Forwarded From: bluesky@rcia.com
May 26, 1999
Five arrested for hacking into high school system
By MATT GOWEN
BUNNELL - Five Flagler Palm Coast High School students - one the son of a
Bunnell city commissioner - are facing a litany of criminal charges after
authorities said they used a computer virus to hack into the school's
network and commandeer teacher and student files.
Flagler County sheriff's deputies arrested the students Monday. All five
were taken to the Division of Youth Services in Daytona Beach before being
released to their parents.
Facing the brunt of the allegations are Steven Alverson, 17, and Daniel
Bixby, 16, both of Palm Coast. Alverson was charged with 16 separate
felony counts, eight for crimes involving computers and eight for crimes
against computer users. Bixby was charged with 12 similar counts. Alverson
and Bixby were suspended until the end of the school year, June 4.
Arrested on two felony charges each were Yen Chen, 16, and Henry
Cervantes, 17, both of Palm Coast, and Daniel Dupont, 17, of Bunnell, son
of City Commissioner Catherine Robinson. School officials gave Chen,
Cervantes and Dupont in-school suspension until the end of the year.
The five will be allowed to return to take final exams June 7 and 8.
As for the criminal case, the State Attorney's Office will now decide
whether formal charges should be filed.
The arrests capped a lengthy investigation into the presence of the virus
- a disabling computer program that gave the students access to teacher
grade books and to exams on the system, according to reports.
The virus was initially discovered April 8 by technology support
personnel who were upgrading the school's protective software. In a
subsequent investigation, reports said, the school's computer experts
found that each of the five students had downloaded a "hacker tool" from
the Internet into their personal computer accounts.
FPCHS Assistant Principal Allan Haller said no grades were changed but
that grade files were deleted and exams were compromised.
"It was more mischievous than anything else," Haller said.
Still, he said, the high school's computer network connects to the
districtwide system, meaning the students could have eventually broken
into financial and payroll records or general personnel files.
"It could have been very disruptive," Haller said. "They could have shut
down the whole system."
The arrested students either preferred not to comment or could not be
reached for comment.
Robin Alverson, Steven Alverson's mother, said her son insisted he was
innocent of any criminal wrongdoing and offered to take a lie detector
test or voice-stress analysis to prove it.
"Steven is very computer literate," Robin Alverson said. "He is not
stupid. He knows that anything he does on there can be traced. That's the
thing that gets me."
One of their classmates, who asked not to be identified, said he thought
the group had simply downloaded games off the Internet and that one had a
virus attached to it.
But sheriff's reports describe a highly technical process - set in motion
Jan. 4 - involving hidden and renamed viruses that blocked administrators'
access to their files, making the path more difficult to trace.
"These students were very good," Flagler County School Superintendent
Robert Williams said, alleging that they viewed breaking into the system
as a challenge or game. "They were running our people ragged trying to
keep up with them."
Williams added that it was the first time the district has dealt with
unauthorized internal computer access, and that the disciplinary code will
be revamped accordingly over the summer.
The high school has four classroom computer labs, and Haller estimated
the school has more than 100 computers that connect to the Internet.
In the fall, each student is given his or her own password-protected
computer account to do research or work on word processing programs.
Students and parents must sign an agreement on proper use.
"Some of them choose to use their talents inappropriately," Haller said,
adding that peer pressure may have played a role. "Whether it's a macho
thing, whether it was a battle over school territory or whether they were
out to prove a point - 'We're smarter than you' - it's hard to say."
And as recent news reports demonstrate, even large agencies such as NASA
are not insulated from the potential for break-ins.
"We're a high school," Haller said. "We don't begin to have the kinds of
resources that the federal government has for protection."
-o-
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Received on Fri May 28 15:52:50 1999