Students Charged with Felony for… using iChat?
August 11th, 2005 by anthony patarini13 high school students in Kurtztown, Pennsylvania have been charged with felony computer crimes for figuring out the administrative password for their school-issued laptops. What did the students do with their newfound powers that warranted this action? Did they wreak havoc on the school’s network? No. Did they change their grades? No. Did they steal credit card numbers, become spam kings and crack into websites? No. They removed the monitoring software that district administrators used to watch their every action. Oh, and they used iChat, too…
Students originally gained the password not by using “password cracking” software or any type of software at all. They used a skill they had learned at school years ago: reading. On the back of each of the computers was the phrase “50trexler”; it was a part of the school’s website address. One intuitive student decided to try it as the administrative password and quickly told others about the discovery. Eventually, more than a third of the school knew the password. Soon, another bright student learned that you could run just about any blocked program as a protocol helper through their web browser. Then, they did what kids do: they chatted, they downloaded music, and they looked for new ways to bypass the restrictions on the computers. Eventually, some students even figured out how to watch the watchers and were able to see screenshots of the administrators desktop.
Several students were caught doing these activites and were “punished” with in-school suspensions, detentions and the like, though it really wasn’t punishment; the students were allowed to bring their computers and played video games while they did their time…
In laughable, RIAA-style propaganda the schools tried to claim that the students self-liberation, which amounted to being able to run their favorite programs on their computers, was the equivalent of “vandalizing a schoolroom”. The kids shrugged this off and continued to use their ingenuity to increase the usability of their computers. Then, on May 31st, just before finals and at the behest of the school district, police notified the parents of 13 students that they were being charged with “Computer Trespass”, a 3rd degree felony. The parents and students, of course, had no idea that they could be charged for what they were doing, especially with a felony. Now, these kids, the bright and enquisitive ones that figured out the system and got past it, who applied critical thinking skills to real life situations, are about to be branded for life as criminals for their efforts.
This isn’t right; it’s nowhere close. Sure, the kids should be punished for violating school policy, even if we don’t agree with that policy they did consent to obey it. However, pressing criminal charges for chatting with their friends is outrageous. I did a little bit of checking and, as far as I could find, the kids would have actually been charged with a lesser crime if they had deliberately destroyed their laptops. (See “Institutional Vandalism”, the maximum offense being a 3rd degree felony, and only if more than $5000 in damage is done. Otherwise, it is a misdemeanor. The computers could not have conceivably cost more than $5000 each, so deliberately destroying them, whether through the use of an axe, hammer, rock, firecracker, tire of all-terrain vehicle or any other means is a midemeanor as opposed to the 3rd degree felony of installing your favorite P2P client on the machines.)
What exactly did the kids do that was so heinous? They used their brains to get around a system of control and observation. They did this, and then installed software that allowed them to use the internet for its intended purpose: communication. Hardly vandalism. Kids love to tinker, and as students they are encouraged to tinker with all kinds of things in school, to think outside the box and to find new ways of doing things. This is where innovations come from. Why should kids have to completely abandon this mentality when using a computer? If anything, the school district should be giving them computers running Free Software and encouraging them to tinker to their hearts content. Cut them a break!
August 12th, 2005 at 5:43 am
An interesting and important article. I have just two points of disagreement.
1. You write: Sure, the kids should be punished for violating school policy, even if we don’t agree with that policy they did consent to obey it.
I believe it was John Holt who wrote that when people have power over you, it’s fair to lie to them. Of course the kids consented to obey school policy. What’s the alternative? You’re out of here. It’s like the conditions for using software. You have to consent to a whole boring list of things or else you can’t have it. It’s just to cover their behinds.
2. You wrote: as students they are encouraged to tinker with all kinds of things in school, to think outside the box and to find new ways of doing things.
There are a few innovative schools now, I believe, that operate in this fashion. I certainly never went to one. The overwhelming majority of schools, as Marshall Rosenberg (of Non-Violent Communication fame) points out, schools adhere to the corporate agenda, and are set up to turn out obedient graduates who will accept a life of extrinsic rewards for their time on the job. Think outside the box and you’re out of the job.
(IMHO)
August 12th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
This is pretty ridiculous and outrageous. I did precisely the same thing back in middle school and nothing ahppened except they tightened security.
I think they have a very good defense argument in the fact that the password was written on the computers. This was a simple case of incompetence on the part of the IT staff.
At my high school, The entire compter staff was made up of stidents from the district’s Information Technology magnet, and nothing like this ever happened.
August 12th, 2005 at 3:55 pm
Back in the ’70s, when my dad was in high school, he and his friends hacked the PLATO system (an early educational computer network, based at the University of Illinois) on a regular basis. They wrote all sorts of non-educational programs for the system, including a Star Trek-mimic computer game. They even snuck into the school (in meatspace) on the weekends so they could hold the early equivalent of LAN parties…
The response: PLATO made some basic improvements to its security and hired my dad and his friends.
How times have changed…
September 21st, 2005 at 7:41 pm
[...] Other people have updated, though: as always Linden is keeping current, as is Anastasia, even Kowalski is relatively timely, and Erich shouts out from Ontario. Various people I’ve never met are also keeping things going in varied ways, in fact, random people on the internet are up to a lot: reviewing movies, writing fictional diaries of jailtime, being politically outraged, reviewing movies, planning for next school year (it’s coming soon!), being politically outraged, hating The Beatles, being german, assigning gender characteristics to search engines, being outraged at stupid criminal charges on students [...]