Student gets 'A' for hacking school computer

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greenfreak

New Member
Student gets 'A' for hacking school computer
By Jeordan Legon
CNN


(CNN) --It was a breeze for 15-year-old Reid Ellison to hack into his high school's computer grading system. But what to do once he broke in took a bit more ingenuity.

You see, Reid already has a perfect 4.0 grade point average at Anzar High School in San Juan Bautista, California. So to leave his mark, he decided to lower his grades to a 1.9 GPA -- a meager D+.

"I couldn't do what most people would want to do when they hack into the school's computer," Reid said. "So I thought it would be funny to do the opposite."

The hacking project, which was sanctioned by the school, left administrators so impressed they gave him a perfect score. The school is now working on fixing the security holes.

"I'm helping them with it," said Reid, who's been tinkering with computers since he was in second grade and wants to be an engineer. "I basically came up with three pages to improve the security of the network in general."

Getting the password
Reid's project was part of Anzar's "exhibition" requirement. To graduate, each student must complete six exhibitions -- written and oral presentations in history, science, math and language arts.

It took three hacking programs less than a second -- 200 milliseconds to be exact -- to find the password to the school's computer, Reid said. It was the school secretary's name: Silvia.

The school has since changed the password and Reid doesn't know it, but that doesn't stop the jokes from students asking their classmate for hacking help.

"If he didn't have such high moral fiber, he could probably make a lot of money off his abilities," said Wayne Norton, Reid's adviser.

Getting perfect grades back
Reid, who skipped part of the eighth grade, said he's setting his sights on college, not hacking. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the California Institute of Technology to be exact.

After his hacking session was documented, Reid kept a close eye on the return of his hard-earned A's.

"I made sure it was really easy for them to change it back," he said.
Click to expand...

Source: CNN

story.reid.cnn.jpg


This is what happens when students know more about computers than teachers. :laugh:
 
outside looking in

outside looking in

<b>Registered Member</b>
He chopped up his school computer with an axe? And they gave him a D+ for that? But then changed his grades back to A's because of his chopping ability?

I don't understand. :confuse3:
 
Inkara1

Inkara1

Well-Known Member
I still remember my computer applications class my freshman year of high school (1995-96). I continually had points taken off my assignments because I figured out how to change the font in WordPerfect 5.1, so I was "too far ahead of the class." When the class finally upgraded from the crappy old 286 machines to 486/33 (with 4MB of RAM) dinosaurs, we made the impressive jump from WordPerfect 5.1 to ClarisWorks. I taught myself how to use the database and mail merge functions, and the teacher wanted me to show her how. The class had to make up a form letter, and while I used mail merge like any real office would, the rest of the class typed up the letter, printed it, then changed the names and addresses, and printed that, and kept doing that for all 10 or so letters we had to do.
 
tommyj27

tommyj27

Not really Banned
high school computer applications was a joke, i always wondered the point of teaching a stone age db program that bore no resembalance to current apps :confuse3:
:headbang:
 
Vortex

Vortex

New Member
:lol: I wish I had thought of that!! Would have saved me a whole lot of trouble with the other projects I had to do last year :p
 
Q

Q

New Member
Ha!! I know the rules. I did some tile work at Mac Dill, they tried to kill me there. Ok, well, not really kill, but they were pretty hostile about civilians running willy nilly through the strategic command center. Attempt to get water without the hall monitor...straight to Leavenworth. I can't be giving out classified information indiscriminately.
 
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