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Russia Today America reports:
A 14-year-old middle school student is facing felony computer hacking charges after he admitted to accessing a teacher's computer during class without permission. If that wasn't bad enough, he then displayed an image of two men kissing.
Domanik Green, an eighth grader at Paul R. Smith Middle School in Holiday, Florida, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with an offense against a computer system and unauthorized access: a third-degree felony under Florida state law.
[...] The school had distributed a single password for all teachers to use, approximately two years ago. One educator had shared it with a student, who soon let his classmates in on the secret.
The Tampa Bay Times notes:
Green, interviewed at home, said students would often log into the administrative account to screen-share with their friends. They'd use the school computers' cameras to see each other, he said.
Green had previously received a three-day suspension for accessing the system inappropriately. Other students also got in trouble at the time, he said. It was a well-known trick, Green said, because the password was easy to remember: a teacher's last name. He said he discovered it by watching the teacher type it in.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by FlyingSock on Monday April 13 2015, @12:19PM
So please educate us! Instead of just making snarky comments. You can not expect everyone to know everything you do (it's depressing I know, but such is life).
Besides, in the context of constructive discussion, that, I at least thought, was the point of sn, exposing ignorance is not bad, rather it allows one to learn, if of course others then explain instead of snark.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday April 13 2015, @01:05PM
The non-snarky explanation: In the US, juvenile records are sealed at age 18 and will not normally show up on a criminal background check. Green is not required to report anything about it to a prospective employer once he turns 18.
Also, my suspicion is that the school might have reacted differently had the kid chosen to change the teacher's background to a man and a woman kissing, rather than 2 men kissing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:22PM
While the aforementioned is true perhaps an argument to be made is that he may have a more difficult time getting employment until he turns 18. By the time he is 18 he has less work experience than his peers which could delay his future progress with employers that are looking for experienced employees. Or, in the meantime, he can work on his education.
Then again an employer that won't hire someone because they committed a prank ten years ago is probably not the type of employer you want to work for anyways (regardless of how the law may vilify that person). Just because the law is broken doesn't mean people should look for broken companies to work for.
and this whole thing gets back to the whole employee mentality that keeps getting pushed on us. These days employers are cheap, they pay their employees less and less (and adjusted for inflation that money is worth even less) so that they can prosper from all the profits themselves. The pay difference between a a supervisor, manager, and a regular employee in a non-management position isn't that great. Heck, often times employees in non-management positions get more pay than ones in management positions but, even then, the pay rates (for all the work they do) is low and the pay difference isn't that great. I've said this before and I'll say it again. I simply do not know very many wealthy employees (including engineers, programmers, college professors unless they have an independent side job such as an independent side consulting job if they're a chemist). Just about all the wealthy people I know own their own businesses and even people with their own independent trade (ie: commercial electricians) make considerably more than employees (I've talked to them).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by gnuman on Monday April 13 2015, @04:28PM
The non-snarky explanation: In the US, juvenile records are sealed at age 18 and will not normally show up on a criminal background check.
Ideally, maybe. In reality, not so much. Do you honestly believe these records are not going to be available if that guy now wants to work for FBI or NSA or similar?
It is really really sad that a kid can be charged for playing a tiny prank like that. What would happen if there was wet toilet paper on teacher's car? SWAT raid on kid's room?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday April 13 2015, @04:47PM
If that guy wants to work for the FBI or NSA or similar, he's morally bankrupt anyway.
(Score: 1) by Zanothis on Monday April 13 2015, @07:35PM
I'd be more concerned about the fact that this kid has 4 years to do something noteworthy so that a search for his name on Google doesn't return this incident. I'm hoping that people finally realize that we all do stupid shit from time to time and that we should be able to ignore petty offenses like this in the age of an Internet that never forgets.