Zero tolerance go to far.

[Zebo]

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 (£25,500) bail and is scheduled to appear in court today.

Mr Khan?s defence lawyer, Carol Lavacol, described her client as ?a really nice kid? and said: ?There?s a lot more going on than meets the eye.?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t...cas/article4168112.ece
This is just crazy 38 yrs!! I would be in jail for life these days for stuff I did as a kid. Thank god I grew up in the 70s where fighting was ok pretty much and you could linger till midnight at the park on hot summer nights without some freak kid-napping you. I grew up there too.

 

[StageLeft]

Pretty damned insane. I imagine I'd have spent years in prison, too. I wouldn't have it any other way

 

[SkipBaldwin]

weird. but just changing grades != identity theft etc.

 

[IronWing]

At least he didn't have to read Ethan Frome.

 

[sprok]

38's the max. I doubt he gets even half that. Nice way to fuck up your life tho.

 

[Jhhnn]

Originally posted by: sprok
38's the max. I doubt he gets even half that. Nice way to fuck up your life tho.

Oh, please. this is the same kind of prosecutorial grandstanding that brought McOwen to national attention.

Six months and a few years probation would probably be appropriate, but modern concepts of sentencing and rehabilitation have nothing to do with what's appropriate or reasonable, thanks to all the raving about tough on crime.

 

[Kirby]

KHAAAAANNNN!!!!

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn

Originally posted by: sprok
38's the max. I doubt he gets even half that. Nice way to fuck up your life tho.

Oh, please. this is the same kind of prosecutorial grandstanding that brought McOwen to national attention.

Six months and a few years probation would probably be appropriate, but modern concepts of sentencing and rehabilitation have nothing to do with what's appropriate or reasonable, thanks to all the raving about tough on crime.

I wouldn't give the kid any jail time. Just some community service and make it a condition of probation that he get a GED, through a community college, on his own dime.

 

[ranmaniac]

KHAAANN!

 

[Zebo]

Agreed this is just a prank not like he hurt anyone. Actually with a name like Khan perhaps I'd give him a CIA scholarship to MIT and let him hack terror sites afterwards.

 

[PELarson]

Originally posted by: ironwing

Originally posted by: Jhhnn

Originally posted by: sprok
38's the max. I doubt he gets even half that. Nice way to fuck up your life tho.

Oh, please. this is the same kind of prosecutorial grandstanding that brought McOwen to national attention.

Six months and a few years probation would probably be appropriate, but modern concepts of sentencing and rehabilitation have nothing to do with what's appropriate or reasonable, thanks to all the raving about tough on crime.

I wouldn't give the kid any jail time. Just some community service and make it a condition of probation that he get a GED, through a community college, on his own dime.

That's what a group of local students, Fayetteville NY, received for the same basic crime. Yes, Fayetteville is a more affluent community in the area.

http://comment-blog.advance.net/cgi...?tag=Fayetteville-Manlius schools&blog_id=978

 

[dahunan]

Come on.. he is obviously Arab and possibly Muslim... he is lucky "IN THESE CHANGING TIMES" that they didn't just kill him and his family

 

[Aimster]

He needs to get a better lawyer and the prosecutors need to DIAF

 

[Harabec]

Funny, a guy here in Israel did something similar and after a slap on the wrist got a high-paying, high-tech job for it...

 

[tvarad]

Well, looks like we've nipped a budding Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers or David Fastow in the bud. Who says that the criminal system is broken when it comes to white collar crime .

 

[jjones]

What's this to do with a zero tolerance policy? Seems like standard criminal prosecution procedure for an adult to me. He's 18, he's not just going to walk away with a slap on the wrist, but there's no way he'll get the 38 years maximum. The kid will probably end up with minimal jail time and a lengthy probation. If it's any more than that, he should have hired a better lawyer.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

If he had shot one of his teachers he'd not have gotten half of it. But changing grades is far worse.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: dahunan
Come on.. he is obviously Arab and possibly Muslim... he is lucky "IN THESE POST 9/11 TIMES" that they didn't just kill him and his family

Fixed for ya.

 

[TechBoyJK]

we had a 16 yo do that at a local high school about 10 years ago. He now works for the government, with top secret clearance at a major airforce base.

 

[cumhail]

Originally posted by: dahunan
Come on.. he is obviously Arab and possibly Muslim... he is lucky "IN THESE CHANGING TIMES" that they didn't just kill him and his family

Actually, he's probably Indian or Pakistani, given the last name; though his being Muslim does seem likely. But even that is less than a 100% sure thing... unless, of course, you think that Omar Epps is Muslim and/or that Omar Nelson Bradley was.

More to the point, this really is a ridiculous case. Toss him out of school and give him a slap on the wrist, by all means, just to get give him enough of a record to dissuade him from pulling this kind of crap again. But unless this is the latest in a long string of crimes that we're not hearing about, giving him any prison time (let alone more than three times as much as Al Capone was sentenced to) is ridiculous.

 

[PottedMeat]

In an alleged plot that resembles the script to the 1986 high school comedy Ferris Bueller?s Day Off, prosecutors claim that he then used teachers? passwords to hack into computers and change his test scores. In at least one test, an English exam, Mr Khan had been given an F grade because he was caught cheating.

Prosecutors claim that the teenager, who is alleged to have broken into the school late at night with a stolen master key, also changed the grades of 12 other students, and that he installed spyware on school hard drives that allowed him to access the computers from remote locations.

This isn't some hacker, hes a script kiddie who got/guessed teachers' passwords and probably backorificed or something those computers. Plus he's a greedy idiot for turning F's to A's.

 

[hiromizu]

Crazy. Why can't they just ask him not to do it again?

 

[Rhaze]

Originally posted by: dahunan
Come on.. he is obviously Arab and possibly Muslim... he is lucky "IN THESE CHANGING TIMES" that they didn't just kill him and his family

Yeh.. I was immediately thinking about what his sentence would be if he was Billy Jenkins, Tommy Johnson, or Whitey McChristian.

 

[mrCide]

I 'hacked' my school network in 9th grade (didn't change my grades). I got 10 days suspension and threats of legal action that never panned out. The principal was so impressed with my "abilities" she couldn't help but smile and giggle in the meeting with my mother. Course this was many years ago and the network was Novell.

 

[dainthomas]

How about a nice game of chess?