I don't think its right that he is being brought with three felony charges AND suspended from school. I could see some sort of school related reprimand...but r

I don't think its right that he is being brought with three felony charges AND suspended from school. I could see some sort of school related reprimand...but really...fifteen years old and he shows them up and their best response is lets press federal charges. Now, assuming that it is true that he has had disobediance problems previously, attempted to break security previously, and was not acting in the form of a white-hat, something should definitely be done. However, that's like saying you're pressing charges against someone for logging into your computer when your password is on a sticky note at the edge of your screen. Not just schools but everyone has to do their own part in order to protect information and the school didn't do their part. I don't have the facts but it would appear that the student did no extraneous work in accessing the information. I have to say that I, in a way, relate to this situation. When I went to High School I was pretty much watched like a hawk due to my well known understanding and skill on the computer. I was attempted to be blamed numerous times for when something would happen, mostly by a specific administrator who had a grudge against me. Luckily, nothing to this extreme ever happened and its not like I did anything wrong anyways. I ended up working for the school as an Assistant IT Coord my last couple of years. I'd also like to bring comment to a point made by another comment on here. As far as poor technology policies and idiotic administration, that's one of the things my venture is trying to work on. Understanding that most of the reason these very restrictive policies are there is because of a lack of understanding compounded with a lack of control for what they don't understand. The other major source is fear of reprocussions and dangers. My venture is focused in the area of Educational Technology and part of what we're doing, especially in southern Illinois at the moment, is trying to create tools/programs/systems and structure policies with schools that alleviate the problems both on the administrative side and the student side. Policy work and simplistic administrator friendly systems are something that are a necessity to persuade uptight school districts into not only accepting technology but being more open with students use of it. ...I may have ended up a little off-topic. :P