Rich Kids Hack Computers to Change Grades at Palos Verdes High but Are Busted by Cops

surfermsc123

HA HA HA HA !!!!

They deserve a medal. This is AWESOME! I mean come on. What's with these comments? F-k High School! I mean really? Who cares about High School? I sure didn't! The classwork was a joke. The only purpose of High School is growing up socializing with your friends and having FUN! The cookie cutter public high school system is designed to discourage, creativity, individuality, risk taking; and get you to comply with learning useless information that will never help you make money in the real world.

The internet has everything you need to learn academic skills. For God sakes I learned more by watching PBS history documentaries with my Dad! All I remember about my high school classes was passing notes, checking out girls, talking, and laughing while trying to zone out some women who sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher! Google "Charlie Browns Teacher" and tell me if that isn't exactly what your teacher sounded like in High School. Do you think these kids learned how to do this in "introduction to keyboard typing" from 5th period? No. They learned it on their own. They made it happen. It's called self motivation. The real key to success in life.

FACT: these teens are smarter than ANY honors student in the entire school. I wish I could've had ambitious friends like this in high school. Of course the article goes on to shame them. Please. They will not get in any trouble. Why? Their parents. 1) they are rich kids and 2) they are juveniles. Sure, if I was a parent I would be "upset" on the surface because that's how I'm expected to act as a parent. But in reality I would be thinking of ways to channel my resources into developing their ambitious talents into something positive and productive. Sorry high honor students. I said back then and I'll say it now: conformity, book smarts, and good grades aren't the the keys to success in this world. Individuality initiative and calculated positive risk taking are.

This took courage, teamwork, trust, calculated planning, execution, networking, inside information and sales. Then they made money off this . Awesome. Just awesome. But what it really comes down to is they were just teens having fun.

This is sooooooooooooo cool !!! :) :) :)

-Michael

Guest

i live in Palos Verdes and go to PV High. The asshole who wrote this article can go to hell. The title is misleading and his opinion is bias based on the wealthy business officers who move here. He fails to consider that a fair amount of the people who live here are middle class people how have worked hard to get where they are today. Obviously the author cannot fathom a story like the upbringing of my parents. My father was the eldest child a single mother in a poor area of LA. He was working to support his 4 younger siblings since age 16. Once he graduated he attended community collage until his bothers could help support the family. he transferred to UCLA and got a business degree and now he is living comfortably in and upper class neighbor hood because he made something of himself. as for the grade cheaters, they made a bad decision and now they need to face the consequences of their actions. This hack writer need to get his shit straight before he goes posting a article online. and if the author wants to be taken seriously, vocabulary like, "rich kids" "buggers" "cops" "busted", should be replaced. no wonder this guy has such discontent for the upper classes because he doesn't had the work ethic to get there.

Element

Here's what they used to do it, incase you want to do it at your own school system. http://hak5.org/usb-switchblad...

Nicodemo

Uh, did you mean Ferris Bueller's Day Off? And not War Games?

Cliff Chesley

yeah.. let me get your platinum package!

Adam

Rofl. It's fucking high school... It's not like a diploma means shit these days anyway. College isn't what it used to be. You certainly don't have to go to college to be something, and as the years go on more people are realizing that. These kids will do just fine.

Christopher Easton

This is not true for the majority, unless of course you count mcdonalds or similar fields as being something (which is totally fine), but don't kid yourself into thinking a person (aside from a fluke startup or celebrity) is going to "be something" (in the purest definition; high salary, specialized field, fame and fortune) without a diploma. Last I checked theres not a whole lot of CEO's, engineers, doctors, high level managers ect with only a highschool diploma. Having said that a line worker at toyota can make much more than myself (a graduate of post secondary), but they also do not have the same level of advancement in their area that I do and I don't work 10+ hours a day 5-6 days a week of manual labour for my paycheque, been there done that and went to college just to avoid that.

tatupujersey

tatupujersey

See Yang

Damn, those 3 kids have balls and talent. That's what I call business acumen.

Yusrin Hadi

They are legion. They do not forget. They do not forgive. Expect them.

Christopher Easton

This is so far from Anonymous, they probably couldn't even log into IRC.

hahahaha

It was funny seeing the reporters whoring themselves out for hours on the parking lot on Friday after school. Keepin' it classy!

rwcmom

"whoring themselves" Who's the classless one?

rwcmom

I graduated from PVHS thirty years ago. The headline of this story is not the issue here folks. It about people who cheat and the complete lack of ethics and personal integrity. The article said two of the three student "have been recommended for expulsion". Recommended for expulsion? REALLY?! Why haven't they been expelled already??? They're a bunch of immoral cheats.

ABC123

Also, by the way, wasn't it about 30 years ago (maybe more) that there was that whole Falcon and the Snowman thing where PV students were selling classified secrets to the Soviets? Surprising nobody has picked up on that angle yet.

rwcmom

You're absolutely right. It was 35 years ago. Both of those boys went to jail. Christopher Boyce served 25 years. Dalton Lee served 21.

ABC123

The school can't expel on its own. The school board has to approve the expulsion.

PV Student

No, the issue is the extreme amounts of stress students are put under to excel. You graduated thirty years ago. Congratulations. But things have changed. A lot. The students involved were under copious amounts of stress and pressure. Two of them were in classes with me, as were many of the kids who bought tests. These kids made a horrible mistake. But they were teenagers who thought they had few, if any options, to make their parents happy and meet their own expectations. Their entire lives are now, essentially, ruined, because they made a bad choice. I'm not saying what they did was okay, but you can't call them "immoral cheats" because they tried to get A's instead of B's. In the world we live in, B's aren't acceptable. At least, that's the way I've been made to feel about it. All they wanted was to be acceptable.

Christopher Easton

No, they wanted GREAT grades for free (no hard work). It's getting a little muddied with the range of comments being posted, but the point remians the same. The perpetrators saw a way to make extra (illegal) income by comitting multiple crimes to possess stolen goods and market those goods to others. The purchasers (rich or not, though with a max of 20 kids involved it sounds as though it may have been a "group" of highschool kids with $300 to blow), received stolen goods. Pressure or not an option to make your parent "proud" that involves cheating and stealing should not be a proud moment at all. Or would you prefer your next surgeon, mechanic, electrician to be in that profession as a result of buying their education? If they do it in highschool those parents are not suddenly going to drop their expectations in University.

PV Resident

It is the 3 hackers, not their customers, who are referred to in this article as "rich" and "upper crust." If these kids were truly wealthy it is unlikely they would have thrown their futures away for a few extra bucks.

rwcmom

Integrity is the thing you do when no one is looking. There is no excuse for being a cheat. I am a parent of two children. They are not straight A students and yet my son got into every college he applied to. My daughter is a senior and has also been accepted to some very competitive schools and is still waiting to hear from more. No one needs to be a perfect person to succeed in this world and you certainly don't have to cheat to be the person you think you need to be. I understand things have changed a lot. Just because I graduated from PVHS 30 years ago does not put me out of touch. I volunteer in my child's high school 4 times a week at the College and Career Center. I know what's going on.

john

id be proud if they were my kids.... its the school admin which should be put in jail bcoz of not being able to secure their confidential info. and hadling it in such a way that even a fifth grader cud break in... also it is the poor atitude of schools about such issues that makes them and their students vulnerable.... they always discourage learning computer security stuff

Christopher Easton

Yes because admin should post a police prescence outside the school 24/7 to watch out for shitheads breaking into the school.

As a system administrator for a highschool I can tell you there is nothing "Ninja or Hacker" about this, the kids broke into the school, broke into classrooms and plugged a few usb drives in. If I wanted to "secure" our information, i'd go back to 10 years when I was in school and make it so exe's and usb drives are completely blocked, oh but wait I had the floppy back then!

If a couple of kids came and smashed a window and came into my library with a pair of wire snips they could steal 50+ computers. Does this make me a bad system administrator for leaving my network open like that? You propose we lock all towers in a cupboard so that students can't plug anything in or insert a cd-rom?

And I can tell you that if I encouraged learning computer security stuff I would have hundreds of kids playing networked HALO, mail bombing and bonzi buddying every computer in the school, and then it will be a parent like you screaming at me when your childs personal info is stolen or her facebook profile is defaced because I taught some computer security stuff, if anything there's probably 100 new kids googling "Key Logger" as we speak as a result of this story.

john

Kawaiipoint2

Dennis I would love to sit down and have a discussion with you just to actually see how twisted your little brain actually is. First off, if you are going to write a story, keep your childish and meaningless comments out of it. Plus lets try and not use such kindergarden words such as "buggers" and "busted" Also, go out and do your OWN research next time so you can actually have an intellectual debate with someone. As PV Resident made extremely valid claims, they are also 100% true. Palos verdes highschool has kids enrolled from all over and arond the peninsula. And you would think you would know as a journalist not to completely clump a population together and generalize them all as 1 thing, especially if you are just going off of numbers that you looked up somewhere. But then again, im not really surprised considering this is all coming from a so called "journalist" in todays times. Especially one from LAweekly...

Judy45

Don't know ow this story went from the main issue of grade change to Obama and Census stats but whatever.

Read the original Daily Breeze article. More objective.

Tim

Please, the "faux" journalists are going to inject "rich" into every story they possibly can up to November.

That's because it fits with their meme, their agenda for turning the election into a class war. Don't concern yourself with the fact Obama is also worth millions, that Wall Street gave him more campaign donations last time around than they did the GOP.

Nope, everything is about the mean ole Rich people, and the noble, downtrodden, hard-working pooooooooor.

So expect to see this spin in just about everything you read for months on end.

Dennis Romero

Tim I think you're reading way too much into my accurate adjective. A per capita family income of 133k is rich no matter how you slice the politics of today.

Dennis Romero

So, if I'm reading U.S. Census figures correctly, their "lower limit" income for membership in the top fifth of U.S. income households is $100,065, which would put Rancho Palos Verdes Estates will into the top 20 percent in America in terms of average household earnings.

rwcmom

Dr. Clutch, You've just contradicted your own comment about stereotyping by calling the journalist a "f**king flatlander" When I grew up in Palos Verdes there was a profound snobbery and elitism because some of the residents thought they were better people for living up in PV. Now, just as then, you are not any better, nor is Mr. Romero any less of a person for living and working in Torrance. Keep your comments intelligent and less polemic.

rwcmom

Dr.Clutch

Your colleague and you are a joke. Stop stereotyping, fucking flatlander. Stay in Torrance

PV Resident

I know you are just a blog reporter but have some respectfor your profession. Check yourwork and check your facts before publishing. All that is known at this point isthat these individuals attended a particular suburban public high school. You know neither where they live nor theirfamilies’ financial situations. Asthese are minors who have been accused of a crime, their identities have notbeen publicly released. Pleaseretract your headline unless and until you have information to prove itsaccuracy.

Midnight Fapper

The peninsula is far from being an exclusively «upper class» enclave. There are plenty of regular 9-5 types living in modest tract homes, in fact those are the prototypical residents in places like RPV.

I grew up on the hill and wholeheartedly agree with PV Resident's comments…

Dennis Romero

Typo. City of Palos Verdes Estates (correctly referenced in the story).

The Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District doesn't appear to straddle too much gang territory, but whatever.

A colleague who covered the area and knows it much better than I doesn't dispute my description.

PV Resident

You're not helping your case. First, there is no such city as "Rancho Palos Verdes Estates." Second, while the high school sits in Palos Verdes Estates, the school boundaries include several cities (and unincorporated areas) of varying degrees of wealth. These areas have a wide variety of residence - from multi-million dollar mansions to small apartments. The district also allows children who have a parent or guardian who works at least 15 hours a week within district boundaries to attend PV High. While many wealthy people (most without kids) live near the high school campus, that doesn't tell you whether any of these children were, in fact, wealthy.

kpositive

Title is misleading. Yes they were in an upper class neighborhood, however the three involved should not be associated with the adjective "rich". Just normal, middle class high school students.

Logical Reasoning

i like how none of you want them to be associated with being rich. they may or may not be richbut they live in pvand as a former student and resident i would have to sayITS A PV KID.palos verdes is a bubble of quiet nice RICH old people and middle class families trying to keep a nice apartment or such.outside of that barely any cities would see such a nice view and streets with cops that give hooligans tickets forrrr trivial things. i dunno how this turned into political warfare but that last line made me chuckle. because its true.

PV Resident

If these kids had identified themselves and were, in fact, known to come from wealthy families then I'd have no problem with Mr. Romero referencing that fact in his headline (if he thought it had some relevance to his story). But he has provided invalid support for his purportedly "accurate" adjective. Think about it. If all that was known was that a high school campus was in a community with an above average number of Hispanic families, would it be appropriate to then write "Hispanic Kids Hack Computers"? I have no idea how Mr. Romero's editor could be okay with that headline. These are real kids facing criminal prosecution. They do not need hack journalists spreading disinformation about them or their families.

Dennis Romero

The per capita income for Rancho Palos Verdes Estates is $133,563, which, comparatively, makes it, comparatively, very rich. It' ranks as one of the 60 wealthiest communities in the United States (by income). While some folks there might see themselves as middle class, the numbers see things differently.

guest

Rancho Palso Verdes Estates, really? they're two different cities, Rancho Palos Verdes and Palos Verdes Estates. U need to figure it out.

A Different PV High Student

The kids who did the hacking weren't rich. I knew them all personally, and I'm sad that they did that. However, many of the kids who bought grade changes were fairly well off. But i still am a little upset that you put "rich" in the title, because it paints the school in a negative way, and a large majority of the students there are honest and hardworking.

kpositive

As a classmate to two of those arrested I would disagree that they were "rich". One transferred from the city of Hollywood the previous year, which on the contrary has a capita income of 33,000. Are we to say that numbers always represent what we are?The word "students" would be better compared to "rich kids" which has some derogatory connotations in it. I found it a tad untasteful, that's all.

PV student

I go to PV High and I live in Rolling Hills Estates, 10 minutes away from the high school. Yes, there are incredibly "rich kids" here but you can't categorize all the residents to be rich. I myself live in a rented house and our income is nowhere close to $133,563. The title is prejudiced and misleading. But I am ashamed that those guys were from my school and that I actually knew one of them.

Austin

Hollywood actually has a per capita money income of $27,315 according to the U.S. Bureau, which still places it below the California median of $58,XXX.