Overreaction?

Khannie

So some script kiddies made the BBC news website today. They made a simple app that pretended to need the admin password, which they obviously just robbed then. Pretty basic stuff. About as basic as it gets, really.

You would swear that they were a terror threat from the article though -

Those computers have now been seized.

- for example. What? You got shafted a bit. It's a school lab. Relax. Let's not go seizing computers and making international news out of it for goodness sake.

I've increasingly found myself thinking that the punishment handed down for what I'd consider relatively trivial breaches of networks seems really harsh.

Do we need to take it a bit easier on hackers when they're caught? Is it all a bit sensationalised?

[-0-]

Ridiculous.

syklops

The funny thing is the kids probably only used their access to watch youtube or do something that was blocked / locked down.

Associated Press said that at least 18 pupils were involved

That said, that number does seem high. From my experiences of secondary school, anything illicit involving more than about 3 people was doomed to be found out from someone blabbing. That 18 kids knew and they managed to pull it off is... surprising.

What I am seeing in my line of work is that US and European authorities should be encouraging kids to improve the security of the systems around them, not hassling kids who quite literally pull off child's play and call it advanced hacking. The Chinese are building a cyber army. Meanwhile the west has a shortage of people with security-related skills.

Mr Robinson added there would be a review of the way that devices are maintained.

Good. These kids have managed to change and hopefully improve the security of the schools computers. They should be applauded not scolded.