Your child could be arrested at college! Life ruined.

[concernedparent]

Curiosity killed the cat.
- sigh -
again, I am sorry that I even mentioned the religion. It seems like people see words on a screen, mix them up, and come to their own conclusions.

The point is, most things that you get arrested for are obviously wrong.
Computer use on college and university campuses is dangerous. They may allow Yahoo messenger to transfer files and messages. They may allow you to install it temporarily. When you click on a web page, it may install a plugin on the computer. Thousands of web sites have java chat clients that install automaticlly. Well, you have now tampered with another persons property, and you can go to jail. Kathy Lee Gifford had a web site with a java chat client. Clean and wholesome chatting. According to the law, you have tampered with the library's computer by going to a web page that installed the chat client. Why risk it?

The letter of the law does not distinguish between installing something to chat with other students, share files, or hack into systems.

[zantedeschia]

Good luck getting into school in China. I know you were just kidding, but it is so hard to get into college there that everyone is trying to leave the country ( a lot of students go to college in Europe, a few lucky ones get to come to the US)

[calmom]

You ignore the fact that this student installed file sharing software on a computer that was not his own. I think any student should know that there are restrictions on how public computers may be used. In fact, most public computers have some protections in place to prevent users from installing new software - such as firewalls or control of user privilege settings - so it is very likely that this student indeed did some hacking to get around whatever barrier was on the computer to prevent such installation.

Plus - it is very likely that something significant happened -- like a huge spike in bandwidth use -- to alert the library to the problem.

You have posited all sorts of hypotheticals that didn't happen in this case, and then tried to rewrite a history to make the student sound hapless and ignorant. Like the t.v. commercial where the little girl accidentally downloads a file with a virus on her daddy's office computer, but fortunately the entire office network is protected by the anti-virus program being advertised and the IT division is immediately alerted.

But it is highly unlikely that this kid was like the innocent little girl. The process by which he was caught negates that assumption -- how did the library staff even know he was the one who did the downloading? Computer intruders are hard to catch the first time around - you have to set traps for them and wait for them to come back. So in this case it is most likely that the student's activities were monitored over time.

This is no different from the incident posted in another thread where the high school boys were apprehended after entering their school building through the roof -- no one was making excuses for them, even though they were much younger and didn't seem to have any criminal intent.

If what this kid did was truly innocuous, chances are that his case will be dismissed. An arrest is not the same as a conviction. If the circumstances show that what he did was illegal, but he lacked awareness of the illegality -- the consequences are likely to be minimal, but firm enough to make sure that he knows not to make the mistake again -- typically for an adult offender, a fine but no jail sentence. And if the reality is that he is a sophisticate computer user who knew exactly what he was doing, he will likely get the consequence he deserves -- but computer crime very rarely results in significant jail sentences.

[15mbw]

I did a quick internet search-- this exact info "life ruined" thread is on several different places,Like here no original source for this infromation is posted

I will bet "dollars to donuts" that the incident never happened

give me a link to the original incident and I will retract

[3togo]

one other point ... the school certainly can set and monitor its policy on computer usage ... these rules may or may not make a lot of sense ... however, all the school can do if a student violates a school policy is kick you out of school. If this student was arrested they are accused of violating a city, state, or national law ... it is a government pressing charges and not the school. To me, the story does not seem to add up.