Not So Funny Friday
January 6th, 2006 by Christopher HarrisWKYC-TV has news about a high school student from Lake High School who was arrested and charged with a felony for “trying to crash [the] school’s computer system.”
The student used an incredibly powerful tool that obviously warrants the jail time that could accompany a felony conviction – F5. You know, that little key in the top row that most browsers have mapped to the hacking tool “refresh.” There is a way to protect yourself from this, you can immediately go to every computer in your library and rip off the F5 key.
When enough users logged on and hit the F5 button, it overloaded the school’s system. But, Lake High School caught-on before the system crashed. Its computers started slowing down. “It’s a crime and it is important we take this seriously … especially for school officials … it could have done a tremendous amount of damage,” said Canton City Prosecutor Frank Fronchione. (WKYC-TV)
Instead they got themselves featured on the front page of Digg.com (and SlashDot can’t be far behind) and had their servers melted. They sure showed that kid!
Meanwhile, David Warlick has been “hacking the system” in a different way – pulling together talking points for what we need in the new education system. Join in with the wiki version, and help address the root cause instead of slapping kids [who are acting a bit stupid, I agree] around with felony charges. Hurry up before we loose more great people!
January 6th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
You haven’t lost me…I’m playing harder than ever right now. Just a slightly different game.
January 7th, 2006 at 12:26 am
Good. Make sure it stays that way! You always have great things to say, even if I have to wait till I am at home with Firefox to truly appreciate them =)