the year (he was a senior) he went into a teachers grade program and changed grades. Long story short he was caught and sent to jail cause he committed a felony. People think this is a joke no one takes it seriously even when they know the consequences. Well I'm pretty sure he learned after being in jail and he will regret it for the rest of his life since everything is more difficult for convicted felons...yep it certainly is... and almost all hacking convictions are felonies and they're only gonna get tougher with 'em...

this is about the same as the "Florida guy..." thread (http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=93800) ... people just want to justify what's clearly wrong so badly that they'll use any excuse, blame anybody, anything but take personal responsibility...

the guy that would point out holes in security by using that hole to send a msg to IT... that's like knowing how to break in a bank, doing it, calling the cops and saying "hey, there's a security hole here... uh, why are you guys arresting me?"... and their incompetence "struck you wrong" so that justified whatever you wanted to do... sad... that is a very slippery slope... "self justification" - no matter what others think, no matter what the law says, no matter what's right and wrong, i'm gonna do what i want... totally selfish and amoral...

somebody else screws up so that gives you the right to do whatever you please... well here's a shocker for ya, the law doesn't see it that way... courts, judges and juries don't give a rat's azz about "your opinion" or "what you thought"...

some of you kiddies are in for a big shock when you are released in the real world on your own...

most, well at least some of us learned it as very small children... if it's yours, you can do pretty much what you want with it... if it's not yours and you don't have permission, then don't mess with it... if it's not yours but you have permission but with restrictions, then try (i realize this is virtually impossible for some of you to grasp) to live up to your agreement (your word, your contract)...

it's called ethics and even most lil kids can be taught it... but so many have rationalized that stealing music, software, etc. is "not really stealing" that they no longer are ethical or honest...

oh btw, when i was working at IBM, we had 2 coops (that should be a familiar word for those of you in school) who were very bright and from a very prominent school, that hacked using IBM's resources... let's see, they got 4 - 8 years in prison, probation for 10 years i think, restitution and a huge fine... they were offered a plea agreement - 2 years, probation for 6 years, full restitution and fine PAID IN FULL THEN and an agreement that they would NEVER touch, own or work with a computer for the rest of their lives... any violation of which would automatically kick in the full prison and probation terms... really f**ked up their plans for using their IT degrees... course that was irrelevant because they were, of course, kicked outta school lol

consider the career options for convicted felons... consider not being able to work anywhere there are computers (not too many places)... consider not owning a computer...

and if you're thinking it "won't happen to me" think again... it happens much more than you think and is usually kept out of the news cause nobody concerned wants it known...

and even if it did happen i'm sure you're thinking "well my wife/gf/whatever would have one i'd use"... lol yeah, right, and they'd be able to blackmail you for life - talk about bein' pwned... rof lmao that would truly be the ultimate...

go ahead and f**k with a large corporation, I DARE YA, no matter how smart ya are, i'm bettin' you lose big time...

i've been on the inside and seen what corps do for their protection... i've seen cpys that are very lax but some exec reads an article and tells the IT manager to chk it out... whoops, now your dumb lil cpy that doesn't even put on the latest patches has a security cpy parachute in check everything out, install very special pgms, etc... your azz is now cooked... cpys, even the worst, are fanatical about backing up so they have a history what's already gone on... course that's not important cause you're already busted cause the first advice the security cpy said was "don't mention this to anyone, NOBODY"! because they know the most likely suspects are IT pros...

btw, anyone doubting my credentials please chk out the above thread link and see if you have any doubts about my legal education/knowledge...

if you have any doubts about my IT credentials i'll tell ya something that most IBMers don't even know about... any of you Thinkpad owners that have depot repair talk to them about what i'm gonna tell ya... they prolly don't know either but they will verify that an R3 pickup is a "hot pickup" (as opposed to an R2) and that the repair facility is located across from the Memphis airport and they now share it with Dell... btw, they also share some tech support facilities with Dell... IBMers have blue badges, contractors have yellow...

why did IBM locate it's notebook repair facility across from the Memphis airport? 'cause that's where CpyX did it's "big sort" every nite and IBM can get out shipments even after mignight so most fixes are a one day turnaround...

BUT, why did IBM stop using CpyX? that doesn't make any sense at all... they did all that and used them from the time they released the first ThinkPad...

well it's because one night the ENTIRE shipment of thinkpads went missing... wow, did they all just happen to get stolen on that night? what are the odds? OR could it be that it was an inside job? yeah, that's much more probable... so that's why CpyX lost it's largest contract and tried almost everything to get it back but to no avail...

lot more to this story and lots of others from inside Big Blue...

so i'm warning you to be careful about doing the right thing when you start your career - actually even before so that you can HAVE a career...

please feel free to check out any/all of what i've related...

how many Thinkpad owners have seen CpyX? (much more likely Airborne or DHL)

just wanted everyone to be aware of these things... not everything in biz or law is reported to the public...

now you can all go back to whatever you were doing lol although you might have some second thoughts now...

sleep well...

[Boogieman117]

My thoughts:
Kids should be suspeneded from school for the rest of the year.
Network admin should be fired.

Now, if you wanted to have unresticted access, go grab Portable Firefox, throw it on a jump drive, and do your thing. Just don't get caught. :)

[Zap Brannigan]

oh btw, when i was working at IBM, we had 2 coops (that should be a familiar word for those of you in school) who were very bright and from a very prominent school, that hacked using IBM's resources... let's see, they got 4 - 8 years in prison, probation for 10 years i think, restitution and a huge fine... they were offered a plea agreement - 2 years, probation for 6 years, full restitution and fine PAID IN FULL THEN and an agreement that they would NEVER touch, own or work with a computer for the rest of their lives... any violation of which would automatically kick in the full prison and probation terms... really f**ked up their plans for using their IT degrees... course that was irrelevant because they were, of course, kicked outta school lol

consider the career options for convicted felons... consider not being able to work anywhere there are computers (not too many places)... consider not owning a computer...

and if you're thinking it "won't happen to me" think again... it happens much more than you think and is usually kept out of the news cause nobody concerned wants it known...

and even if it did happen i'm sure you're thinking "well my wife/gf/whatever would have one i'd use"... lol yeah, right, and they'd be able to blackmail you for life - talk about bein' pwned... rof lmao that would truly be the ultimate...


Thank you Sister Dozit for that sermon, oh I think you left out...

"and if you masterbate your hands will fall off and you will go blind!!! :eek: "

sleep well...

[Dozzit]

lol i have nothing against any kind of sex... as far as i'm concerned anything goes but that's a moral thing and i'm not into regulating morality (unlike some groups in this country)... in fact i'm in favor of eliminating all victimless crimes (prostitution, gambling, etc.)...

no, i was talking law and ethics... just wanted to warn all those that think they can live by their own rules that society has already determined what is right and wrong, they're called laws and once again they couldn't care less what anybody thinks the way things should be or not...

if you only knew my background you'd laff at your nun comparison... not even gonna begin to tell ya my background of criminal activities (some felonies) but i will say this - i was aware that what i was doing was illegal and made no excuses for it...

what i see here (actually moreso in the other thread), is rationalization of illegal things... that's a half-lie and is worse than a whole lie... "the man that tells lies merely hides the truth, the man that tells half-lies forgot where he put it"...

[YuriSEAL]

lol i have nothing against any kind of sex... as far as i'm concerned anything goes but that's a moral thing and i'm not into regulating morality (unlike some groups in this country)... in fact i'm in favor of eliminating all victimless crimes (prostitution, gambling, etc.)...
Prostitution and gambling aren't victimless crimes. Legalized prostitution with standards enforced would be closer to victimless, but as it stands, prostitutes are huge victims. Their lives are ruined by pimps, they're often addicted to drugs, they have debts that they'll never work off (so their pimps take their full profits), and they aren't even doing work they can take pride in. Problem gambling screws people's lives over badly, leaving them with no money (and if they get any, it goes straight to the casino.) Many end up losing jobs or taking up worse habits because of the depression incurred by awareness of their problems. Their families suffer a lot, and if they end up falling all the way, they end up on the street, taking welfare and going to shelters with no end in sight.

Gambling can be fine in some circumstances, and prostitution can be (when workers aren't exploited.) To call either a victimless crime is absurd. Just look up "beaten prostitute" or "murdered prostitute." As for gambling, try "problem gambling."

And as far as prostitution goes, STDs. That's enough to make it a crime with victims in and of itself.

While we're at it, album sales make up almost no portion of the income of many major artists (the record company squeezes that tightly.) Touring is a much better source of income for them, along with merchandise (though again, squeezed.) Now, that still doesn't mean that they're aren't going to lose income...But when you consider the fact that downloading music can get people into a ton of smaller bands, it does somewhat help. I probably wouldn't be a fan of Rhapsody if I hadn't heard their stuff and downloaded some stuff. However, I have, and I would gladly go to one of their shows if they came to my area.

I also maintain a CD collection. For me, downloading music is more about learning about bands than it is about replacing the need to buy music. There certainly are people who are out to download music as a replacement for purchasing it, but don't slam everyone who downloads music. Is it illegal? Sure. So's jaywalking.

Ever notice that band sites are starting to have more and more sample music clips and videos? That's because they're trying to cater to my kind.

[Dozzit]

Prostitution and gambling aren't victimless crimes. Legalized prostitution with standards enforced would be closer to victimless, but as it stands, prostitutes are huge victims. Their lives are ruined by pimps, they're often addicted to drugs, they have debts that they'll never work off (so their pimps take their full profits), and they aren't even doing work they can take pride in. Problem gambling screws people's lives over badly, leaving them with no money (and if they get any, it goes straight to the casino.) Many end up losing jobs or taking up worse habits because of the depression incurred by awareness of their problems. Their families suffer a lot, and if they end up falling all the way, they end up on the street, taking welfare and going to shelters with no end in sight.

Gambling can be fine in some circumstances, and prostitution can be (when workers aren't exploited.) To call either a victimless crime is absurd. Just look up "beaten prostitute" or "murdered prostitute." As for gambling, try "problem gambling."

And as far as prostitution goes, STDs. That's enough to make it a crime with victims in and of itself.you're welcome to your opinion... i agree with many of your pts... yes the way ILLEGAL STREET PROSTITUTION is now is atrocious and a true horror... so many are driven to it by being driven out of their homes by abusive situations (could point out that outlawing abortion would only create many more of these situations, but that's another topic)...

i never said it shouldn't be regulated, obviously it should for the safety of all concerned... to state the obvious, it's known as "the world's oldest profession", why? prolly cause it's true... so i see the chances of stopping it as virtually nil... about the same odds as winning the "war on drugs"... ZERO just like prohibition, all it did was give a lotta power and money to criminals and allowed organized crime to grow to amazing heights...

we are doing the same today with the war on drugs... alcohol is heavily regulated, the state makes a lot off of taxes on it, etc... you don't see "alcohol cartels" or "alcohol kingpins"... it's easier for kids to get illegal drugs than alcohol... you find that desirable?

do you really think that people will stop drinking? using drugs? prostitution? i don't think that many intelligent, honest people would answer in the affirmative...

therefore, whether you or i like it or not, would it not be better to regulate these activities rather than have the horrors we have today?

most illegal drugs are very cheap to make but are expensive to buy ONLY because they are illegal... most drug users do not commit crimes because they are drug users, they commit crimes because they need the money to buy them... we could sell them very cheaply and let people sit at home and use 'em all they want...

keeping all these things illegal makes people who want them deal with criminals and makes many feel less lawabiding because they see "stupid laws" and because they have to break the law to get what they want and this causes a general feeling that laws don't really need to be obeyed...

personally i don't want criminals to have more power, money, etc. and would much prefer to see them put out of business...

i feel sorry for any woman who has to sell her body for money, HOWEVER, if she must or wants to, then i'd much rather see it regulated which would remove all the horrors you mention about STDs, pimps, etc.

our opinions are not as far apart as they might appear... i'm just pragmatic enough to realize and accept the fact that they will never be stopped so the next best thing is to regulate them...

EDIT: victimless crime is a term used for a specific class of crimes... i certainly do recognize, as i stated above, that there are victims, i just would like to see less of them as i'm sure you would too...

[YuriSEAL]

therefore, whether you or i like it or not, would it not be better to regulate these activities rather than have the horrors we have today?
*points to the fact that he already mentioned that regulation would somewhat improve the matter*

most illegal drugs are very cheap to make but are expensive to buy ONLY because they are illegal... most drug users do not commit crimes because they are drug users, they commit crimes because they need the money to buy them... we could sell them very cheaply and let people sit at home and use 'em all they want...
Those cheap drugs are cheap in part because it's pretty easy to throw some dangerous things in to augment weak doses and keep people hooked.

keeping all these things illegal makes people who want them deal with criminals and makes many feel less lawabiding because they see "stupid laws" and because they have to break the law to get what they want and this causes a general feeling that laws don't really need to be obeyed...
If you're going to tell me that the laws preventing the use and sale of crystal meth are "stupid laws," then I'm seriously questioning you. I agree that there are some frivolously outlawed drugs. Marijuana stands out as the prime example. However, there also certainly are popular drugs that will screw the people who take them up quite badly.

i feel sorry for any woman who has to sell her body for money, HOWEVER, if she must or wants to, then i'd much rather see it regulated which would remove all the horrors you mention about STDs, pimps, etc.
It would reduce them. There would still be worries, and the underground prostitution would still probably exist because it's cheaper to do it illegally. Throw in counterfeiting and you make it very difficult to tell that the prostitute isn't actually in a law-abiding prostitution company.

our opinions are not as far apart as they might appear... i'm just pragmatic enough to realize and accept the fact that they will never be stopped so the next best thing is to regulate them...
They don't appear all that far apart. I'm just thinking that you're missing a few key points - and that those points lead to the general consensus that your legalizations might somewhat alleviate society's problems, but that they would also have the potential for aggravating them.

[Mad109er]

when i was kid, I went directly to the teachers' office to correct exams (my exams of course by coping results of other ). Teachers were in the cafeteria, and they let the office open.I did that for 1-2 years.
:)

Wow! That fully explains why you think using Wireless Access Points illegally is fine.

[lysis]

wow. this thread hurts my head.

victimless crimes are a class of crimes that have no direct victim except the person involved, who in your opinion might be a victim. A better term is Consentual Crimes.

As for downloading music, breaking into computer systems, etc. Those who do this and have done this do it for the same reasons that people climb mountains. because they can. This doesn't make it ethical or right. stealing music hurts many people, in very abstract ways. high music prices does too. it keeps you from hearing music. ouch. However, things like this music piracy also invent better ways to do things. Once enough people crossover to digital, which is happening as we speak, the online pricing will drop. People will be legit if it's affordable in their perception. It's just the way it works. It's not justification. It's economics. It's though provoking on the actual social impact. I'm not sold that it was actually a bad thing for society. However, if you are constantly stealing music, you know it is wrong. It's like getting a cup of coffee at the office and not putting your quarter in the money jar. You should feel bad. Many people don't.

So, if you break the law be prepared to pay the price. Know full well that our laws for computer related crimes suck ass right now. You can get burned, and a jury can punish you beyond what your crime deems, especially if they don't really understand what you did. Computers crime scares the sh!t out of the general public who has trouble with their checkbook balancing. Also, never think that you know more than the other guy, cause you don't. Some of you guys were bragging about how you were smarter than the IT guy. You may be right. We've all felt this way. You guys are in a HS. How much money do you think they are allowed to spend? Let's install this new network security software. How much? 13K. Say what? lol. See what I mean.

Sorry for the incoherence, but whatever. my brain is fried from work today.

PS: real 'hackers' or whatever you call them don't brag. they read.

[moman]

I was in H.S. 10 years ago. The h.s. had 5 Gateway computers running Windows 3.1 (hot stuff back then) along a wall and the rest were the old 286SX with DOS variety. Thankfully almost everyone used the older ones so I had free reign to use Microsoft Word to type my papers. One kid showed me the internet (X-rated website) and the computer lab admin, an older lady about 50, was so intrigued she thought it was funny to see all the naked women on my screen. We never did get in trouble.

[Dozzit]

...One kid showed me the internet (X-rated website) and the computer lab admin, an older lady about 50, was so intrigued she thought it was funny to see all the naked women on my screen. We never did get in trouble.that's hilarious! great story, thanks for making my day... ROF LMAO :cheers:

[kur1j]

wow. this thread hurts my head.



So, if you break the law be prepared to pay the price. Know full well that our laws for computer related crimes suck ass right now. You can get burned, and a jury can punish you beyond what your crime deems, especially if they don't really understand what you did. Computers crime scares the sh!t out of the general public who has trouble with their checkbook balancing. Also, never think that you know more than the other guy, cause you don't. Some of you guys were bragging about how you were smarter than the IT guy. You may be right. We've all felt this way. You guys are in a HS. How much money do you think they are allowed to spend? Let's install this new network security software. How much? 13K. Say what? lol. See what I mean.

Sorry for the incoherence, but whatever. my brain is fried from work today.

PS: real 'hackers' or whatever you call them don't brag. they read.

Thank you, i think you are the only one that has made any sense in this whole thread.

[IronChancellor]

To be honest I can't think of a legitimate reason to be handing out computers to high school students in the first place. It sounds like an enormous expenditure and liability in return for...what? I took AP Comp Sci in high school was never in a position where the in-school computers were inadequate for fulfilling class requirements. What possible justification does the district have for the expenditure?

[G-Omaha]

Suspect that the number of students "enrolled", the changes of society, and the general imprtance of being able to use a computer are germane.

When I was in high scholl, we had an old Klienschmidt KSR as a terminal (in math club) that about 10/15 students were able to use. The terminal was connected to the NU computer via a 150 baud (high speed) communications link. And then again, that was in 1969. State of the art and "social" requirements have changed.

I think it's a good thing; however, the administration was a bit flawed and the reactions went way overboard.

[Dozzit]

...Negligence on the part of one party does not justify the illegal or immoral actions of another party...totally true...

The negligent party still shares some responsibility for the action however...not always so, it really depends on the situation... i.e. the negligence of someone who is guilty of a "violation" or a misdemeanor (differ on jurisdiction) might not mitigate any of the felonious actions of someone else... it really would depend the specific situation… if i leave/drop my keys on my front porch (negligence), i don't think any court would consider it a mitagating factor if someone steals everything in my home... on the other hand, if i'm negligent enough to hand a loaded gun to someone (especially a child), it fires and seriously injuries me, then that is a major mitigating factor...

And the parents suing for their kids browsing on to porn sites? Its not like once unlocked with the administrator password, a bunch of links in the Favorites menu were unlocked providing access to porn. They still purposely went to those sites themselves…absolutely… same as a kid stealing a phone and calling up 900 sex lines – going to xxx sites was totally the kids’ idea… obviously (safe assumption i think lol) the school does NOT promote xxx surfing...

However... This IS America, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some form of lawsuit. LOLLMAO yep, you got that right - it's the American way lol... no doubt there will be more than one cause of action...

EDIT: that's weird, this post is BEFORE the post i'm quoting... guess it's the new software...

[Dozzit]

well now we know how the story ends...

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=5836

The case against the "Kutztown 13"--a group of Pennsylvania high school students charged with felonies for tinkering with their school-issued laptop computers--seems to be ending mostly with a whimper.

In meetings with students over the last several days, the Berks County, Pa., juvenile probation office has quietly offered the students a deal in which all charges would be dropped in exchange for 15 hours of community service, a letter of apology, a class on personal responsibility, and a few months of probation.

"The probation department realizes this is small potatoes," said William Bispels, an attorney representing nearly half the accused students.

The 13 initially were charged with computer trespass and computer theft, both felonies, and could have faced a wide range of sanctions, including juvenile detention.

The Kutztown Area School District said it reported the students to police only after detentions, suspensions, and other punishments failed to deter them from breaking school rules governing computer usage. (See "Felony charges for computer-abusing kids.")

[Dozzit]

this new software is totally hosed... new posts not showing up at the end of the thread...

EDIT: THE SERVER HANDLING THIS SOFTWARE HAD THE TIME SET INCORRECTLY FOR A WHILE... NOT GONNA EVEN COMMENT ON WHAT MOST IT PPL THINK OF THAT...

[ouminan]

A quick observation to those who believe the kids should get off due to negligence on the part of the network admins...

Joyriding/Stealing a car that someone left their key in is still a crime. Negligence on the part of one party does not justify the illegal or immoral actions of another party. The negligent party still shares some responsibility for the action however.

I agree with the earlier post which stated that both the network administrator and the students should be punished for what happened.

And the parents suing for their kids browsing on to porn sites? Its not like once unlocked with the administrator password, a bunch of links in the Favorites menu were unlocked providing access to porn. They still purposely went to those sites themselves. However... This IS America, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some form of lawsuit. LOL

[Zap Brannigan]

What I don't understand is what exactly would the kids be charged with? They broke a school agreement, thats not really a crime at least not in Canada. I broke my school agreement tonnes of times about what types a shirts and clothing I was allowed to wear (and thankfully so did many, many girls) and not once was it neccessary for me to go to court.

Accessing Internet and downloading chat programs and porn might be a good reason not to give teenage boys access to a computer but its not a very good reason to spend money prosecuting them for something thats not even a crime. The internet they were using probably wasn't stolen and if it was I get the feeling that wasn't the issue.

$850,000 to provide the lappys + $850, 000 to prosecute each case of misuse over four years = poor fiscal planning.

Of course this is Canada where if you try and get your nieghbor arrested for stealing your internet the police do jack all and tell you "why don't you just secure it?"...why doesn't he just not steal it?!!....what was I talking about again...oh yeah say no to drugs

[Dozzit]

What I don't understand is what exactly would the kids be charged with? They broke a school agreement, thats not really a crime at least not in Canada. I broke my school agreement tonnes of times about what types a shirts and clothing I was allowed to wear (and thankfully so did many, many girls) and not once was it neccessary for me to go to court.

Accessing Internet and downloading chat programs and porn might be a good reason not to give teenage boys access to a computer but its not a very good reason to spend money prosecuting them for something thats not even a crime. The internet they were using probably wasn't stolen and if it was I get the feeling that wasn't the issue.

$850,000 to provide the lappys + $850, 000 to prosecute each case of misuse over four years = poor fiscal planning.

Of course this is Canada where if you try and get your nieghbor arrested for stealing your internet the police do jack all and tell you "why don't you just secure it?"...why doesn't he just not steal it?!!....what was I talking about again...oh yeah say no to drugsthere's way too much we don't know...

minors (age depends on state, usually 18 - 21) cannot enter into a contract... however their parents can... assuming the parents signed, then THEY are liable because they agreed to be bound by the actions of their kids, IF the contract specified that, etc...

unauthorized use of an internet conn, downloading porn, etc. may be a crime in that jurisdiction, if so then the kids are responsible for their actions...

again, all this is speculation because we just don't have anywhere near all the facts concerning what happened, what was signed, statutes in that jurisdiction, etc.

you have to realize that we're a country that prosecutes 12 year olds as adults for murder (in some instances, depending on jurisdiction, etc.), possibly exposing them to the death penalty...

btw, it doesn’t cost anywhere near $850k to prosecute for crimes of this type…

but again, just like the "Florida guy stealing wireless broadband" thread (http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=93800), it would appear that torts (civil wrongs) were committed thus a cause of action (lawsuit) would be the best way to go... that’s the way i’d go about burning that guy in FL… he'd be begging for a settlement when he saw how much it was gonna cost him...

[FC4]

Dozzit, you do not provide any proof of your "awesome LOL" "IT pwnzor" "cred-LMAO-entials" in the thread that you say does just that. Note how I typed those quotes. I think you are a sissy little bitch who gets off on pretending to be someone online. I think you are about 12, because your lack of capitolization and punctuation, never mind spelling or grammar, sure seem to point to that. If you are "a l33t sup4 h@x0rZ dude w0rking f0 the IB-Man" or whatever the hell your immature, incoherent, spastic mind would force you to type, then I am sure I am a really f***ing high speed, low drag operator working for Blackwater. Oh yeah, here are my credentials: *random thread where I posted*

You suck. Your writing sucks. You talk too much, and say nothing of value. Beat it.

[Zap Brannigan]

[QUOTE=Dozzit]
btw, it doesn’t cost anywhere near $850k to prosecute for crimes of this type…
QUOTE]

It could easily, easily cost that much over a four year cycle prosecuting every case where a student broke the contractual agreement(at least it would in Canada). Cost of the court room, judge, balif, prosecuter, very likely the defendent, investigators, cops, school staff involvement * hours for each case * each student. Plus the fact your not prosecuting other cases. I think I know where I can find a hard number of the average cost of a criminal trial in canada, i'll post it if I find it.

[Dozzit]

....$850,000 to provide the lappys + $850, 000 to prosecute each case of misuse over four years = poor fiscal planning...i have no idea where you get your figures from, i would appreciate an itemized list...

i'm familiar with court costs in the SE... for the average misdemeanor it's several hundred dollars, for the average felony it's less than a thousand dollars...

for a case to reach $850,000, you would have to have witnesses on the stand for months, you'd have to have a lot of expert witnesses, etc.

i'm very familiar with a murder trial of a juvenile, who was tried as an adult, and his defense was that antidepressants were the cause... a complicated case... there were quite a few experts involved and other special costs and it was less than $850,000 and i'm fairly certain that the average murder case is less than a million... however, if the state is seeking the death penalty, then i'd bet it probably would be a million or more...

btw, remember the court costs DO NOT include high priced defense attorneys and all they bring to the table... those costs are shouldered by the defendant...

again, i'd really appreciate you providing an itemized list...

courthouses themselves are used for many decades so that is a minor cost... the true costs are the judge, prosecutor, clerk, reporter, etc.

speaking on behalf of a judge, he said he wished it was that much cause he'd make a lot more money lol

[Dozzit]

btw, my numbers come from a judge that gives sentences that include court costs so he's seen them many times and from my personal experiences...

he was the one who suggested i ask you to itemize your costs to see where the money's going... when i mentioned $850,000 he said "what kind of case is it?"

when i told him, he said he'd be happy to arrange all costs for all the students (not just ONE as you mentioned) AND include all appellate costs for $850,000...

obviously there are cases that do cost that and much more, but they are the exception...

[Dozzit]

btw, you changed the standard in your last post from EACH student to EVERY student...

[Zap Brannigan]

like I said I'll post it if I find it.

[Zap Brannigan]

Assuming they are tried as adults (everything is more expensive b/c they are kids but meh)

Police - average cost = 3019.25
Police Resources in Canada, 2002, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Catalogue no. 85-225-XIE

Court Costs = 2744.28
Courts Personnel and Expenditures, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Catalogue no. 85‑403‑XIE

Prosecution = 143.97
Criminal Prosecutions Personnel and Expenditures 2000/01 Catalogue no. 85-402-XIE

Legal Aid = 812.69
Legal Aid in Canada: Resources and Caseload Statistics 2000-01 Catalogue no. 85F0015XIE

Adult Correctional Services
Adult Correctional Services in Canada, 2000-2001
Daily cost of offenders in custody = $137.44
Daily cost of offenders in Community supervision = 3.64
*lets assume no one goes to jail and everyone gets a conditional sentence and 364 days of community supervision.

[3019.25+2744.28+143.97+812.69+ (3.64*364)]*13 students*4 years

Total Net Cost = 418,347.80

In sum I was way off but if they put the little buggers in prison for 90 days each it hits close to a 1,000,000.00

[Mr. K6]

wow, if this thread gives anything it's entertainment :lol:

[Dozzit]

geez i posted this earlier, don't have a clue why it's not showing up...

the costs of the cops is way off, they don't make much and these kids/parents will turn themselves in... they're obviously not a flight risk... course if your cops are like ours and you count the donut time, then it would run much higher lol

legal aid is really not a court cost… it’s only available to indigents so they have fair representation…

I assume the reason the costs are lower here is because the dockets stay full so it’s a more efficient process…

also heard that judges there use hockey sticks instead of gavels lol (thought you, as a Canadian, would appreciate that:cheers: )
___________________
this is a repeat of my earlier post but just in case anyone missed it...

well now we know how the story ends...

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=5836

The case against the "Kutztown 13"--a group of Pennsylvania high school students charged with felonies for tinkering with their school-issued laptop computers--seems to be ending mostly with a whimper.

In meetings with students over the last several days, the Berks County, Pa., juvenile probation office has quietly offered the students a deal in which all charges would be dropped in exchange for 15 hours of community service, a letter of apology, a class on personal responsibility, and a few months of probation.

"The probation department realizes this is small potatoes," said William Bispels, an attorney representing nearly half the accused students.

The 13 initially were charged with computer trespass and computer theft, both felonies, and could have faced a wide range of sanctions, including juvenile detention.

The Kutztown Area School District said it reported the students to police only after detentions, suspensions, and other punishments failed to deter them from breaking school rules governing computer usage. (See "Felony charges for computer-abusing kids.")

[Dozzit]

oh, just a note, the laws are really different from state to state...

for instance, in NY if a juvenile commits murder he'll be released with a clean record at age 21 (this is old info so they may have changed)... whereas in the SE i've seen 12 year olds tried as adults for first degree murder and the prosecutor was seeking the death penalty... in fact i don't ever remember a kid charged with murder in the SE that wasn't tried as an adult...

Southeners take crime very seriously...

Kennesaw, GA REQUIRES every household to have a firearm and ammunition... here's a link (http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/firearms/laws/us/ga/kennesaw.html)...

i used to live near there in Marietta and loved tellin' ppl about that law... most didn't believe me so i told 'em to google it... lol they sell t-shirts with it on em hehe

[abf]

my school uses macs of all sorts, 90% of which are on OS X, some are OS 9. There are a few PCs (for CAD Drafting) but they are not networked. Since linux is oh so close to OS X, i've been learning a lot about linux and home and have been trying to transfer some of those skills to get some stuff done in OS X.

before this year, each student login had 40GB of space...thats a hell lot. However, some of my friends started distributing and promoting the use of Bit Torrent and limewire. Needless to say the administration found out and for this year has limited all student accounts to 20MB. Since OS X does not require installation in the same sense as linux or windows, you just get the .app from the .dmg and you double click that, i've managed to get several of my own programs on, but due to space limitations, i can't do anymore more. I have firefox 1.5, opera 8.5, fire, arachnophelia html editor, audacity, and VideoLAN. Hell, those programs are great alternatives to IE for mac or safari, ichat, bbedit, and itunes. the sad part is that the unzipper is blocked, both gui and terminal.

the limitations go as far as most system configuration (you can still change your desktop, dock settings, some theme details, screensaver), some applications (like the unzipper) have been blocked, and write access to all local folders except for /shared have been blocked.

come to think of it, torrent can still be used. just download the movie or wahtever to the /shared folder (about 20-60gb, depends on computer), and then come back with a flash drive and carry it home (better have a big flashdrive.....mine is a gig :))

[unknownman_007]

Okay, wow.

Whoever taped the password on the back of the computer deserves the most trouble IMO...

They could've done way worse then chat and look at porn. They could've installed viruses onto the network that would allow them to change their own grades or something like that.

The case could've been way worse.

[jumico]

It said only one kid looked at porn. I think? Who cares if the kids download a chat program? I saw this on tv and one of the kids said that when people speed they expect to get a fine not be arrested.

[2sl0w]

oh, just a note, the laws are really different from state to state...

for instance, in NY if a juvenile commits murder he'll be released with a clean record at age 21 (this is old info so they may have changed)... whereas in the SE i've seen 12 year olds tried as adults for first degree murder and the prosecutor was seeking the death penalty... in fact i don't ever remember a kid charged with murder in the SE that wasn't tried as an adult...

Southeners take crime very seriously...

Kennesaw, GA REQUIRES every household to have a firearm and ammunition... here's a link (http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/firearms/laws/us/ga/kennesaw.html)...

i used to live near there in Marietta and loved tellin' ppl about that law... most didn't believe me so i told 'em to google it... lol they sell t-shirts with it on em hehe

wow i live right on the kennasaw / acworth line...

[ChrisCrisis]

In my High School, (graduated 2005) I was one of only about 3 kids that regularly brought a laptop to my classes. I could tell that just me having it irritated the hell out of most of my teachers.

[MitchellO]

I too am one of few who bring a laptop to school (I finish Yr12 at high school at the end of 2006) and my teachers are pretty good. My SDD (Software Design) teacher is cool with it, and my other two teachers are pretty good. It will be much better though now that I have 710m because it is so much smaller and will make less noise (i8600's fans were too loud at times).

[TekWarren]

I've worked in eduction almost 10yrs doing IT support/administration. All I can really say is that much of the time when things like this come up there is actually very little "work" or "hacking" being done by the student(s). Its almost always a stupid mistake with poor security, a teacher computer left logged in who stepped out of the room, OR even some teachers freely giving students their staff login info...yep they are that ignorant sometimes.

This article sounds like it is exactly that...yes there is a line between right and wrong, and most students won't know what they have...even when its taped to the computer, but if the students are going to punished I would say so should the (IT or other) staff responsible.

I have a deep respect for educators but even the teachers need to be tought sometimes.

[GrnEggsNHam]

Heh well I am 20 years old and the IT/Network Admin for a High School. Oddly enough it is the same school that I was running amok in 2 years ago. Needless to say I am more worried about statutory rape than anything else :eek: .

[SLIPKNOTN21]

stupid ass holes shoudl have been jacking off to the porn that they were loocking at dumbasses god, i woudlnt have payed them shit **** you

[pyro_dragun]

Haha ^ got banned again.

[Progneta]

stup***id ass holes shoudl have been jacking off to the porn that they were loocking at dumba***sses god, i woudlnt have payed them s****hit **** you


WOW!


?

[amazin asian]

Funny thing, as I had just been on our school's Windows 2000 computers just yesterday, (or as of now, two days ago.) I didn't try to do anything to harsh, or just plain idiotic, other than log onto the admistrator account which I presumed to be unpassworded. Well at least that was blocked. Most people in the class I was in (9th grade English) didn't even know how to work word right (then again, I didn't know how to turn on the computers in the Mac lab.) Really, after reading this thread, I think I've already decided it's not worth even trying to do.

Some of this did prove quite idiotic, such as how 10 years ago the lab admin would laugh at kids looking at porn, how people would be dumb enough to put the passwords were everyone would have access to it (such as under the computer or in a easily accessable text file), and other things. Obviously, if you don't have permission to find a security flaw, don't even try it, cause once your busted it won't matter whether you had good intentions or not. These kids obviously didn't have any good intentions at all.

One thing that might stop this is to just use a system that is more naturaly hardened for environments where it needs highly restricted public access. Windows is almost to easy to crack, simply because its used so much that all ways to crack it have already been found, most just haven't been stoped. I wouldn't know if using a Linux distro would help with this, and Mac's seem even simpler to crack (thought I find them 10x harded to use haha) but posible someone should try looking into a school room safe computer operating system. And to really stop almost everyone, put a password in the BIOS and stop it from booting via usb devices or cds. Also it would help if schools actualy let some people try and find these holes, but having students find them still might not be a good idea, simply because then those students would know where to look, and posible find a way around any measures to block what they have already found. Also, they could decide to try and see if these flaws were apperent on other public computers, which they could get busted for and have their lives ruined.

Something needs to be done, as the digital word is moving closer and closer, and most people don't know how to use it, which means it has to be easy to use, which means its gonna be easy to hack too. If they were made harded to hack in the first place, then no one would use them because they would be so scared of them because they dont know how to use them. And now I am merely rambling on and I'm gonna just end this here...

[SLIPKNOTN21]

Lol.

[MethodOne]

When I was in fifth grade, one of the teachers accidentally gave me the admin password, which is the city of the school. I used it to access the regular Mac OS 7 file manager because At Ease sucked. I was also able to run Netscape Navigator 3 on the computers in the lab. They really had bad IT security at the time.

In middle school, they locked down the Macs with a program called FoolProof, which prevented me from deleting files or installing apps. That means I had to save all my Claris/AppleWorks documents on a floppy. In the library, the only games that they have are the Sim games (SimCity 2000, SimEarth, etc.) and Number Munchers. When the iMacs running Mac OS 9 came, the admin blocked the sound recorder because people were making recordings of swearing. I was also able to access the Internet, but their connection was horribly slow. The only time I was banned is when I merely downloaded an exe file.

In high school, they were exclusively using PCs running Windows 98. A lot of the students were playing Web games, listening to/viewing streams, and checking Web mail. That came to an end when the admin installed a Web filter, which blocked stuff like http://www.candystand.com, "games", "mail," "radio," "chat," "messenger," and eBay. From then on, I brought some games on floppies and avoided blocked terms. When I was a senior, I tried using Firefox to get around, but that didn't work. I decided to use my KNOPPIX 3.8 CD on one of the computers, but it didn't boot and the BIOS password was set. So I brought my flash drive and boot Damn Small Linux from a floppy. The library's computers had the floppy boot disabled. But I booted successfully from one of the classroom computers.

I'm now taking courses at a tech school for a degree in computer networking. They don't care if I use my live CDs or store DOOM on the server.

[amazin asian]

Looks like all of us at some point or another have tried to get arround our schools sercurity just to have the pride and joy that we can.

[MitchellO]

Lol, yeah. I have multiple times. Sometimes I'm just bored and its fun to poke around. I've never actually done anything to it though.

The things I discovered include:

* Access the C drive through MS Word (standard Explorer access was blocked)
* Access student pictures through library server (all images stored as JPG)
* Use Portable (USB) Firefox to access any website (even school blocked ones) using the MSN Messenger server as a proxy. This was my favourite hack :lol:
* Copy/Move/Open files on C Drive using my own VB6 App (after Word exploit was blocked)
* Print to any printer in the school (even staffroom ones)
* Run MSN Messenger 7 off USB Drive through school proxy
* Connect my laptop to network and access internet and my own student drive (through school proxy)
* Start Windows Games (Solitaire, Minesweeper, Spider Sol, Pinball, Freecell) using my own VB6 launcher. The games were blocked if you tried shortcuts :D

[amazin asian]

i wouldnt dare bring my laptop near my school
hahaha

[MitchellO]

:lol: Why?

[FearlessFozz]

The school officials have to admit at least some responsibility for giving out the password.

At my high school, we would figure out how to get past our restrictions. It was pretty easy for me and some of my friends, as we just had to use usb keys, Knoppix cds, go into internet explorer and type in C:\whatever, or anything else that was viable.

I remember this article a while back. That was the admin password for the first attempt by the students. They repeat offended the school contracts by using a linux live cd to crack the passwords several other times. So this wasn't just one time of the students finding the password out. They did it several times, with each time using something a little more serious.

And the real question here is that they ALL sign computer use contracts stating they wouldn't do this. Like it or not they signed themselves their own jail time. So this isn't an issue of the school should have had better security. Its an issue of the students shouldn't have been so dumb.

I work at the helpdesk at my college andwe give out computer accounts to students for the computer lab. We have rules and we make them sign a contract each semester to confirm those rules. If they get cought breaking the rules they loose all computer previliges for life at our college. Do people actually read the contracts. Its one thing if students think we are just bluffing our threats of actions but its another very scary thing if people sign things freely without actually reading what they are signing.....

[Dozzit]

that only works if everyone is at least 18 or if parents sign the agreements too...

btw, a contract is an offer and voluntary acceptance of that offer... that cannot happpen unless the parties have reached the age of majority...

[eclypse3demons]

Even though the students should not be doing that, it seems like they should have a little better security setup (taped password on the back of some computers). :lol:

On CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/09/kutztown.hackers.ap/index.html


If you go into a jewelry store and smash a display case with a rock and take a watch, then get caught you very well cannot use the excuse "they should have used bulletproof glass"

No matter if the username and password to get internet access was just laying on the floor for all to see, they knew they were not supposed to use it =) Their only excuse is they are dumb kids who broke a rule. Nothing new to see here...

[Spartan-013]

at my school we used to get past blocked sites by using translation pages like babelfish and translatin gweb pages form ne foreign language to english until thy eblocke dthose hten we used anonymous proxys usb keys and other ways to get past blocked sites until they jsut gave up and now few sites are blocked
on my last day of school lat year i connected to the schools system and hosted and unrealt tournament 2003 lan party it was awesoem :dude: we had newhere from 10 to 20 ppl on a ta t ime and everyone loved but this year unrealt tournament was deleted from the network

[soulsaver_8229]

PS: real 'hackers' or whatever you call them don't brag. they read.
QFT.......and the people who brag, are the people who download hacking style programs, or event loggers or whatever and are like oh my farking teh g0dz0rs im a l337 ha4oxs0rz, its retarded

but then again there are some wee little 14-17 year olds who got a computer at such a young age they just remember having to use dos prompt to get anywhere, and such

me personaly, i know a hacker, well more of a war driver with wifi/land lines, he does it for personal reasearch of sorts (he makes its so more people go to porn sites, more hits he gets more money porn sites pay him) hes 16-17ish, paying for his own car, his mom never asks what he does, she said i dont want to know, as long as you wont get in trouble

of course sooner or later he will, but 4 grand a month isnt bad

and to anyone that abuses someones open access point is pretty retarded
schools are government properity, put them in jail with "big john" and "black ice" they will treat them right ;)


then again anyone that keeps theirs unsecure (sigh my gf's dad) is just as retarded

soulsaver

[soulsaver_8229]

If you go into a jewelry store and smash a display case with a rock and take a watch, then get caught you very well cannot use the excuse "they should have used bulletproof glass"

No matter if the username and password to get internet access was just laying on the floor for all to see, they knew they were not supposed to use it =) Their only excuse is they are dumb kids who broke a rule. Nothing new to see here...
someone used that on hardforums when we were talking about that florida guy, maybe it was me? i forgot

but honestly, stealing ummmm......internet? (i was gonna say information floating in air?) and stealing a pound of gold...........theres a diffrence

to me, if you want wifi access you should take a test on what you know about it

stealing pixels in air shouldnt be a crime unless your using someones bandwith to commit any sort of crime

downloading illegal music is a nonissue, we all do it, im sure the clintion daughters, and bush daughters do it religiously, doesnt bother me one bit, my 60 gig drive is full of it

and its sad that we have to hide this too.........but alas, such is the UNMONITERED internet.........go find child porn addicts, pedos going after young girls or boys, dont hag on me cause i have Big Mommas House 2 when its still in movie theaters....

be having an illegal movie wont have the chance to fux0rs my life to shizzle, thinking A_caring_person going to meet lisa_emo_68 meeting togheter and somthing very horrid happening to her makes me think her life wont be the same

im getting tired of this government.........whatever, live with it or die trying to fight it

soulsaver

[bobobobob123]

Are they saying that's hacking?
It's peeking as far as I know...
I did download thing in school everyonce in a while.

[cHRoNiCauST]

There are so many things people can do, the best way to stop hacking in schools and stuff is just to make sure every room with a computer is monitored at all times. I'm 13, I'll admit it, I'm just giving my own opinion of what they should do. Software is so fragile, you can always break it, crack it, and do something you're not supposed to. If they just put people who have some clue what they're doing in those rooms with the computers then you only have to worry about students bringing their own computers...

[xLiquidx]

You have very good spelling and grammar for a 13 year old. If only half of the teens on the internet had even half as much skill...

Sorry for the randomness, but I figured I'd applaud you on that.;)

[kwondo]

passwords at our school have ranged from our mascot name "cougars" to things like room numbers. it makes them look dumb when rainbow table servers take 15 seconds to crack the LM hases on the admin passwords. makes ME look dumb when i say "hey, i could have GUESSED that one...d'oh"
i think general password security is not regarded as it should be, and the student population at schools are often underestimated to their abilities to cause havok on critical resources. but as long as this ignorance exists...i will continue to exploit it :ph34r: :lol:

kwondo

[Huang Zhi Peng]

I admit that i used my own notwbook and hook onto the school internet and use the internet to harress and disturb many people. I am sorry about that and i am here to make up for all the misdeeds which i had done. Sorry Mr BillMorrow and fellow moderators and fellow schoolmate: NS.

Sorry, I have changed and mend my ways. Please forgive me.

[Firewarrior]

I have also found a loophole in my college's Windows 2000 OS, get a USB Mass Storage Device (any for that matter but card reader's works the best).

Log into the system but make sure you stick in the USB Card reader with a memory card inserted and then wait, a error will come up and the system will go into the admin account.

I then saw some files for next week's work and some answers to upcoming test's I didn't go into this and left it, but I still use it sometimes to go on some sites. (not porno mind you):Angel:
****ed yes very.:saywhat: :eek:

[MitchellO]

I asked the IT Dept in 2003 if I could connect my laptop to my schools LAN for access to the internet and my network drive (all for school purposes of course). They said they would get back to be. I asked several times after that with the same response.

In 2004 I decided I has waited long enough. After a little bit of research using various tools, I was able to make my laptop look like one of the school PC, with full access to my network drive and the internet. All without the IT dept. All I did was unplug whatever computer I was near, use its IP address and I was away surfing.

I also found several ways around their network permissions. I found ways to access most of the files on the main server, even though access had been restricted to administrators. Simple fact is they don't stress test these systems, and when a student is bored out of their brains in a free period, its fun to poke and around and see what you can find :D

[Firewarrior]

I asked the IT Dept in 2003 if I could connect my laptop to my schools LAN for access to the internet and my network drive (all for school purposes of course). They said they would get back to be. I asked several times after that with the same response.

In 2004 I decided I has waited long enough. After a little bit of research using various tools, I was able to make my laptop look like one of the school PC, with full access to my network drive and the internet. All without the IT dept. All I did was unplug whatever computer I was near, use its IP address and I was away surfing.

I also found several ways around their network permissions. I found ways to access most of the files on the main server, even though access had been restricted to administrators. Simple fact is they don't stress test these systems, and when a student is bored out of their brains in a free period, its fun to poke and around and see what you can find :D

Very lol I also did this when i visited a University for a day (It was trip to see how Uni life was like):thumbup:

[MitchellO]

Lol :thumbup:

[Firewarrior]

Lol :thumbup: Now I'm gonna apply for that Uni so I can go on anything in my dorm:eek: :headbang:

[polishman]

i got in serious trouble at school when i "misused" a computer, our school district has a central server, with each school in the district having access to it, but i thought, what if we can use the other schools partitions? so i tested this, andd accessed the other schools shared folders(shared folders are folders that any logged in student can access) no problem, no protection, no nothing, just the other school's students files, so i just started like copying stuff to my folder, and nobody noticed, but one day i saw the other schools yearbook, so i tried to copy that, but i accidentally took it into my folder, and theen they exagerated it and they said i did some crazy serious crap, andd then the day after i went to turn in work early to my math teacher(she is a whore/bitch and really stupid) and so she starts yelling at me that i hacked the server, but in reality, i just clicked the left mouse button about 7 times total.... and theen whats even funnier, is that i didnt even steal the yearbook, i just moved it to my accounts folder(on accident) which is still on the school district server, so i just moved it from one place to another within the same directory, but my math teacher spills all this crap about how if this was outside of school i wouldve gotten arrested........ and that i hacked the school serveer and crap, but all i did was click like 7 times and drag accidentally, its like a crook opens an unlocked door in an apartment building and then takes the refrigerator in there and moves it from the kitchen to the living room.......... so its pretty stupid, as is my school, nobody knows about technology at all, not even the teachers, they just hire some tech admin to do some crap for them

[Firewarrior]

i got in serious trouble at school when i "misused" a computer, our school district has a central server, with each school in the district having access to it, but i thought, what if we can use the other schools partitions? so i tested this, andd accessed the other schools shared folders(shared folders are folders that any logged in student can access) no problem, no protection, no nothing, just the other school's students files, so i just started like copying stuff to my folder, and nobody noticed, but one day i saw the other schools yearbook, so i tried to copy that, but i accidentally took it into my folder, and theen they exagerated it and they said i did some crazy serious crap, andd then the day after i went to turn in work early to my math teacher(she is a whore/bitch and really stupid) and so she starts yelling at me that i hacked the server, but in reality, i just clicked the left mouse button about 7 times total.... and theen whats even funnier, is that i didnt even steal the yearbook, i just moved it to my accounts folder(on accident) which is still on the school district server, so i just moved it from one place to another within the same directory, but my math teacher spills all this crap about how if this was outside of school i wouldve gotten arrested........ and that i hacked the school serveer and crap, but all i did was click like 7 times and drag accidentally, its like a crook opens an unlocked door in an apartment building and then takes the refrigerator in there and moves it from the kitchen to the living room.......... so its pretty stupid, as is my school, nobody knows about technology at all, not even the teachers, they just hire some tech admin to do some crap for them

Very stupid teacher :eek:

[Guerrilla]

So few schools, if any, practice good security on their wireless, LAN or computers. I remember at my old high school you would lose computer "privelages" if you used the built in Novell messager on the network. My friends and I found a way to mask our user names as the chair of the IT dept. He was ticked, but never found it was us or how it happened/how to stop it. We also discovered the admin passwords. The funny part about that was I later became the IT computer administrator there for my Junior and Senior years and had to choke back a laugh when they gave me the passwords and told me to keep them safe.

Later at my university I discovered the dorms' LAN connection would somehow override all security settings and allow me to access any computer on the network. I discovered it was the program you were required to install and run to use the connection. I had a few fun days checking out what music other people had on their play lists and then messing with them (all the connections were labeled with a room number) by telling them what music they listen to. I moved out of the dorms after that. And you're talking a Big 10 university here.

In other words, schools suck at administrating their own security. Even if they do, the number one security risk is the faculty. If you pretend to be able to fix a computer problem a faculty member mentions they're having, I bet almost any of them would fork voer the username/password.

[marcfantastic]

This isnt a police issue...bottom line.

[Kakureru]

hehe, the local middle school has an open WIFI and and 3 apartment buildings behind it. This is NOT a good situation for them :P

[Spartan-117]

bump.

[moidock]

Pump.

[Spartan-117]

lol