Student Charged With Hacking School’s Grade System

Tyler Coyner, a student at the University of Nevada in Reno, hacked into his old high school's computer system to change the grades for paying students. Coyner, along with 13 other individuals, have been arrested. No one is exactly sure how he hacked into the computer system, yet they believe he must have gained access through a password of some sort. While he attended high school, he "maintained" a 4.54 grade point average. Receiving such high marks earned him the salutatorian honour, usually given to the student with the second-highest marks at graduation. 


This is so concerning because due to the technology that is readily available, people are too trusting. This high school probably never thought they needed more security surrounding their grading system. Due to this, grades were easily accessed and then altered. This is unfair to the kids who worked hard enough to deserve these grades. Now, this 19-year-old boy has a criminal record because he was lazy and would rather cheat his way through the schooling system.


This story reminds me of the documentary we watched in class. In Asia, children were taught a song that described "netiquette." They sung about always being honest and being careful of others online. It seems that in these countries, computer addiction is their biggest problem. I am sure they have hackers, but it seems to be more prevalent here in the states. As technology is rapidly advancing, we as a society need to follow some etiquette guidelines. Just as a child you are taught manners, people need to be taught what is and is not acceptable. 


It is obvious that hacking into a high school's grading system is not ok, yet there is still a great deal of gray area. For example, is it still doing your own work if you use sparknotes or google translate? Where do we draw the line? I believe this is one of the biggest problems with society today. It's not the technology, it's what we're doing with it.   We need to not misuse the power we are given. Technology is a privilege and should be treated as such. 

Technology and Social Interaction

Technology has had a great influence on the way society communicates with each other. It is truly amazing to think that almost anyone in the world can easily be contacted. Through cell phones, texts, instant message, facebook, skype, blogs, online dating sites, games and so much more, we can broadcast ourselves. We can reach a myriad of people instantly. While two of my best friends were studying aboard in different countries, I was still able to keep in contact with them. I would be facebook chatting with one who was off to the pubs in Ireland, while I was reading a blog about my other friend snorkeling in Australia. Also, the creation of skype has changed the intimacy of how we communicate with others. Being able to see someone and their facial expression is key to a relationship. It is so much more personal than just words on a screen. In this sense, technology has furthered our ability to communicate with others.

However, I don't know if society, as a whole, has benefitted from this technology. Technology is omnipresent. It has taken over our lives. Read anyone's blog on "Media Diet" and it's apparent. We live as if our mobile devices are an extension of ourselves. We are constantly connected to our phones, computers and the internet. It is difficult to even imagine a day without being connected. So how does this affect the way we as a society communicates? I believe, especially with the younger generation, that we are entirely dependent on our technology as primary means of communication. Teenagers rarely pick up the phone and call someone, "just to chat." It's all about texting. Getting a response as soon as possible. This has made society 1. adverse to face to face communication and 2. impatient. Technology is just reinforcing our id. Our instant gratification.

Imagine all the things you can do online that is faster than actually doing it. Example: ordering a pizza online, instead of calling. Shopping online, looking up directions, reading a book or magazine. The list is exhaustive. While this is faster, it also takes anything personal out of the equation. For example, there's a new restaurant in town. Instead of asking your friends if it's any good, you just hop online and read reviews. While this is helpful, it diminishes conversations to have with other people. If this is society now, how will it be in 20, 50, or 100 years? Will people cease to have face to face communication at all?

Another aspect of online communication is safety. Many teen girls have run into the danger of befriending a person on the internet who is not who they say they are. Think about it. How easy would it be to create a fake facebook account. Or any account online for that matter. We trust too easy when we should be cautious. Technology is a great advancement. However, just like anything else, it needs to be used in moderation. We need to embrace the positive aspects and still communicate face to face with our peers.

Social Networking and Privacy

Technology advances has created a new way to network. When I think of networking in the past, I see men in suits, shaking hands, certain people meeting certain people. This was your way in, to society. However, now one can meet certain people easily. Facebook has changed the way we communicate with the rest of the world forever. Contacting people on the other side of the world is only a click away. We have the privilege of getting to know so many more people than we normally would. You could be facebook friends with a friend of a friend and they could be looking to hire someone for a job and there you go. You're connected. You're in.

Other sites, such as linked in, offer these similar opportunities as well. I have an older cousin who told me that the sole purpose of her being on facebook is for her job. These networking sites are a great way to stay in touch with many people at the same time. However, being in touch with so many people can have it's down sides. For example, can you trust everyone you are facebook friends with? Would you normally let them hear personal conversations between you and closer friends? Well, facebook welcomes them into that inner circle.

Writing on people's wall, tagging pictures and statuses are all fun ways to stay connected, but they can also have serious consequences. The internet is different from a face to face conversation because it is permanent. Almost anyone can go on facebook and see the video you posted on your friend's wall last week. And if this video is less than flattering, than there could be issues that come from this. So these types of situations beg the question: What is privacy regarding the internet?

On one hand, people feel as though they should have privacy over all internet activity. On the other hand, people are making a conscious choice to put information on the internet, so it should be public. I believe, first of all, that privacy depends on the age group. For example, my high school had access to our myspace and facebook accounts. Due to this, many girls got in trouble for inappropriate pictures of them drinking and smoking. However, I think monitoring these kids is acceptable. They are underage and if they know they are doing something they can get in trouble for, than they shouldn't be broadcasting it.

However, I feel as though once you enter college, your accounts should be private to anyone you are not friends with. I think this is especially important when college students begin looking for jobs. If a job can look on your facebook and decide whether or not to hire you based on information and pictures, than that is ridiculous. As we saw at the beginning of our class, facebook is not an entirely accurate representation of who we are as actual people. So we should be given privacy from perspective jobs when it comes to social networking.

Media Diet

For the past seven days, I have tracked all my media intake. This includes everything from the computer, to the phone to the T.V. I have found that I, like many others are, addicted to media. Hours out of my life everyday are solely dedicated to quality time with a monitor. As soon as I wake up in the morning, I reach for my phone. As soon as I'm done checking or any missed calls or texts, I grab my computer and hop on facebook and then proceed to check my e-mail. 

For Christmas, I received an iPhone and this has definitely increased the time I spend connected to media. With an iPhone, it's like you're connected to the computer 24/7. Which can be great, but also very distracting. Basically, whenever there is a lull in my daily routine, I'm connected to the media one way or another. Even when I'm engaging in watching television, I'm usually on the computer or my phone. I feel as though I constantly need to be connected. But to what exactly?

Why am I so concerned with media? What is it, that it does for me exactly? The one thing that I believe all media tries to give is connection and communication. The internet, facebook, my cell phone and it's apps. They all promote communication. I can call, text, write on someone's wall when less than 50 years ago, someone would call another person's home phone, leave a message and just wait to hear back. Now, we are all instantly connected. I can get a call from my mom who wants me to come home for the weekend, and while talking to her, look at my calendar on my iPhone to see if I'm free. Or I can be texting a friend all the while, I can be on facebook at the same time seeing how my friends who are abroad are doing.

Technology has revolutionized the way we communicate and interact with the world around us. However, it's funny to thing that with all this technology, we find it difficult to sit and talk to someone with no other distractions. It becomes difficult to have face to face conversations. We do not directly interact with anyone, our phones and computers do. Like all things, everything is fine in moderation. As long and we respect technology and limit our uses now and again, we will be able to interact with the world on many different levels. 

The Hacker Who Went Into the Cold by James Verini of the New York Times Magazine

Albert Gonzalez was the greatest and most skilled hacker that the United States had ever seen. He gained access to millions of payment-card accounts from a myriad of corporations. He turned spy for the United States government and betrayed not only them, but also his own hackers. What would make a man who was not concerned about the money, commit such infamous crimes? According to a sociological perspective, there are a myriad of things. However, the top three regarding this case are social learning theory, classical theory and anomie theory.

Social learning theory is the idea that people learn how to engage in criminal behavior from others. This can take place through differential reinforcement, beliefs or modeling. In the case of Albert Gonzalez, modeling is what shaped his criminal behavior. Gonzalez bought his first computer at the age of 12 and he “took an interest in computer security after it was infected with a downloaded virus” (46). He asked the technician who fixed his computer many questions and learned, through example, how to hack into computers. Also, a few years later, after he dropped out of college, “Gonzalez had taught himself, by reading software manuals, how to hack into Internet service providers for free broadband (47). This modeling was the first step in Gonzalez’s criminal behavior. 

After learning how to effectively hack into computers, Gonzalez took that information and used it for his personal gain. Stemming from the theorists Beccaria and Bentham, classical theory assumes that criminals are rational actors who weigh the pleasure and pain of an activity. This theory is used most often when dealing with crime such as white-collar crime. Albert had no history (presented in this article) that would lead one to believe that he was mentally impaired or suffered a disturbing childhood. He was, quite contrary, remarkably intelligent. The consequences to his actions were blatant, yet he continued to hack. He decided that the pleasure of hacking overpowered the pain of prison. Nevertheless, he was a rational human being who knowingly and deliberately committed serious crimes.

After Gonzalez and his hackers began to steal millions of payment-card accounts, corporations’ security did not even seem to exist. Gonzalez describes his hackings as pretty easy. No corporation was off limits and it is fair to say that he created his own world where there were no more rules. This idea is congruent with Durkheim’s theory of anomie. Anomie theory is a moral confusion or breakdown in mores or a gap between goals and means in society. Simply put, it is a normless society. Gonzalez has created this normless society because there were no more rules. He easily gained access to any store and did not worry about getting caught. It was as if the FBI did not matter because his hacking was easily undetected. Gonzalez, for a little while anyways, was living in this rare, anomie society, where crime and punishment was irrelevant.

This article was truly fascinating about the ins and outs of Albert Gonzalez’s hacking. However, to pick apart this article, looking for motives of crime, was equally fascinating. Applying even three of the many sociological perspectives gave even more insight to these crimes. There are many theories that can be applied to this article, but the three best are social learning theory, classical theory and anomie theory.