I mean Bill Gates phreaked because it was "fun". The people that do this find it fun breaking into systems. You need to understand who you're dealing with. And understanding the motives of preparators helps in how you should discipline them. At least effective discipline.
And that's the point. You're dealing with smart, misguided youth with a literal hacker mindset. You'd hope this wouldn't need explaining on Hacker News, but here we are...
Having been in this kid's shoes many beers ago, I technically committed major felonies. The District flipped a lid, mind you I'd been reporting vulnerabilities two years, when I gained access to their server with their financials and PII. Wasn't doing it because I wanted to sell my shit-heel English teacher's identity to Russian cybercriminals... no... I was having fun learning and discovering this fucking awesome world of computers.
Those of y'all acting as if this kid if a real piece of work need to check your outlook. That is some real "get off my lawn" stuff. He's a high schooler, and capable enough to pull this crap off. Show him the right path, turn it into a teaching (it's school, y'all) moment, and if he doesn't want to walk the right path then who are we kidding, a detention isn't going to change that outlook anyway.
"when I gained access to their server with their financials and PII"
The problem with your attitude is that you have become the authoritarian in this situation. The district wasn't interested in fixing their security issues (their right), and you didn't like this, so you went ahead and broke into their systems anyway.
"I was having fun learning and discovering this fucking awesome world of computers."
There are plenty of other ways to do this.
"He's a high schooler, and capable enough to pull this crap off. Show him the right path, turn it into a teaching (it's school, y'all) moment"
A teaching moment would be punishment. Maybe a suspension. In the real world, you can't just trample on others' rights, without some sort of repercussions.
That doesn't make them the authoritarian. By the way they are talking they obviously weren't writing ransom notes and holding the school hostage, they were poking around and exploring. While I can't say for sure, they likely just left a note saying "hey you should probably fix this" and the administration lost their shit.
Also a teaching moment surely isn't a suspension. That's how you burn any bridges towards getting the kid to learn. You said that in the real world you can't trample others' rights, well sure but it's kind of the point that high school isn't the real world. A teaching moment would be sitting someone down, getting them to admit/explain what they did, telling them that in the real world they would get in trouble, and pointing them towards a better outlet. Teach them what it means to be a white hat and send them on their way.
> The problem with your attitude is that you have become the authoritarian in this situation. The district wasn't interested in fixing their security issues (their right), and you didn't like this, so you went ahead and broke into their systems anyway.
I wasn't holding anything hostage. I didn't tell them "Fix it or else." I'd been reporting vulnerabilities I'd been finding. Found more. Reported 'em.
> In the real world, you can't just trample on others' rights, without some sort of repercussions.
Sounds like you've never lived in the real world.
Again, it's high-school. You seriously have no idea how to incentivize this type of kid.
"Sounds like you've never lived in the real world."
You're the one talking about how it's somehow your right to break into private systems, because muh learning.
This doesn't sound like the real world to me.
"Again, it's high-school. You seriously have no idea how to incentivize this type of kid."
Why should we? Why shouldn't this type of kid have to follow the same rules as anyone else?
The administration was already aware of potential flaws in their system, but chose not to fix it. These kids decided to exploit them anyway. If this was at a workplace, they would be fired at best and have a criminal record at worst.
> You're the one talking about how it's somehow your right to break into private systems, because muh learning.
No one is saying this.
> Why should we? Why shouldn't this type of kid have to follow the same rules as anyone else?
Why don't we punish 5 year olds as adults? Hint: answer is the same.
> The administration was already aware of potential flaws in their system, but chose not to fix it.
And now they will. Both are at fault. Both have blame. But we're saying "Don't turn these kids into criminals. Push them to use their skills in a way that can help our society (ie: security researcher). They're still young enough that they can change. These aren't hardened criminals we're talking about. We're talking about kids.
tldr: Kids aren't adults. Who knew this was such a controversial topic?
Obviously I don't know the kid at all, but on the face of it, it appears he wanted to win an election and decided to cheat to get what he wanted. Hardly "just for funsies" or "following the hacker ethos". It's just a morally-challenged kid behaving badly.
A student election is absolutely worthless. This is not like stealing money from a convenience store — that has value - it’s more like taking home a paperclip from your office once. I see absolutely no reason that someone taking an office supply item home should be treated differently.
To kids in school, the election is not worthless. Even when I was in HS that wasn't the case, and the article mentions that with college admissions so competitive now, every edge -- including being elected to a student government -- is important.
Even if it's not actually important, it's the perception of importance to the student that matters. The idea that "it's ok to commit fraud if I think it's something important" is definitely one we don't want becoming widespread.
So what do you do with badly behaving kids? Whip them with a belt or show them the right path? If the kid's rotten, he's rotten. But more than likely he's not truly a bad person and can redeem himself.
The moment you get mitigating circumstances because you just did it for fun is the moment when everybody starts doing it "for fun". Plenty of crimes might have a "thrill" component. This doesn't justify them at all.
The guy accessed other people's email accounts. The punishment for "hacking the elections" is one thing, accessing someone's email account goes way beyond that. So even comparing it to abusing a paper ballot system is not at all appropriate. It's comparable to someone opening up your mailbox, reading your mail, then sending some in your name. For fun.
