[Update: Possible deal? "... In meetings with students over the last several days, the Berks County 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 of the accused students," Michael Rubinkam reports for The Associated Press..."]I haven't had much to write about in a while, but I thought this was important enough to write about. According to a article from the Associated Press:
"... KUTZTOWN, Pennsylvania (AP) -- They're being called the Kutztown 13 -- a group of high schoolers charged with felonies for bypassing security with school-issued laptops, downloading forbidden Internet goodies and using monitoring software to spy on district administrators...
... The kids basically stumbled through an open rabbit hole and found Wonderland," Polly, a library technology administrator, said of the Kutztown 13... The trouble began last fall after the district issued some 600 Apple iBook laptops to every student at the high school about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The computers were loaded with a filtering program that limited Internet access. They also had software that let administrators see what students were viewing on their screens... But those barriers proved easily surmountable: The administrative password that allowed students to reconfigure computers and obtain unrestricted Internet access was easy to obtain. A shortened version of the school's street address, the password was taped to the backs of the computers... The password got passed around, and students began downloading such forbidden programs as the popular iChat instant-messaging tool... At least one student viewed pornography. Some students also turned off the remote monitoring function and turned the tables on their elders-- using it to view administrators' own computer screens... The administrative password on some laptops was subsequently changed, but some students got hold of that one, too, and decrypted it with a password-cracking program they found on the Internet... The district isn't backing down, however... It points out that students and parents were required to sign a code of conduct and acceptable use policy, which contained warnings of legal action... The 13 students charged violated that policy, said Kutztown Police Chief Theodore Cole, insisting the school district had exhausted all options short of expulsion before seeking the charges. Cole said, however, that there is no evidence the students attacked or disabled the school's computer network, altered grades or did anything else that could be deemed malicious..."
This is an interesting story. As far as I know, and I am no legal guru, you have to be 18 to sign a legally binding contract, so in fact, wouldn't the parents be held responsible for the act of hacking? Anyways... as the article point out... what happens if these kids have a criminal record and they apply to college, I'm guessing it's got to hurt their chances a bit. On the other hand, these kids knew they weren't supposed to be doing what they were doing. They should be punished a bit, but shouldn't the teachers and administrators who protect these computers be disciplined as well? As one person (
zupchuck) wrote on a message board, regarding this topic, "What would the charge be if all this student data were found lying on the hallway floor? Or if a teacher left their grade book wide open on the desk while they
('re) gone for 15 minutes? Granted, the students were wrong. But the school staff that left the barn door open should bare responsibility, too. Felony? Get a grip." I hope these kids learn a lesson, but not while they sit in a juvenile detention center.
