Student hacker who upped his grades faces 38 years in jail

[bluestateguy]

This kid needs to be held accountable, and maybe spend a little time in jail, but 38 years?!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4168112.ece

It could be a long time before Omar Khan goes to college: as long as 38 years, according to Orange County prosecutors, who have arrested and charged the 18-year-old student with breaking into his prestigious high school and hacking into computers to change his test grades from Fs to As.

If convicted on all 69 counts, including altering and stealing public records, computer fraud, burglary, identity theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy, Mr Khan could spend almost four decades in prison.

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Prosecutors claim that the teenager, who is alleged to have broken into the school late at night with a stolen master key, also changed the grades of 12 other students, and that he installed spyware on school hard drives that allowed him to access the computers from remote locations.

Tesoro High has 2,800 pupils and often appears in Newsweek magazine’s annual list of best high schools.

Mr Khan’s plan, the prosecution argues, was to get a place at one of the colleges within the University of California system. After his application was rejected, he requested copies of his student records, known as “transcripts” in the US educational system, so he could appeal. But when teachers looked at his files and noticed all the A grades that had magically appeared next to all the courses he had taken they realised something was wrong.

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[Deja Q]

1. Cor! T'would be 69 counts, wouldn't it?

:crazy:

[KansDem]

2. Or he can get a job tomorrow with Diebold...

Depends on what connections he has with His Royal Flatulence and the Banana Republicans.

[Deja Q]

3. Wait just a moment, his name is Khan?! My... EYElids. aRe. twitchING...

KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!

[Wickerman]

4. Ummm, seems a little bit of overkill

:crazy:

Punish him, but geeez.

[Deja Q]

5. F'ing A's. The dunce should have forged C+'s. Just a reminder to y'all:

Don't get greedy. :P

[hendo]

13. It is far easier to forge an A from an F

Just one more line. :P

[Deja Q]

16. It's a computer. Not pencil, paper, and spit... In ASCII terms, it's just 5...

65 = A
70 = F

:D

[hendo]

25. maybe he thought they were stupid enough to not realize that

:P

[Donnachaidh]

6. this kid got Fs but could pull off all this stuff?

He deserves jail time, perhaps not that amount. But he should also be kept from ANY computer usage in the slammer. Think of all the shit he can get into with all that time to play! :wow:

[Deja Q]

8. Piffle. He downloaded it from lam3rscwiptkiddiezRus.net

And if that URL is for real, it's a total coincidence.

[bluestateguy]

9. Some students spend inordinate amounts of time devising cheating scams

I knew one kid from high school who cheated his whole way through and got into a pretty good university. I never did find out what became of him.

[Deja Q]

12. He probably became a radio show host or taught the Menendez boys and Lizzie Borden in a past life...

:shrug:

[KamaAina]

30. You didn't go to Andover, by any chance?

:evilgrin:

[Oregone]

7. Can we give this kid an A for effort?

Hell, what he pulled off, most of the other kids couldn't have figured out...Too bad he didn't study that hard.

[Deja Q]

11. The only thing he needed to pull off is his...

Wait, that's getting too much into TMI-Territory(tm)...

In other words, at least he didn't study biology... :o

[indepat]

15. Must have watched the movie War Games a few times

[Deja Q]

18. Well, that would explain why he'd get all F's... but how to cheat?! I don't think so...

:yoiks:

[TahitiNut]

22. Gawd ... ain't that the truth?

I love that movie ... for the laughs and Ally Sheedy. The technical stuff? TOTALLY laughable. It's like the scriptwriters sat in the next booth from a couple of 1-year dweebs at some bar and then filled in the rest from what they overheard in 30 minutes. Bizarre as hell ... most notably the voice simulator crapola. I was a supernerd in the 8-bit days ... chip databooks and full CP/M source and total assembler proficiency. (At the same time, I was a 360/370 system internals guru.) I enjoyed that movie fantasy enormously.

[SoCalDem]

10. If his name had been Luke Russert, they would have given him a parade & a pet monkey

:P

[Deja Q]

14. I have only one thing to say to you:

[readmoreoften]

23. Well they don't call it the "justice" system for nothing.

They call it the justice system out of habit

[Deja Q]

24. Out of habit. Oh, I see...

They're nuns?!



You wouldn't catch me in one of those, I must say...



(That pic was from "Bedazzled" (1967) - absolutely hilarious movie. Just avoid the remake (2000)...)

[readmoreoften]

29. Always avoid a remake.

That's axiomatic.

[hendo]

17. Overkill

This kid could have a future in the government though :crazy:

[Deja Q]

19. Whose government?

Just a satire, folks... take no notice. It's just a pretty shade of red.

[hendo]

27. could be. maybe stars and stripes though. nt

[malaise]

20. WTF??

He is currently being held on $50,000 (£25,500) bail and is scheduled to appear in court today.

Something's wrong with this - probably the name Omar Khan.

That said fraud by students is endemic.

[Deja Q]

21. Quite. While he was at it, he should have

upped his bank account so he could bail his scrawny butt out of prison...

Back in my day, students didn't care about fraud. Listening to heavy metal and parading around school with t-shirts reading "Metal up your ass tour '87" (complete with picture I'd rather not describe) was the norm.

How we survived the mid-80s, I have no idea...

[rug]

26. That's some detention.

[hendo]

28. 38 years for..

Not being able to get away with it. The kid was too stupid to be successful. I never knew anyone stupid enough to actually get caught doing this.