'A' Student Hack School Computer, Gives Himself a 'D'

T he reason most hackers would bother poking at a schoolis computer is to change bad grades to good ones, or perhaps just for the malicious heck of it. Reid Ellisonis reasons for sneaking into his high schoolis computer was not so mundane, but while he was there he did go ahead and change his grade, from an A+ to a D+ just for kicks. What else can you do when you are a 4.0 student?

According to a CNN article titled, Student gets iAi for hacking school computer, Mr. Ellisonis hacking expedition was blessed by his school because he chose to do it to fulfill one of six assignments seniors must complete in order to graduate, and he says it was a breeze to do. From the article:

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.

"Iim helping them with it," said Reid, whois 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."

Reidis project was part of Anzaris "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 schoolis computer, Reid said. It was the school secretaryis name: Silvia.

The school has since changed the password and Reid doesnit know it, but that doesnit stop the jokes from students asking their classmate for hacking help.

Itis an interesting story made more interesting for Mac users by the picture that accompanies the CNN story; it shows Reid Ellison sitting in front of a Power Mac G4. Check it out. For those keeping score at home, Mr. Ellison did change his grade back to its 4.0 status before ending his project.