This article both makes me laugh and upsets me greatly. The non-technorati among you will read this article and say, "it looks like those students did something really bad!" It is that notion which I wish to dispel.
From what I can tell, these students were all given laptops with a fairly restrictive and invasive form of administrative software on them that disallowed installing programs and monitored their activities. Such software was password-protected... but the password was both obvious and printed on a label placed on the backs of the computers.
Now, just so we don't get any more confusion, it would appear that a couple of the smarter kids used the copies of the monitoring agent that was already installed on their computers, with the passwords printed on the backs of their computers, and used it to monitor the administrators. Yes, that's right, the idiots in administration gave them all of the tools to do this... all it took was the password that was PRINTED ON THE BACK OF THE COMPUTER.
Now, I know they signed a contract to be "good students" and these 13 students broke said contract... but they're middle-school students. It looks to me like a case of wounded pride and bad press for the school where the school is trying to prosecute the "hackers." Come on now... it's like prosecuting kindergardeners for taking lollipops from an open jar that's sitting right in front of them, unguarded. You smack them on the wrist, move the jar, and move on.
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at August 10, 2005 08:25 AM | TrackBack