Schoolboy who hacked his grades faces 38 years in jail

This seems a little harsh......A fine and Expulsion would do..... maybe a few months...

That's an aweful lot of jail time (not to mention the high bail) for a minor. That sounds more appropriate for a violent crime.

The penalty is far too harsh. 38 years in jail? I think a more poetic punishment would be that he can never get a college degree from anywhere for the rest of his life. A lifetime college ban.

Wow, that's awesome, but I guess community college isn't as bad as jail.

Shouldn't he get an A in politics for this stunt?

Violent offenders belong in jail for four decades, not some teen hooligan. If anything, he deserves a scholarship for those hacking skills.

It sounds like they might try to set an example using the student..
But I think it's unlikely that he'll get more than a fine and expulsion. Jail time for a high school hacker just sounds Orwellian.

And phillyharper, that made me laugh for the first time today.

your right disable, if he would of molested a little girl he would be out in a couple of years, pathetic.

its interesting to note the comparison to violent and other crimes...

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/psatsfv.pdf

ouch... well thoses grades really arent gonna count now are they

That's too harsh compared to people serving a few years for violent crimes against society.

38 years... what a chirade our legal system has become

38 years is just the prosecutor's opening gambit to get the defendant to plea bargain...he wont end up doing 38 months, let alone years.

Butch, i hope you're right

Yeah, 38 years is the maximum. The easiest solution: teach kids that stealing grades never works and tell them to work hard, etc.

I hate it when people say he "hacked." He used their passwords! That's just teachers being careless.

exactly - it wasn't hacking, it was social engineering.

that is a little too harsh. i bet the only reason he's being charged with so much is his ethnicity. He should just be fined,expelled and redo his senior year.Whatever happened to the good ol' days when boys were just acting like boys.

Don't worry. Hollywood will make a movie and turn him into a hero. He'll get a book deal and have a hacker cult following. His future is secured.

omg I used to do that in my consumer science class all the time. I really didn't see the importance of making mobiles and knitting sweaters as a requirement. My teacher would leave the room for long periods of time and she would leave her grading application up. It was a complete cake walk.
That's so crazy.

wow

he should've raped or killed someone; that would have gotten him less time for sure

Its probably because he's not white.

When I read the title I thought a kid took a knife and "hacked" his classmates faces!

Instead of putting this kid in jail for 38 years and ruin his life, why don't you put him in jail for 3 months - get raped - and when he comes out allow his genius hacking skills to do good deeds. There are professional hackers in this world that do good, such as testing security systems. They shouldn't waste a perfectly skilled child.

38 years for reenacting WarGames? Seems a little harsh. Government, people please hire this prodigy. I'd feel a lot better knowing that he is on our side, protecting the government's computers.

A little overkill maybe...?

Fuck the system.

How many violent criminals are being released early so this guy will fit in the system? I know he has not been sentenced yet, but to even threaten such a sentence seems absurd.

That's a bit ridiculous; he's obviously intelligent, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to pull such a stunt off. Giving him so much jail time for such a heinous excuse is only going to cost the government more money for food, etc. I'm having a hard time believing that the system wants nothing more than to use him as an example.

Stupid. Rapists and murders do less time.

I dont think his computer skills would do him good in jail.

Well done American justice System. Well done.

ok........ so this kid gets jail time for changing his grades??? isn't that what suspention is made for?

" Ferris Buellers day off" - the same thing , except Ferris changes days absent - and with an old skool atari ( the movie was made in '86 ) . along with "Weird Science " it's the movie which was making fun of the potential abuses kids might create with computers , in the days before there was a fully functional internet to surf . "Wargames " explored the worst case scenario - that a kid would even make news for changing grades these days , and potentially face 38 yrs. makes me want to f--ng puke . my hate , and rage , regarding how f--ng anal retentive this society has become makes me want to nuke this country and start all over again .
( my apologies for any incorrect reference to the atari )

wow this is really harsh. people his age don't usually get that much time for violent crimes. i hope the jury is easy on this kid. he may be a slacker but 38 years is a looong time.

Meanwhile someone else is serves only 5 years for raping a child. in the words of Banksy, "Become good at cheating and you never have to be good at anything else."

"The case has once again raised the question of whether technology, in particular mobile phones that can access the internet, has resulted in an epidemic of cheating in the high-school system. The Orange County Register, a local newspaper, asked its readers yesterday to respond to a poll asking if “technology is giving [students] an advantage”, or whether it is just “the same stuff using new tools”.

This poses again the question of the limiting of access of the internet...

Wow, that kid went to the high school I graduated from... Err... anyway, yea I agree that the charges against him seem unreasonably high... I wonder how they came up with that number... (38)

whoa, cut him some slack, but seriously..don't they think he might figure out how to maneuver the electrical system, he might free the whole jail.. Poor Ferris Bueller, I don't think its necessary to enslave/arrest him for something as meager as changing grades...what student doesn't think of possible hacking into the system...or taking over the world? Seriously, the charges here must be to make an example out of him...Good luck Free Bird...next time, just do your assignments..it pays off in the end..An alternative to this jail sentence...I don't know, maybe DETENTION? Behavioral assessments and a little more sensitivity in the classroom can help avoid issues such as these...

I hope the judge gives the kid community service, and that service is to secure his high school's network!

Tell us why this is interestingOh yeh cuz this guy is such a threat to society...not... Go and catch some real criminals and stop wasting peoples time... theres serial killers on the run but yet the cops wanna catch some kid hacker!

Nice kid? Really? Someone that alters his grades and steals public records is nice?

Well this just goes to show that nice is WAY different than good. Bad persons can be nice but in no way can they be good.

If he really were what she stated he wouldn't have come up with this inept idea of altering his grades. He can't possibly be stupid enough to think that hacking into a school wouldn't get him in more trouble than necessary? Because if he couldn't figure it out then his taste grades are an exact representation of his intelligence.

The harshness of the sentence is retarded. Make him do community service not jail time. Don't create a more villainous person out of someone who, by his lawyers lack of a thesaurus and creative thinking, is a nice person.

Looks like SOMEbody was watching too many 90's computer hacker movies.