High School Hackers Face Expulsion

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Where is that "son, I am so disappoint" meme picture when you need it? I blame those "tween" Disney movies that portray this type of behavior as cool. Quick, someone call a lawyer.

A group of teens at a high school in Berkeley, Calif. charged fellow students between $2 and $20 to remove records of tardiness and unexcused absences from their permanent records. For a price, they'd even sell other kids the password to the attendance system, which was stolen from a member of the school's staff.
Click to expand...
 
Steve said:
I like how "stolen password" = hackers
Click to expand...

It's how Mitnik managed to gain access to most systems. Social engineering is far > than exploiting in practical terms of security breaching - and it is considered a form of hacking.
 
I'm surprised the school and police aren't pushing for a federal charges to make an example out of those involved.
 
This is pretty lame. Hopefully these "hackers" decide to use their talents for more lawful purposes. But expulsion does not help society, these kids still need their education.
 
kcmastrpc said:
It's how Mitnik managed to gain access to most systems. Social engineering is far > than exploiting in practical terms of security breaching - and it is considered a form of hacking.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't exactly call copying a yellow sticky note attached to a monitor as social engineering. Why can't the teacher be reprimanded for leaving the password out and or using a weak password?
 
So an extended vacation is considered punishment? I'd think that punishment would be better served in a mandatory extended class from hell. In class all day and after school,with a Drill Sergeant of a teacher. YOU WILL LEARN YOUR LESSON BOY!
 
siliconnerd said:
I wouldn't exactly call copying a yellow sticky note attached to a monitor as social engineering. Why can't the teacher be reprimanded for leaving the password out and or using a weak password?
Click to expand...

Because the kids should know better. Right?
 
kcmastrpc said:
It's how Mitnik managed to gain access to most systems. Social engineering is far > than exploiting in practical terms of security breaching - and it is considered a form of hacking.
Click to expand...

I used to follow that guy religiously when I was younger in my "hacker" days. Read all kinds of books about him and stuff. Read logs from Shimomura when Mitnick was in his system, etc. Mitnick was GREAT at social engineering, it was quite amazing actually how good he was at it. As far as actual hacking though, like discovering vulnerabilities and exploiting them through programming, he was terrible, he was essentially a script kiddie. There's a log from Shimomura that shows Mitnick on IRC asking his friend "jsz" for tools to break into people's systems, he even asks if it has a README. LOL. The guy is still a legend though.
 
Steve said:
I like how "stolen password" = hackers
Click to expand...

Hey man they are elite! :D

Anyway I'm wondering who's password they managed to steal that allowed them to edit that much information. When I was in high school most of the systems were kinda locked down to limit how much one person could edit.
 
Watch the 1st 15 minutes of the movie "Wargames" from 1983. I blame the school for being so lazy with their security.
 
hackers.jpg


I blame the movie hackers that came out in 1995 and when i was a kid this movie made me want to hack the crap out of everything......then you find out how fake the movie is when you do real hacking.

the playstation playing wipe out part totaly real.

this movie came out way before all those other hackers movies.

wargames.jpg
 
It might help their cause that the attendance rules for docking grades was since eliminated.

It's not like they were fixing grades, just tweaking attendance... the morons skipping class are still going to fail from not having been exposed to the material. No real harm done, you can't fix stupid, so you might as well make a little money off it.

These kids certainly deserve to be punished, but expelled?!? "Kid, you're smart, show plenty of initiative, and have good interaction skills with your fellow students. We think the best thing for you: is to give up on your future entirely." Score another one for wise decision making in government.
 
ferris has been absent from school NIIIINE times

nine times?

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE times

8-7-6-5-4-3

what the? GRAAAAAACE
 
Fail said:
This is pretty lame. Hopefully these "hackers" decide to use their talents for more lawful purposes. But expulsion does not help society, these kids still need their education.
Click to expand...
well i dont know how discovering someone's password and then getting busted by over using it and selling access to everyone at school is a talent.
i remember in high school i discovered i could access future history tests and quizzes by tweaking the URL address. I'll be the first to say there was nothing clever about doing this but back then very few my age would think to do that. But how I used this to my advantage was I didnt foolishly brag it out to other people and I intentionally got a few questions wrong so I wouldnt get perfect scores.
 
well.. I look at it this way.

this ingenuity is the start of an excellent business career, and at the very least, they get something out of the ailing school system. I can't blame them for what they did. They saw an opportunity and they seized it.

also, to be fair, i'm glad this isn't turning into one of those, police called to do a parents job school stories we've been hearing from around the country, no tasers an no criminal record. Standard discipline is the way to handle this
 
Manaknight said:
well.. I look at it this way.

this ingenuity is the start of an excellent business career, and at the very least, they get something out of the ailing school system. I can't blame them for what they did. They saw an opportunity and they seized it.
Click to expand...

Ehh...by the same logic you could say someone used "ingenuity" because they saw an expensive item sitting in a store window and "seized the opportunity" to steal it while the shopkeeper's back was turned. Doesn't make it a viable skill or any less criminal.
 
siliconnerd said:
I wouldn't exactly call copying a yellow sticky note attached to a monitor as social engineering. Why can't the teacher be reprimanded for leaving the password out and or using a weak password?
Click to expand...

That's what I thought. Teachers bad.

I got suspended when I stole the teachers password. I didn't do anything malicious, though. I was learning the network and wanted to learn more. Ended up sending a non-stop print job of all the screen... Novell back in 91. Day I'll never forget. Learned a lot that day. I wasn't "hacking" at all. I took what wasn't mine and used it on a computer network.
 
kcmastrpc said:
It's how Mitnik managed to gain access to most systems. Social engineering is far > than exploiting in practical terms of security breaching - and it is considered a form of hacking.
Click to expand...
It isn't hacking. Society so easily places a label on things.

A hacker at the truest form is someone who uses the right tool for the right job and purpose, and knows what they are doing.

Hackers are very rare these days, not like it used to be. Nowadays you mostly have script kiddies running around using point and click, 1-2-3 programs to do their things, not actually knowing what is happening, why it is, and how it all really works.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top