Getting access to forbidden information is intriguing. Like many others, this tempted me, and even though I did not think I was doing anything really wrong at the time, I learned otherwise when I was caught. Had the worst-case scenario taken place, the consequences could have been extraordinary. A twenty-year-old was recently sentenced to eight years in Federal Prison for attaching to and actually removing pass codes and social security numbers, perhaps with the same program I used. My friends and I were lucky. Not only were we caught in a short time frame, but the principal was generous in not pressing any charges, as he trusted we were just “experimenting.”

The realization I had done something wrong didn’t set in until I was confronted. You know, that hot-in-the-face feeling, when everything flashes before you? I was in math class when they came to get me. Still flushed and a little confused, I was briefed in the hall. They told me they had found a program in my folder on the school’s server that shouldn’t be there. They sat me down in “the chair” and began to interrogate me. First, they told me they knew everything. Normally, adults tell kids this just to get extra information from us, so in actuality, they only have a slight idea of what’s going on but usually do not know the magnitude. This was different. I could feel it. They were almost completely aware of everything: the programs, the other kids sharing them, when we used it, who used it, what it was-- they were actually only missing a few pieces. Now, I had originally only gone into this as an experiment to mess around and add letters to other student’s files, so I could sit back and watch the fun. But seeing and feeling the intense seriousness of the adults questioning me, I knew it was worse than I ever set out to accomplish. We were busted--wide open. And worse still, we had actually infiltrated some server connections that could possibly have put many people and their families at risk. This is why, when it was my time to talk, I spilled everything. Partly because I knew inside that if I complied with them, they might reduce my punishment. And partly, because I did not ever intend on this happening. I told them what computer I had been on, who all was involved and most importantly, what the program did. Looking back, I could have been more helpful by supplying another name right off, but at the time, I was so scared at the magnitude of the whole thing, I just couldn’t think of it. I even went to my locker and gave them the only copy of the disk I had. It was this infected disk that triggered the investigation.

Thank God it did not get into the district computers, which are also on the network. That is where the real damage could have taken place. I am not diminishing the damage that we did. Local computers, PCs, the schoolserver, teacher pass codes-- all had to be taken down, re-established; re-done. Hours and hours of cleanup for the computer support people to deal with. Time. Endless time. Many, many people’s time.

As a result, we had to go through a very painful restorative justice process. Now, as painful as this was, it was definitely better than facing a District Attorney or Juvenile Justice court. We are very fortunate it was an offense committed against people who cared for us.

Because so many people were involved, scheduling became difficult, and we had to wait a very long, agonizing week suffering with what “might be.” When the meeting finally took place, 16 people each had the opportunity to tell their story. Second round, how it affected them. Third round, how they felt, what should be done-- and so on. It was a four-hour meeting! I had negatively impacted every one of those 16 people, and facing them to confess and apologize, knowing they held my fate in their hearts, was very difficult. Many of these people had never met us before. What they say about first impressions is really true. It was hard for the people who didn’t know us to look at us like anything but devious, deceptive little brats. We’re fifteen years old, but we actually cried. We felt terrible. Our parents cried. In front of everyone. Believe me, it was no act. Fortunately, my friends and I are considered by the school staff to be “the good kids”. We were touted as “the Angels.” at first, the media specialist refused to believe the computer staff, because “Not these kids. These are my prize students. These kids would never be involved in this type of thing.” But we let them down. What seemed fun and harmless at first was really ticking time bomb. We ended up letting ourselves down.

I thank God every day I have built a good reputation. I work at making good grades, and at making my teachers and parents proud of me, and learning how to be proud of myself. What we did was wrong. We could have gone to jail. Seriously. It is a felony offense. I let my parents down, stained my good reputation, almost lost a friend over this, let his parents down, and lost the trust that I was given by the school staff.

As part of the restorative justice process, the group, as a whole, agrees upon what it is each of them needs from us to “set things right.” Some people were very angry at us and really wanted to punish us. Our principal and media specialist wanted us to learn from this, and parents added that maybe helping other kids learn before they get to this point might be good as well. The system administrators just wanted us dead.

In the end, not only have we put together information to publish on school sites and the Internet, we have had to work at repairing the trust we broke, and also I have had to spend most of my “free time”-- which isn’t much these days-- reformatting the hard drive on my family computer, learning about good firewalls, anti-virus software, how it affects other programs, and overall repairing the damage on the family computer this left behind. This incident is also listed in our permanent records. Yes, there is such a thing that carries through high school and can even be reviewed by colleges looking for information on you regarding your integrity for scholarships and administrative purposes.

Computers can be excellent tools, but at the same time they can be used as vile weapons. The intent of the people who put this out on the Internet had that type of motivation. There is a quote in “Jurassic Park” that states “...the real question is: not can we, but should we.” Of course they are talking about cloning dinosaurs, but it is a good question to pose to other life circumstances including computer usage. There are numerous programs that can infect people’s computers, gain passwords, and access information-- all while the victim has no idea what is going on. Of course, we CAN do these things. Some of these programs are so simple, even a young child can operate them. Some are even posted with scripts to follow to make it all seem very innocent. We always can do much more than we should. It is a question of ethics.

I have learned a lot from this experience. I learned you have to be very careful what you download from the Internet and with whom you trust on your computer. I now know that there is a very fine line between learning and hacking. I could have gained private codes and numbers just “learning how" to get them. I learned that there are different ways to learn about computers, and the best way is going through the front door-- the honest way-- and asking for the skills rather than just taking them.

--Dan--