14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School • Hacker News Board

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#491

Post by briandear » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:36 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #359

maratd wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need a change in priorities and not freak out about taxes for education. People don't freak out over paying taxes for education. Even if they don't have kids in the system. They freak out over throwing money at a broken system and the solution isn't to throw more money at it. Attach a specific dollar amount to a student. Allow that student to go to whichever school they want. End of story. Stop forcing children…

> Attach a specific dollar amount to a student. Allow that student to go to whichever school they want. End of story. Allow it to go where there is little to no public over sight, no public school board or checks and balances, under performing scores, teachers paid $20,000 less with no pension, and CEOs making millions. Charter Schools are a part of the problem with American education. Sure some Charter Schools are g…

Then why don't the Obama kids go to public school? Citing security would be silly. A school is a school. Even the President doesn't believe in public schools. If he does, he sure isn't eating his dog food.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#492

Post by IkmoIkmo » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:36 PM UTC

nether wrote: post #451

jameshart wrote: post #371

A story. So, this thirteen year old kid with a Syrian father once got flagged up by Hewlett Packard because he was ordering electronic components. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next... Yeah, Bill Hewlett offered him a summer job, he got hooked on making stuff, wound up founding a company out of his garage with his buddy Steve Wozniak, and created the biggest electronics company in the world. Thank goodness h…

Biological father. His (adoptive) father was white, and Jobs didn't look middle eastern , the key part. There's a whole spectrum of skin tones within ethnicities that affects how you are treated in the US more than where your parents originate.

> Jobs didn't look middle eastern

Jobs didn't look stereotypically middle eastern.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#493

Post by rm445 » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:36 PM UTC

benevol wrote: post #207

userbinator wrote: post #21

Apparently the authorities have determined that the best way to stop terrorism is to discourage any manifestation of personal intelligence, so that the population turns into mindless sheep. "If you don't know how to make a clock, you won't know how to make a time bomb" is their reasoning. It is seriously disturbing. I am reminded of stories of kids opening a command prompt and being accussed of "hacking", only this i…

I find it striking that you almost never hear about such behavior occurring in Europe (correct me if I'm wrong). Any ideas why things seem to be very different there?

I suspect there are similar incidents with much less overblown outcomes.

There's no relative scarcity of ignorant and authoritarian schoolteachers, but consequences are likely to be confined to school, not involve law enforcement, and parents and pupils are more likely to knuckle down rather than fight or go to the press.

So, taking "such behaviour" much more broadly than this specific incident (and of course granting that Europe is a big and diverse place) - if a kid is found hacking school networks, or distributing a satirical magazine, or bringing possibly inappropriate or dangerous items to school, the schools are just as likely to crack down (even if it infringes the pupil's legal rights) but the matter is likely to end there without ruining the pupil's education. Or making the school administration change its behaviour.

Personally I think the situation as I have described it is favourable. Ideally schools wouldn't be administered by petty tyrants, but as long as everyone finishes their education with a blank slate it's fine. Keeping the police away from schools as much as possible would be a good start.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#494

Post by VonGuard » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #371

A story. So, this thirteen year old kid with a Syrian father once got flagged up by Hewlett Packard because he was ordering electronic components. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next... Yeah, Bill Hewlett offered him a summer job, he got hooked on making stuff, wound up founding a company out of his garage with his buddy Steve Wozniak, and created the biggest electronics company in the world. Thank goodness h…

Honestly, I don't know that Jobs could have made a clock. Woz could have made one that calculated primes and rendered vector graphics, though.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#495

Post by chrisBob » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

People are so worried about terrorists. Guess what: they won! If you don't believe me then try getting on a commercial flight, or try bringing a cool electronics project to school some time.

The hoax bomb charge that they are still considering doesn't make sense to me. As someone who has seen a lot of improvised explosive devices[0] "hoax" means something very specific. I occasionally encountered hoax devices which were deliberately placed to monitor our response. Finding one meant you could be sure you were on camera. Here the police seem to use "hoax" to mean someone got scared of an empty cardboard box, or in this case a cool electronics project. The difference is intent just like selling oregeno or baby powder can get you in trouble for selling drugs if you are portraying it that way. Having something suspicious means it should be investigated, but it shouldn't be a crime unless it is intentionally portrayed as an illegal object.

[0] Roughly 100 in Baghdad in 2005.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#496

Post by balls187 » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #77

Navarr wrote: post #18

It is definitely profiling and I bet his race had a lot to do with it. But I think the same thing would've happened if I had brought such a device to school - having been a super dark dressed goth in school, the fear would've been it's a bomb. Schools are generally very very extra worried about everything these days, suspending him was unnecessary but with it only being three days I don't see it being a terrible thin…

The suspension is pretty minor. Dumb, but whatever. At that age I'd have been happy to stay home for three days. But there's so much more here. He got arrested and put in juvenile detention . He was interrogated by the police without his parents being informed. There's no excuse for this. The police involved should lose their jobs and spend some time in jail themselves. Not a lot, but perhaps a couple of days will ge…

> He got arrested and put in juvenile detention. He was interrogated by the police without his parents being informed.

This behavior happens ALL THE TIME. The police routinely will get away with what ever they can to get a conviction. The law is complicated and most people don't have a lawyer on retainer.

The police aren't your friend, and you gain NOTHING by talking to them.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#497

Post by Kinnard » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

chejazi wrote: post #235

nadams wrote: post #121

If anyone is actually surprised by the administrations intelligence - I should remind you of 3 events: - A teacher confiscates Linux CDs claiming that the student was essentially distributing illegal copyrighted software - because no software is free [1] - A system administrator was fired for installing/running seti@home on school computers. There is a lot of controversy about this case - but I read one news article…

If public schools are going to succeed, then many states need to "catch up" when it comes to funding. More funding will attract more teachers, creating a stronger candidate pool. If you look at the average funding per student by state, Texas isn't doing so hot [1], especially for being the second largest state [2]. There's definitely more to it than just funding, but I think that would be a good starting point. [1] h…

Public schools are not going to succeed. I spent 12 years in some of the best public schools and two at an elite boarding school. People are too attached to the good intentions behind the model to accept that a new one has to be found.

A lot schools/districts that are better spend less money per student than schools that are worse. You should ask David Tarver about it.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#498

Post by kyleblarson » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:40 PM UTC

Texas doesn't deserve this young man. Come on up to Seattle.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#499

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:40 PM UTC

benevol wrote: post #207

userbinator wrote: post #21

Apparently the authorities have determined that the best way to stop terrorism is to discourage any manifestation of personal intelligence, so that the population turns into mindless sheep. "If you don't know how to make a clock, you won't know how to make a time bomb" is their reasoning. It is seriously disturbing. I am reminded of stories of kids opening a command prompt and being accussed of "hacking", only this i…

I find it striking that you almost never hear about such behavior occurring in Europe (correct me if I'm wrong). Any ideas why things seem to be very different there?

The trend towards a "security theatre" and all that does indeed seem to be much stronger. Even where security measures in Europe were increased (i. e. ban on liquids), it was more on the behest of the Americans than intrinsically motivated.

I see a few possible causes:

– 9/11 was a much bigger attack than anything that happened on European soil

– there is a more influential lobby for militarisation/criminalisation in the US

– Americans are more fearful

– America is more democratic. As such, the unfounded fears of parts of the population (on both sides of the Atlantic) are less likely to be buffered by the more rational thinking of experts

and, my favourite:

– Americans love excitement and violence & it is amplified by the media. Nothing better than a bomb scare on FOX.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#500

Post by hencq » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 4:40 PM UTC

x5n1 wrote: post #17

ahmad19526 wrote: post #3

Go into any Electrical Engineering department at any university and you'll find plenty of students with boxes filled with circuit boards and electronics. Everybody who's played with electronics knows that stuff is brittle and needs to be protected carefully. One wire coming loose renders your entire work obsolete and unlike software, there's no debugger to tell you where you potentially screwed up... Racial profiling…

That's not even the issue to me. It's like fine you "suspected" it. How difficult was it to not suspect it anymore? Like did the arrest and the accusations need to happen. It's almost like attempting to traumatize the kid and his peers for no good reason and for what? Security theater? Because he was brown or a Muslim and did not know that brown or Muslim people should not bring electronics that might be suspected wi…

Exactly! Apparently it's really difficult for some people to admit they were wrong. How difficult would it be to just say: "I'm sorry, we screwed up."? Instead they still insist on calling his clock a "hoax bomb".