You may be aware of the latest "zero tolerance" situation involving the high school kid who, upon discovering an antiquated command line program for sending instant messages across his school's computer network, sent the one word message "Hey!" to about eighty people. Since the so-called adults at the school didn't understand how he did it, he was promptly suspended for three days amidst dire warnings about the seriousness of his transgression.
At first, Principal Tommy Rollins didn't think much of it. "I saw it," he said. "It didn't say who it came from. I just deleted it."
Beverly Sweeney, a computer teacher and campus computer liaison with the district, entered Carl's computer class and quickly figured out where the message originated and who sent it.
According to Carl, Sweeney asked him, "Did you do this?"
"Yes," he replied.
"Do you know that this is serious?" she asked him, according to Carl.
"No," he replied.
Then she asked how he did it, and he showed her.
There's a hacker mastermind at work.
This kind of idiocy goes on regularly now, and there have been a lot worse cases of zero tolerance including expulsions and lawsuits. But the big difference is that in most cases, when confronted with how incredibly stupid their actions are, the school administrators rarely try to justify them, they simply shrug and say it's all a matter of policy and there's nothing they can do. Not in this case. The "teacher" involved here, Beverly Sweeney, actually believes the action was justified and explains thusly:
Having been a computer teacher in the real world of public education for many years, let me say that suspension of students who are guilty of such tampering sends a message to all students that is beneficial and necessary.
Students should not be of the opinion that it is acceptable to abuse the privileges that are afforded them by the taxpayers. If they are allowed to experiment and do things on the computers that the teachers have not specifically given them permission to do, we would never get any computer education accomplished.
Article comments
1 - Jonathan
5 years ago or so, when I first got into high school. (Im lone gone now) I was in my computer class and me and a friend changed the "Windows is now shutting down" and the start up screens using paint, we changed the "Windows is now shutting down" to "Windows is not shutting down" and then just put alot of bad words on the intro screen. We did it every computer in the class gradually, and then screwed around with more stuff.
Anyways I got caught because someone told on me and I had to show the computer teacher how I did it so he could make sure it never happened again or something. I had detention for 6 months.
2 - Dave
I did some "hacking" (as they'd probably term it) and found:
MORON and MORON 2.
I hope I don't get suspended.
3 - Dave
I wonder what the "antiquated command-line program" was? Probably NET SEND.
That music from Beverly Sweeney's site was the background music for the once-popular "Hamster Dance".
4 - Craig Lyndall
I am sure cavemen hated fire at first too. If Mrs. Sweeney had discovered fire, I am sure she would have stamped it out and not told anyone what she did.
5 - Eric Olsen
I would diagnose her picture as caused by a perpetually clenched rectum.