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Student hacker who upped his grades faces 38 years in jail
It could be a long time before Omar Khan goes to college: as long as 38 years, according to Orange County prosecutors, who have arrested and charged the 18-year-old student with breaking into his prestigious high school and hacking into computers to change his test grades from Fs to As.
If convicted on all 69 counts, including altering and stealing public records, computer fraud, burglary, identity theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy, Mr Khan could spend almost four decades in prison.
He is currently being held on $50,000 (
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Posted in: News on June 25, 2008 @ 12:00 AM
Tags: School
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Generally, I have no special feelings towards cheaters. I don't care if someone cheats because they're not hurting anyone, but I don't cheat because I consider sticking to my values more important than some grade.
In this particular case, I find the possible jail time (38 years) to be ridiculous. If you murder someone, you can often get off with less than ten years (if you fess up early, and the murder wasn't specially cruel). Yet you get 38 years for changing your grades?! As Soul said, it's a victimless crime (as opposed to murder).
I'd also like to reply to this particular paragraph in the article:
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"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
38 years? WTF. I don't have anything else to say except WTF. I am gobsmacked. And I didn't even learn that word from school!
This is such a harsh penalty. O_O
I'd say the kid deserves some sort of recognition of his computer skills at least.
Hacking the school's database shows real intelligence; however it could be argued that the dumbass should've changed more than just his own records AND gotten behind at least Over 9000 proxies.
Dafaq? You could get off easier with murder, for god's sake. He didn't hurt anybody. The only reasonable punishment for doing something like this is expulsion. Jailtime? Are you effing serious?