It’s not often that you read about a student hacking into their schools computer system to change their grades. That is usually a story reserved for the movies. But for the second time this week, students at a Los Angeles area high school have been arrested for internet crimes for doing just that.
The most recent occurrence happened at Torrance High School, where four sophomores have been arrested on charges of illegally accessing a computer database and conspiracy to commit a crime – both felonies.
While the incident is still under investigation, it is believed that the students used keylogger software to obtain the username and password of one of their teachers so they could change their grades. Earlier this week, students at Palos Verdes high school also were caught hacking into school computers to change their grades.
Whether or not this was just a school prank, or a result of pressure to succeed academically, the four accused teenagers could be expelled from all California school districts as a possible consequence.
Pressure to succeed isn’t just limited to students however. A recent report showed that an administrator at Claremont McKenna college fudged the SAT scores of incoming students in order to rank higher in US News & World Report’s rankings of the best colleges in the US. While that incident won’t require the assistance of a criminal defense attorney, it did cause the administrator to resign.
The four students charged in the Torrance High grade changing scandal will definitely need a juvenile crimes lawyer to sort through the allegations. Their futures depend on it.
