High school suspends student hackers who changed grades

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5335721.htm

By Dennis Akizuki
Mercury News
Mar. 06, 2003

Six students at Fremont's Mission San Jose High School have been
suspended for hacking into the school's computer and changing some of
their first-semester grades.

The investigation into the incident is ongoing, but the school
believes all the students involved have been caught, Principal Stuart
Kew said Thursday night.

Kew said the software program the students used to break into the
school's records is ``readily available on the Internet'' and that the
school is working with the Fremont Unified School District's
management information systems officials to install new safeguards.

He said he is ``disappointed, shocked and dismayed'' about the
incident, and he expressed concern about how it could affect the
welfare of the school and the community at large. Mission San Jose is
recognized as one of the top academic schools in California, with a
rigorous curriculum and highly competitive student body.

Many families move into Fremont's Mission San Jose area specifically
because of the high school's reputation for excellence and its high
academic standards.

The hacking and grade changes were discovered Wednesday, when a
Mission San Jose counselor was reviewing a student's academic record
and noticed some discrepancies.

``There were a number of grade changes,'' Kew said.

Quickly, the school determined there were five other students
involved. Kew would not identify them other than to say they were a
``mix of juniors and seniors.'' He emphasized that grades turned in to
colleges for admission purposes had not been compromised by the
hacking.

As for punishment, Kew would only say ``appropriate disciplinary
action'' had been taken. But a faculty member said Thursday night that
the students had been suspended. Kew did not dispute that statement.

Asked if the students could eventually be expelled, the principal said
that was something only the school board could decide.

Hacking into a school computer to change grades is not unheard of. And
it has been depicted in movies such as ``War Games,'' starring Matthew
Broderick.

In December, Reid Ellison, an 11th-grader at Anzar High School in San
Juan Bautista, hacked into his school's computer and changed his grade
-- but only after he presented the idea to administrators as a class
project.

To prove he was successful, Reid -- a straight-A student -- changed
his grade-point average from 4.0 down to 1.9.

``It was kind of the opposite of what most people would do,'' he told
the Mercury News.

Reid received a perfect score on his project.

There was also some controversy at Mission San Jose last year, when
one of the school's former valedictorians told a local newspaper that
she had cheated on several occasions while in school. That caused a
stir among students, teachers and parents.



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