<p>To keep this short at first, a young Junior friend was recently reported for changing the passwords of her recently ex boyfriend following a minor spat. She did this to ‘show power’ over him when they were in a discussion on dividing up joint property.</p>
<p>At the time, she was wrapping up an internship at the IT dept. and the ex reported her to them as well as to campus police. Apparently the event is a class B Misdemeanor and the IT security people assured him that she had no extra access to his accounts (she also threatened to mess with his financial aid) but she still accessed his school accounts and changed the passwords, locking him out. She also changed other passwords to joint business accounts but that was it. </p>
<p>As far as can be seen, she violated IT dept. policy as well as the Universities conduct codes. The IT people said she faced having her own accounts frozen as well as possible suspension/expulsion.</p>
<p>She is deathly afraid of expulsion as it would ruin her life.
She has confessed to the event and there is ample documentation that she did it. </p>
<p>What are the chances of her actually being summarily kicked out?</p>
<p>Gosh, I don’t know but it seems like a huge abuse of power. If she is so deathly afraid of expulsion, why did she do it? I think worse than expulsion are her future employment prospects.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it would make any difference, but did she have the ability to change the passwords because he shared them with her? If so, then it seems he could be partially responsible. It’s still wrong, but I think it would be worse if she “hacked” the accounts. </p>
<p>I would guess she could get suspended. She may have to take a semester off. Good luck. You should get a lawyer right away.</p>
<p>That was my thought too - if he shared those passwords with her, he may have also been in violation of policy as well. It doesn’t make what she did right or less bad, but is shows culpability. If she confessed, and made things right quickly, that may also help in her favor.</p>
<p>The fact that she changed passwords to any joint accounts is irrelevant,unless they each had independend access to those accounts. The Misdemeanor may or may not mean anything, depending on whether he presses charges or not. If she has not been in any previous legal trouble, the court could be lenient with her, but she could end up with a record that will follow her, and would have to be reported on any job applications. Since her internship was with the IT department, I’m assuming she was planning on working in IT after graduation. Given the type of crime, it will be more significant for an IT grad, if she does manage to stay in school.</p>
This could depend entirely on the school’s honor code, or lack thereof. Each school is going to handle this differently, but if there is an honor code in place it may guide her to a probable outcome. This also can have a very different outcome if this is administered by the administration vs the students. Student run honor systems tend to be much harsher and stick to the ‘letter of the law’, whereas administrators see the longer-term value of keeping the student in school whenever possible and will be more likely to opt for a suspension.</p>
<p>It sounds like this young woman had access to PW due to her employment at IT. She used her power to change her ex’s PW. This is in violation of her employment contract. She should never use her work information for personal gain. She is in big trouble.</p>
<p>If this stays on her employment record, she will not be employable by many major companies. We do a background check before we make any offers.</p>
<p>Unfortunately I think she is in pretty big trouble. To change his university passwords was not a very good idea, no matter how mad she was at him. In the end she has hurt herself way more then the ex. I think because this was done during an internship ship she has really ruined her chances at a good job after college. Which she may or may not be able to complete now. </p>
<p>I think getting a lawyer might be a good idea. </p>
<p>I would grovel and plead temporary insanity to see if they would go easy on her. I am not sure if bringing a lawyer in right away would be such a good idea. The school may have to go by the book if there is representation.</p>
<p>Wow, this was a really serious case of bad conduct.</p>
<p>Will she be expelled? I don’t know any better than anyone else does. But I don’t think it would be out of proportion to what she did.</p>
<p>If I were a Dean, or a member of the college’s disciplinary committee, I would probably favor what we used to call “rustication.” I’d require her to leave the university for a period of time, probably a year, after which she could petition to be readmitted. But I wouldn’t disagree too strenuously with somebody who thought she deserved to be expelled for this offense.</p>
<p>I suspect she ought to be more worried about whether this ends up in court than whether she has to leave the university. Even if she is expelled, she can probably re-enroll somewhere, eventually, and complete a degree. But she may have ruined her chances for a career in IT–particularly if this episode results in a conviction.</p>
<p>Depending on how far the ex boyfriend wants to take it a lawyer might be needed. Hopefully she has shown remorse and the university can handle it within, but on the other accounts the ex could file charges with city police. That is where my thought process was on getting a lawyer</p>
<p>rushedmom - you could be right. There are three parties to this mess - 1) her employer (IT), 2) the school, 3) her boyfriend. Any of them could bring disciplinary actions against her.</p>
<p>I don’t think the boyfriend gave her the password. I think the girl got the PW through work, her IT internship. I could be wrong, but that’s what it sounds like to me.</p>
<p>I have no idea what her chances are (of being expelled), and I suspect that the investigation by IT security will play a huge part in this. It will be far, far worse in terms of future employment if she abused her privileges as a member of the IT team, used college owned equipment etc. than if her BF gave her his password and she did something from her dormroom on her own laptop on her own time (not W/S time). That said, anytime someone uses someone else’s password to access private information and alters information it is a very, very serious offense and she could very well be expelled.</p>
<p>Can you clarify, clockwork? Did the BF give her his password, or is it the same password they used on joint accounts so she tried it and it worked? That might make a slight difference compared to hacking in because of her access in the IT Department.</p>
<p>He did not violate the university policy if he did not give her his password(s).</p>
<p>Op states she did the following:</p>
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<p>She did this through the IT department, violating both the policiies of the department and the university. The school would be within their right to suspend/expell her for violating their policies. </p>
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<p>This does not sound like this was through the school but through a bank or an account where they had joint funds and she did . (OP said the fight originally started when they were dividing their joint property. What they both need to do is go together, divide up their stuff and close the account before one closes the account and leaves the other in a lurch.</p>
<p>Then the head of the IT department should be fired for incompetence. Passwords should never be stored in the database, just the hashed value: your password is used to calculate that value but cannot be determined without very time-intensive brute-force hacking methods. And granting universal password access for a mere intern? Horrible security, if true!</p>
Well that’s true enough, but the girl has certainly shown that she is willing to go to scary places if you **** her off. I wouldn’t want to have her anywhere near my life, whether as a significant other, employee, co-worker, daughter in law, etc, etc, etc.</p>
<p>I agree that it sounds as if she abused administrator privileges or access to data as an IT intern. She was seriously out of line, and does not belong in any IT department unless or until she has shown that she understands the full seriousness of this sort of transgression and can convincingly demonstrate that she would never do it again. And I really don’t known how she would do that. If IT people cannot be trusted to maintain people’s data security, the system crumbles. </p>
<p>I think that she should at the very least be suspended.</p>
<p>“Show power”? I don’t care what their disagreement was, she has shown a complete lack of judgement and complete unsuitability for having any IT responsibility.It is one thing to temporarily change a password on a joint account. It is quite another to use your internship to violate the security of the university system. This was not the prank of a 13-yr-old, which could be excused.</p>