According to an Associated Press article, a Florida middle school student has been charged with an offense against intellectual property. Why? Because he sat down at his teacher's computer and changed 5 grades on reading assignments.
I concede that it was wrong for the student to do this, but I'm wondering why it wasn't dealt with internally by the school. Why charge an 11-year-old pseudo-hacker with a felony, accuse him of a "scheme to defraud," and have him booked at the county jail? And...how is changing a grade an offense against intellectual property?
2600: The Hacker Quarterly, has some interesting comments on this story.
Re: 11-Year-Old "Hacker" Charged with Felony
You are right. Seems wrong of the school to charge him with a felony. Why not merely expel him?
I'm curious. They aren't charging him with the DMCA, are they? I didn't see what the specific charge is.
Meanwhile, could this be an indicative trend, that as our ip laws become more and more "property oriented," average people are going to try to assert stronger property rights even in strange cases such as this?
Re: "Why not merely expel him?"
Why not expel him?
Well, this seems a bit extreme as well. He's 11, and he cheated.
When I taught high school, students got away with token punishment for much worse.
One student was expelled, but that was for stealing a teacher's wallet and attempting to withdraw money using her ATM card. (cluephone: ATMs have cameras, and they require passwords)
What this kid did seems tame by comparison.
Re: "Why not merely expel him?"
I'm not saying that would be my solution, merely that if they wanted to go to extremes, expulsion is within the scope of the school and it's not a felony.
Re: "Why not merely expel him?"
Wow, at my junior high school, a guidance counselor changed her sons' grades in the school's computer, was caught, and received only a formal reprimand and public humiliation. She didn't even lose her job. I don't really have a problem with expulsion in this case, but then again I think that guidance counselor should have lost her job for what she did. But since she didn't, I think this boy should maybe be suspended or something. He might want to go to another school anyway; he's never going to be trusted at that one again.
Re: "Why not merely expel him?"
This is another example of someone trying to "make an example" of an otherwise trivial offense. If I'd done this in junior high, a paddling would have been the punishment; or, worse, they would have called my folks. I guess the trend nowadays is to let the already over-burdened police and penal system deal with discipline problems that were formerly handled (quite well, in my opinion) internally by the school system.