Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#31

Post by viraptor » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:13 PM UTC

r11t wrote: post #4

The best reference I can recommend would be Eric Raymond's "How To Become A Hacker" : http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html The key point the article points out is that "The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them." The teenage thrill of breaking into computer systems is certainly exciting but perhaps he will be even more enthusiastic about learning to be curious about how things…

Books, articles... I'm afraid they're boring - they are cool to read if you're interested in the society, but that comes later on and you start to look for those things yourself. If he's interested in how things really work, then just make sure he knows the difference between exploration and breaking someone's work. The best learning material I have found are pages of people dealing with real security... stuff that you cannot find by googling "hacking".

That might both give him some new ideas, as well as show who is really considered important. For example, I always thought lcamtuf (http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/) is a great example of a hacker of many skills (photography, network security, fuzzing, constructing robots with own 3d printer and many more random ideas). I guess you just don't have time to be a script kiddie if you have enough good ideas of your own...

Just make sure he finds securityfocus before he finds cDc :)

On the other hand you could let him know, that notifying the school officially about the security problem may be a bad idea. Typical teachers are as likely to say "thanks", as "OMG hacker! security audit to make sure you didn't change any data will cost X$/h - your parents are paying for it and you're suspended".

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#32

Post by russell » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:14 PM UTC

sounddust wrote: post #12

When I was in high school, I guessed the administrator password of our computer lab (it was the administrator's daughter's first name) and basically maintained the computer lab for the rest of the semester. I never did any harm in the process. The administrator, upon finding out what I had done, recognized that I knew what I was doing, and supported my work. I fixed permissions that repaired apps that had been myster…

A long time ago my son did a similar thing. He didn't get into trouble because he told me first. We had a long adult talk about professionalism in programming. Essentially, professionals dont crack, but also about writing good code, testing, comments and such, so that it didn't come across as an adult smacking a kid. It worked, because he started taking a more mature approach to what he was doing.

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#33

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:18 PM UTC

russell wrote: post #32

sounddust wrote: post #12

When I was in high school, I guessed the administrator password of our computer lab (it was the administrator's daughter's first name) and basically maintained the computer lab for the rest of the semester. I never did any harm in the process. The administrator, upon finding out what I had done, recognized that I knew what I was doing, and supported my work. I fixed permissions that repaired apps that had been myster…

A long time ago my son did a similar thing. He didn't get into trouble because he told me first. We had a long adult talk about professionalism in programming. Essentially, professionals dont crack, but also about writing good code, testing, comments and such, so that it didn't come across as an adult smacking a kid. It worked, because he started taking a more mature approach to what he was doing.

it's a pity there is only one 'up' arrow here :)

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#34

Post by utnick » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:18 PM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #3

define "hacking", did he do anything complicated, or did he just guess a password?

indeed, this could mean anything, i got sent to the principal one time for having a windows dos command prompt open, no joke

Apparently it was actually a rule in the rulebook that you arent allowed to use the command line because you can do 'great damage'. On most computers it was disabled, but this was computer science class and we wrote console applications in c++ (through visual studio ide) so it had to be enabled.

They called my mom, who isn't very computer savvy, and told her that I was 'hacking'. She was so mad at me. I got 1 detention and had to write a handwritten note of apology. It was a pretty bad experience overall.

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#35

Post by unalone » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:20 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #29

unalone wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in high school, a friend told me he had been diagnosed with ADD. His parents had him tested because his grades were suffering. My friend and I have similar personalities, and my grades were similarly hit-and-miss. I went home and asked my mother if I had ADD. Her response: "Probably." I'm grateful that I had parents who accepted my quirks as a part of my personality and not as problems to be fixed.

I guess I got lucky, or I would have been on ritalin or some other fashionable (or profitable) drug for sure. I'm 43 now, 44 in March, when I was a kid ADD did not yet 'exist', and from my experience with my sons teachers the teachers in the schools that I went to were of a better grade than the teachers he has to content with (and that have to contend with him) today. I think the latter is the biggest factor in the…

Hopefully soon there will be generation of teachers that is as fast and as smart as the kids they are trying to teach.

As much as I would love to believe this, I'm at a college that's renowned for its teaching program, and teaching majors came to me for quite a lot of tech problems. (Two didn't understand basic algebra - worrysome.) The problem is that people who decide they want to become teachers very rarely work well as teachers. My favorite teachers were all passionate about their subject first and foremost: many of them, even in high school, committed to their work outside of just teaching. The people who say "I want to teach and I don't care what" are very often the most problematic teachers.

I agree with you entirely about how enormous the world of media has become. That's part of the problem. There are so many things to pay attention to that the slow pace of the average classroom doesn't have enough to appeal to students. With the exception of perhaps three teachers' classes, I learned more online than I ever did in a class. (The solution is to develop teachers who are more singularly fascinating than the Internet, which is a difficult challenge.)

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#36

Post by bmj » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:21 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #23

bmj wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So does this mean that if I accidentally forget to lock my front door that it is legal for you to walk around inside my house?

That argument has been beaten to death so many times it really loses it's shine. So, no that does not make it legal. BUT We're talking about a kid that is according to the OP 13 years old, at that age you are not considered to be able to make these judgement calls. Forbidden fruit and all that...

But it strikes me in your original comment, you do state that what he did was wrong.

Certainly, I don't advocate anything more than the OP does. This strikes me as one of those "teachable moments" that will help the kid make these sorts of judgment calls in the future.

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#37

Post by Allocator2008 » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:21 PM UTC

Each man has a right to his own property, including his intellectual property. Therefore it is wrong to "hack" if this means breaking into somebody's system without their permission, because it is a violation of the right to property. A copy of 'Atlas Shrugged' could drive this point home I think. But there are great jobs in computer security, in which people can get payed to "break into" systems to smell out the security flaws. This might be a positive way of channeling this individual's skill set.

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#38

Post by swombat » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:22 PM UTC

russell wrote: post #32

sounddust wrote: post #12

When I was in high school, I guessed the administrator password of our computer lab (it was the administrator's daughter's first name) and basically maintained the computer lab for the rest of the semester. I never did any harm in the process. The administrator, upon finding out what I had done, recognized that I knew what I was doing, and supported my work. I fixed permissions that repaired apps that had been myster…

A long time ago my son did a similar thing. He didn't get into trouble because he told me first. We had a long adult talk about professionalism in programming. Essentially, professionals dont crack, but also about writing good code, testing, comments and such, so that it didn't come across as an adult smacking a kid. It worked, because he started taking a more mature approach to what he was doing.

To be fair, there are many professions in IT. Programming is just one of them. Computer security and system administration are two other very different ones. They don't necessary involve much "good code, testing, comments and such". On the contrary, they can involve in-depth, hands-on knowledge and experience of the kind of tools that other people will use, to be able to protect systems from them.

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#39

Post by swombat » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:26 PM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #22

Don't get caught.

With the important addendum that operating on a network that's effectively in the hands of someone else, in a classroom that's in the hands of someone else, is a pretty sure-fire way to get caught.

Don't try to do funny stuff on a school's network from within the school. You are outgunned from the very start.

Re: Ask HN: My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?

#40

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Feb 19, 2009, 9:29 PM UTC

bmj wrote: post #36

jacquesm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument has been beaten to death so many times it really loses it's shine. So, no that does not make it legal. BUT We're talking about a kid that is according to the OP 13 years old, at that age you are not considered to be able to make these judgement calls. Forbidden fruit and all that...

But it strikes me in your original comment, you do state that what he did was wrong. Certainly, I don't advocate anything more than the OP does. This strikes me as one of those "teachable moments" that will help the kid make these sorts of judgment calls in the future.

Hm, ok I see what you mean. Let me try to rephrase what I meant: He did something that could have been considered wrong, had he been in the possession of enough common sense to figure that out by himself. As it was I think he probably just thought it was an exciting puzzle to figure out, which in and of itself is not wrong.

It's up to the adults to help kids make the right judgement calls, so in this case I see it as failed parenting / eduction, not a failure on the part of the kid.

Fully agree with you on the 'teachable moment' thing, opportunities like that come by too little anyway.

The fact that an extended family member is asking about this on a public message board already makes me worried this has gotten way too big in comparison to the infraction.