Check out this uber-hacker!

[eli]

]Here is the full story.

(CNN) -- It was a breeze for 15-year-old Reid Ellison to hack into his high school's computer grading system. But what to do once he broke in took a bit more ingenuity.

You see, Reid already has a perfect 4.0 grade point average at Anzar High School in San Juan Bautista, California. So to leave his mark, he decided to lower his grades to a 1.9 GPA -- a meager D+.

"I couldn't do what most people would want to do when they hack into the school's computer," Reid said. "So I thought it would be funny to do the opposite."

The hacking project, which was sanctioned by the school, left administrators so impressed they gave him a perfect score. The school is now working on fixing the security holes.

"I'm helping them with it," said Reid, who's been tinkering with computers since he was in second grade and wants to be an engineer. "I basically came up with three pages to improve the security of the network in general."
Getting the password
Reid Ellison made sure it was easy to change his grades back to A's.
Reid made sure it was easy to change his grades back to A's.

Reid's project was part of Anzar's "exhibition" requirement. To graduate, each student must complete six exhibitions -- written and oral presentations in history, science, math and language arts.

It took three hacking programs less than a second -- 200 milliseconds to be exact -- to find the password to the school's computer, Reid said. It was the school secretary's name: Silvia.

The school has since changed the password and Reid doesn't know it, but that doesn't stop the jokes from students asking their classmate for hacking help.

"If he didn't have such high moral fiber, he could probably make a lot of money off his abilities," said Wayne Norton, Reid's adviser.
Getting perfect grades back

Reid, who skipped part of the eighth grade, said he's setting his sights on college, not hacking. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the California Institute of Technology to be exact.

After his hacking session was documented, Reid kept a close eye on the return of his hard-earned A's.

"I made sure it was really easy for them to change it back," he said.

All he did was run a stupid password checking program. And he's on a MAC! *sigh*.....

 

[David]

Thats nothing. On any given day I could:

a) bring down the entire network
b) cut off net access
c) make logging into any PC in the school impossible
d) view all staff usernames and passwords for email and internet access
e) view and alter grades

All that kid did was download a small piece of software and run it. Now if he programmed it himself, it may be worthy of mention.

(btw, a-e above are possible because I am in the server office 5hrs/week, have, with permission, knowledge of a teachers username/password).

David

 

[eli]

I'm am much the same as you David. I work in the computer labs in my school, and I have administrator access. The very LEAST I could do is shut down access to the network for EVERYBODY on campus.

CNN must have their head up there leather cheerio.

 

[David]

Heh, got the fright of my life today. I was working in the server room (I use the Network Administrators PC, as I am the only one doing Computing at Advanced Higher level, and the class of 20 next door are doing Higher) and I sneezed. Just as I sneezed, the PC shut itself off, the Apple Mac server died, the place went dark, and the UPSes started making loud beeping noises.

The power cut only lasted a few minutes though, just had to turn the Mac server back on and reset the time config.

David

 

[eli]

What's with Mac servers and highschools? My highschool still uses a Mac server. Won't they learn? No, i tried to help them, but they wouldn't listen to me. Now they are spending tons of money try to get someone to help them.

You have some narly sneezes David.

 

[David]

What's with Mac servers and highschools? My highschool still uses a Mac server. Won't they learn? No, i tried to help them, but they wouldn't listen to me. Now they are spending tons of money try to get someone to help them.

You have some narly sneezes David.

Well we have a lot of servers:

2 Windows 2K based logon/file servers.
1 Sun Internet proxy server and web filterer.
1 Apple Mac G4 for the Macs logon/network file storage access.
1 Windows NT4 based Application server.
1 Windows NT4 based Phoenix server (for managing pupil records and so and so forth).

David

 

[whiteemcee]

Well the network administrator in our school is a moron... ATLEAST 5 times a day you will get booted off the internet cuz of firewall problems.. and when u can get on the net with our T1 connection its about as fast as a dial up connection its very depressing.. i'm pretty sure they should let me take over

 

[Guero]

You would think schools would have better security when it comes to grades since everyone would want to be Matthew Broderick in WarGames.

 

[Frodo Baggins]

well, I was very impressed right until it came to the password: Silvia

Any school stupid enough to use words like that for passwords deserves to get hacked, no offence

The passwords for my highschool are like uk89kjg7kjg7cv191j, which would take a long time (eternity) to bruteforce through

David: must have been one hell of a sneeze

 

[metra]

Well I would want a simple password that everyone could remember... And what do you mean "brute force through"? The kid downloaded a password generator or whatever. IMO, the schools stupid because he was even able to download something. In my school you cant download anything. Or do anything else for that matter! Of course, I imagine getting past the teacher/student login is pretty easy to pass by.

 

[nealric]

thats pretty dumb
I cant believe that mad cnn- It happens every day at my school
(not by me of course)- If it did my grades would be much better than they are

 

[David]

David: must have been one hell of a sneeze

Lol, it was just comedy timing. I happened to sneeze when the power went off. I got a bit of a fright at first...

David

 

[Titan386]

My schools network admins are totally clueless...

Last year someone downloaded starcraft to the schools server, and everyone was playing it for about 6 months before anyone cared to notice.

They also blocked you from getting to the my computer screen, but if you went into IE and typed 'my computer' it popped right up

 

[Penguin4x4]

Well last year our High School got a lab of computers from Corbey Computer Co.(Some small business in San Antonio). Funny thing was(This was Spring 2001 mind you) They ordered, get this: 800MHz PIII, 1128MB PC-133, 20GB HDD, 15in. Monitor and Win2K Pro with Office 2000 for $1,600 per computer,

Anyone want to guess the Admin password?

 

[metra]

15in monitor!?!? Man that schools stupid. =[

 

[KaHNZa]

Yeah, schools should have no less than 17" monitors.

 

[xvi3tsoljahx]

suppose 15inch isn't bad considering its a school computer... just that the price of that computer isn't worth it.. i can build 3 or more decent computers and faster compare to that price....

 

[ArBiTaL 24]

Our school admin is really bad as well. She tried to ban access to "C:\", which can be accessed by double-clicking the start menu and opening explorer, opening it on the "open" menu on progz like word, or typing "c:\" in the address bar for internet explorer of out newtwork drive .
Also, everyone's e-mails can be accessed using explorer to browse to the folder that it's in and selecting the user name, and just typing "***-svr" (where *** are the letters from the school's network). Also, internet explorer is banned during break, etc, but can be accessed by logging in under "schoolgames", our games account which we get access to about once every 15,000GHz processor launch .
They ban D:/ and A:/, but both can still be accessed using the same technique as accesing C:\. They also don't ban removable drives, like those USB things, allowing you to bring in programs, warez, games and install them under your login.
And, best of all, they think they have super-security on their network with differant remote drives for users, but how to access everyone on the network's files? pull the lead out of the back
lol.
There are lots more but i can't think of them all now.

 

[CJ145]

heh the computers at my school's administrator password is ad*in! (put a letter where the * is ) Well on some computers. I can get anywhere and do anything on the network... The grades are still in books though.

 

[ArBiTaL 24]

heh the computers at my school's administrator password is ad*in! (put a letter where the * is )

-Adlin? as in, "add linux to this system NOW!!"?
lol