He's 18 for Christ's sake, and a talented one too. Reprehensible actions, yes, but 38 years isn't fair and just. Give him 6 months and make him take a computer ethics class at the university. If he does it again, then make an example.

he f**ked haha

screwed hehe

... a 38 year "contract" for a "job" that will guaranteed him food and shelter. And by the time he get released, it's about retirement age...

marry Sarah Jessica Parker!

Seriously, though, HALF of his life behind bars and he didn't TOUCH anybody, didn't hurt anybody physically? Murderers often get lighter sentences.

He deserves 38 YEARS in prison for computer hacking? That's just foolish, when people are getting less for murders with evidence and rape, honestly ludicrous.

Will be interesting to see how this goes... Let's also not forget that he did OTHER CRIMES (.."After he was caught cheating on an English exam in April, he is alleged to have broke into an assistant principal’s office in order to steal back the test.")

Now, if THAT doesn't deserve 38 years, then I'll be damned. LOL

Seriously: a justice system that possibly gets you 38 years for "crimes" like these, has a serious credibility problem IMO. Suddenly it looks not too unreasonable to amputate hands of burglars, not?

38 years is alot, but that is how much time he could get, if the judge is an asshole and he thinks hes innocent he will get 38 years. if he pleads guilty he will probly get half that, and he will probly get parole in like 5 years. personally for the ammount of things he did 38 years is alot but the charges add up, he should have thought about it before he did it

changed D's to A's... guess this man lacks some common sense but defiantly does not deserve a prison sentence

That many felony counts and up to 38 years?! You've got to be kidding! There are murderers who don't face that kind of sentencing. Our legal system is a joke... I can't believe this could bring more than an expulsion and misdemeanor charge(s).

I agree with most everyone else. 38 years in prison would be way overkill for this. Murders and rapists get less time in jail and all he did was breaking and entering... in the physical and digital sense.

He's not going to go to prison ... CIA will probably hire him ... lol

Nice going Kid.

He faces 38 years. Does not mean he will get that. He may get 1 or 2 years and doing so much shit, he deserves it. You can't do what ever you want in this society. I feel terrible for someone to mess it up so young. I hope he gets as short time as possible and learns the lesson.

He committed 69 felonies. That is 1.82 years per felony. Thats not bad at all but when you multiply it by 69 then its a lot. Murder is 1 crime. Imagine if someone gets charged for 69 murders. Thats probably 20-25 years per.

He's just lazy and stupid.

First off, this idiot goes to the same high-school as me - Tesoro High School. The guy is a total loser who just wastes his time trying to act cool and trying to "party it up" cause his family is relatively well off.

The "38 years in prison" is just a tagline. He *faces* that much time in prison because of the 69 seperate counts of felony charges, but he'll probably get a fine and probation and that's about it. (Well, that and getting blacklisted from the major schools that he had no shot of getting into.)

Secondly, since when has installing a keylogger program on a computer been considered hacking? In which case, we're all "hackers" cause we installed software on our PC. He doesn't know the first thing about programming. He asked me to fix his spyware infested computer on repeated occasions. The guy would get others to do his work for him and pay them off. He even asked people to take the SATs for him! jeez!

Lastly, he's a lazy idiot. He got caught AFTER he was denied admission to the UCs (yes, he still got rejected with his modified transcripts), when he tried to appeal the decision and have more transcripts sent out - that's when the counselor noticed the discrepency. If he had taken the time to study for the SATs instead, he'd be in by now, even with his terrible GPA.

What a ridiculous world we live in.

... Cali is a harsh place to break the law! Damn, 38 years? Arnold needs to pardon him! Make him join the Army for 2 years or something. He lack a dishapwen.

While I would agree that 38 yrs would be a little overkill in this instance, it should help him understand there are consequences to his actions. If he had not been caught, then what about him and his 12 buddies? They could get scholarships they didn't deserve, jobs they couldn't handle (which could lead to injury or even death to others). As for his skills, this is not like the old days where you had to know how to code (or even be semi-intelligent) to hack. You can google hacks all day long and just use what the real hackers put out there. If he did break into a school to cover his tracks, that even shows us that he is more worried about covering his tracks that owning up to what he has done. He will not learn anything if they give him 6 months in jail.

And to all of those of you who said he didn't hurt anyone, neither did CEOs who cooked the books to make their stock go up but then ended up screwing up their employees lives when the company went under or had to be laid off. What if he had used the school server to take down your business's website with a DOS attack? It doesn't sound like a big jump for this kid.

I do applaud the parents though for letting him sit in jail. Let him spend part of his summer there. It also shows how much his parents know of his character or the evidence that the DA has on him.

I would give him 5 years with parole in 1 if he is 'good', or maybe the option of 4 years in the Marines. Bet they could straighten him out.

I see an appeal, an under the table job deal, and the kid being recruited into the ranks of some 3 letter government organization.

My friend was murdered by a guy who got out in less than 7 years because his defense is that he was on drugs when he did it. This kid should be expelled, refused entry to Universities, and be sentenced to a shitload of community service mowing the school's lawns and cleaning their toilets. Prison time is ridiculous for what is practically a victimless crime.

As with most people caught doing this, he just got greedy. He changed Cs, Ds, and Fs into As. That will always raise red flags. He should have left the Cs alone, raised the Ds and Fs up just a bit, and lowered a few of his As and Bs so it would look like an odd glitch that just randomly changed grades.

Oh well, that's our justice system at work. Maybe the kid can say he was abused as a child and get off with a pat on the back.

- Office Space -

I love how everyone takes in what they read and eagerly swallows it. RELAX! Sure, based upon the letter of the law, taking into account what he did...sure it may add up to 38 years... In reality, the kid probably won't serve a day in jail. Chances are he will walk away with having to do probation, repeat his last year of school and time served.

Will that have taught him anything? Probably not...

They need to make an example out of him or other kids will follow his footstep. If they did, study will lost its meaning. He want to be a man, then take it up like one.

so dumb.
the one that distribute the fake grade is the teacher that give you the original grade...
so do you know you can get away with it?

While comparisons with punishment vs murder or similar are a good argument...

By changing his grades and APT scores, he can also take advantage of scholarships and other things. So this isn't just as harmless as changing some grades.

How can you possibly justify that this is, in anyway, worse than a murder. This a pretty ridiculous when you look at it as a whole. He changes some grades, he didn't shoot up his whole school. This is nothing more than a glorified breaking and entering, but because of the super-sensitive attitude toward digital crimes this is going to be extremely overblown by some hard-ass judge looking to make a name for himself. Someone along the line here needs to use a bit of common sense and realize that maybe a few months in prison will suffice for an 18 year old kid.

1.82 years per felony? 1.89 x 69 = 130 years... You did 69/38, and not 38/69. It's more along the lines of 6 months per felony. lol...

Going down sucka!

What? A prodigy child expressed his youthful rebellion in with a computer instead of a can of spray paint?

Quick, let's blacklist this boy for the rest of his life, make damned sure he can never get a good job in what is obviously his industry... Let's likely force him into a life of crime with his skills, unless he is lucky enough to end up a consultant.

We need to find a new way to deal with these sorts of problems.

Whenever a prosecutor tries to put together a case they charge the defendent with every possible charge relating to their offense/offenses. They do this to ensure that the defendent will at least get found guilty of one charge or plea out to one of the lesser charges. Most of the charges will be dismissed and the guy will probably do a few months in county jail, probation and some community service.

If these are Federal charges he will not get parole or any time off for good behavior. If he is sentenced to 20 years he will do 20 years. My guess is that he well be sentenced to half of the max and some of the time will be concurrent.

If I had to guess, he will do about 10 years.

It's really quite sick that you morons are defending this obvious criminal. As if he had merely spit his gum on the sidewalk and suddenly he faces the death penalty. Now THAT would be an overreaction. I do, however, believe hackers like this mulehole DO deserve the death penalty. But I would settle for the remainder of his life in prison with hope of repeatedly having his ass raped as his blood trickles down his leg and tears stream down to his chin.

And two last things, death to Kevin Poulsen and Kevin Mitnik.

Are half you guys stupid? Seriously, he committed 69 felonies, so he got charged with 69 felonies and when you add up the terms associated with them, you get 38 years. So what do you expect, they drop half the charges because "Its a little much." That is stupid, you should get charged for what you did. The ACUTAL SENTENCE will be a lot lighter and probably more fitting of the crime.

Seriously, do a little thinking before posting.

If sounds like to me that he did not even have to hack anything he just found out a username and password from someone who had access to the records logged in a changed them.

Also i would say that 38 years is the max he could get but he would never get that it is just so high because he got so many felony's. I bet the only reason that they even really care is because he broken in to the office and stole a test.

... a 38 year "contract" for a "job" that will guaranteed him food and shelter. And by the time he get released, it's about retirement age...

Yes... It also gets him 38 years of being the pretty little girlfriend for an angry 6'5" skinhead with a sex addiction

wtf. Some one should snatch this kid up with a job. Wish i had some actual work for him!

Stealing and using someone else's login is not a sign of a 'genius' hacker. It's a matter of serendipity or desperation. This moron obviously does not know the difference between right and wrong and needs to be taught a lesson, not given a job (would you hire him?). A single incident may deserve a slap-on-the-hand punishment, but he is a repeat criminal. And not only did he do the same crime multiple times, he also committed other types of crimes too. It's a shame that he will waste the next several years of his life in prison, but he did too much.

I bet this doesn't go to jury. I see him making a deal with the DA.

Also it sounds like this school was stupid with their security policies. This school should be hit with some fines for letting this happen in the first place. Where would you get a username/password?

More taxes to pay to keep someone in jail that shouldn't be. What a wonderful system we have.
Maybe Obama will fix it LOL

That is ashame. They might go easier on him because of his age and that he is obviously blundering like someone desperately in need of attention.

I had just 1% of faith left in our American legal system, but I just lost that 1%. As a hacker who also got in trouble at school (When I was in the 7th grade, an administrator failed to secure the files on the server, so I had full read/write access to everything, but I did NOT change anything... that would be immoral), I am shocked an d outraged to even see this as a headline. I read depressing stories about someone getting sued for over $1 million for doing nothing wrong, the government violating civil liberties, etc, but THIS is just pathetic. He changed some grades... okay, that is bad, I think they should have made him repeat high school or something. However, if he's that smart, why was he getting C's or F's? I think the school system should have sent him to therapy to fild that out first (since he recently moved to America, that had something to do with it, I bet). But no, they think destroying his life is better.

It was wrong what he did, but come on, he gets more jail time than your average rapist, or even murderer? this is just how disgraceful America is now!

Remember that at 18 years old, he's an adult and therefore subject to adult punishments. This is no different than going into a corporate computer system and altering personal records for yourself and other employees, or stealing project documents...

it's not his fault they didn't catch him earlier. if they did catch him the first time, he'd get maybe a week in his house or something, nothing serious.

"Does Nobody Think Anymore" Apparently not about grammar rules anyway!

Most of the "thinking" posters are correct. 38 years is a ridiculous sentence for these particular crimes, especially considering, as has been pointed-out, what violent criminals routinely get.

But I suspect that they are also correct that he will get a much shorter sentence. What I hope the judge does is give him five years and he serves half that. When he gets out he can go to JuCo, and if he proves himself there, then he can continue on to college where, based on his abilities, he's likely to graduate with a computer degree and could go on to make a ton of money, create a Facebook or Google and be an asset to society.

His crime is serious, but some perspective needs to be applied by those charged with dispensing justice in this case. Thirty years or even ten, is not justice.

JoeL

People, if you are going to refer to this black hat (more likely a script kiddie), DON'T call him a "Hacker" please. The correct term is actually "cracker" as he 'cracked' into the school's network. "Hacker" actually refers to a programmer with virtuous intents.

As for the kid, he probably won't get the full 38 year sentence, but he does deserve to be punished for the time that the teachers/ITS people will spend to rectify the damage (if they were smart they would have made at least one backup of their data).

kthxbai.

"Omar Khan" rots in jail for trumped up crimes. If he were a Biff Whitington, there'd be no repercussions and this would not be news.

instead of the ass whoopin my old man would have given me if I had pulled that.

That's what he needs... and 60 hours or so of litter patrol.

And the school needs a little better control of its computers, and maybe it's physical offices too.

38 yrs for changing grades, breaking into a computer system, and getting exams. He IS a criminal but when the heck will this country make punishment fair and reasonable for ALL. We have CEOs and a President who lie to us and either get ignored (and thus seemingly get away with it) or get some measley sentence that ultimatley gets pared down. The kid didn't kill anyone; but Bu$h lies a country into a war that has cost thousands of lies and billions of $$$s and gets away with it. Maybe the kid should have waited to become a CEO or some rotten politician before he tried his hand at something illegal? lesson learned.

This kid is not a hacker, he's a cracker, meaning that he hacked into the school's IS and cause damage to data. Given that he did this, it is likely officials are seeing this as a predictor of future behavior. Also, given the charges and the massive amount of jail time should he be imprisoned, as well as his youth, I doubt he'll get more than supervised probation and a ban from accessing computers or IS for a prolonged period. One thing: he does need to be accountable for his illegal and dangerous behavior, as it was irresponsible and caused considerable damage to his grades, reputation, future possibilities for career and education and credit, the school's IS network, and the other students for whom he altered grades. A central issue is exactly why was the IS so vulnerable to this cracker's invasion and damage?

I stole the login info from my highschool back in the day. I could do lots of things whenever I had that freedom of the superUSER. I didn't change any grades though. One day i sent the whole school a net send command through command prompt and said Fuck this SCHOOL-somehow they found out it was me and I got charged with 3 felonies...i can't remember what exactly the charge was for...but my highschool turned around and dropped the charges and made me their network admin till graduation time...Now I have a BS degree in Network Security

what a crock. seriously its just the internets. get over it. poor kid should be allowed to live. its totally apparent that we live in fascism no?

go justice.

He should have watched old movies (WarGames/Hackers/Swordfish...). The movies would have given a clue how to remain in the background. Crackers now own the title Hacker. True hackers are clueless how to own it back.

Should have watched movies for clue to get away (Hackers/WarGames/Swordfish...) or not.

So-called "Black Hats" (Crackers) owned Hacker away from "White Hats". White Hats either clueless or lazy about getting name/reputation back.

That'll teach the little bastard not to screw with other people's systems.

This is why i am embarrassed to be an American. Our founding fathers would be ashamed at this absolute disregard for common sense and justice... 38 years for a high schooler who "hacked" into a school system (and other petty crimes) is absurd... We need another American Revolution.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson

You have to look at the situation one piece at a time. Breaking into a school office and stealing is breaking and entering. Subverting a school system through the use of a user name and password is not a sign of any technical skills, just a lack of control by the school. Admittedly he showed a pattern of poor judgement over a period of time. It is unfortunate that he didn't get caught at the beginning. If he had faced some consequences early on, he might not have become so brazen.

I showed some poor judgement in my youth, but fortunately the people involved were lenient with me and I learned respect for the law and the property of others before I got into serious trouble. The officials in this case may be waiting to see some evidence that he knows he did wrong and that he is capable of learning his lesson.

Perhaps he has proven that he cannot be trusted enough to hold certain kinds of jobs. I wouldn't hire him for any technical position. There are always toilets needing to be cleaned. I think the military is a good place for people who have a demonstrated need to learn to live within a set of rules. Three years in the US Navy straightened me out a lot. This might be a good time for one of those deals where they offer him a chance to join the Marines and serve for four years honorably to dismiss his criminal sentencing.

I understand the knee jerk reaction because he messed up big time, and showed no respect for his school, his classmates, or the law.

Since he didn't hurt anyone physically, we don't need to see him punished more than a rapist or murderer. We don't want to set an example that these behaviors are condoned. Therefore he needs to see some serious repercussions from his actions, perhaps several years worth. He needs to know that he can never again go totally wild without serious consequences.

I think the school officials have gone way overboard because they are rightfully embarrassed at how easily he was able to get around their physical and digital security without any real skill or talent. The school should be embarrassed that the tests were so easily stolen, and their server/s so easily subverted. I am glad he was finally caught because getting away with all this would have led him to think he could do bigger and better things later in life.

Curious about the laxity of security that a student could install a remote access service into the school's servers, plus get the username and password of individuals with enough access rights to the student system in order to change grades, etc.
Let me guess, Microsoft Server 2003?

Welcome to the free country USA! What else awaits us, maybe electrocution for changing grades?
Lethal injection for cheating in the classroom?

Its about time today's kids learn that there are consecuences to certain actions. Far too many of our children only think of themselves and nothing else we have become a self centeres society and need to learns a simple lesson. He is LUCKY!! in other countries he could have lost his head!!.. And I still call it fair. If not whats the alternative? a slap in the wrist and 30 days community service?
If you want to stop any one from doing the wrong thing you MUST set an example, otherwise you will never be taken serious. GOOD JOB!!

People are murdered and children are raped. Yet, the sentences for those crimes are more often than not...Well lesser.

What you are saying about murderers and molesters if you give this sentence to an 18 year old? Sure he should be punished...but last time I checked there was something in the Constitution about "cruel and unusual punishment". This case would be a slam dunk if his defense attorney is any good.
You can set an example without taking his whole adult life from him.

Do it right! If you have F's D's and C's. Don't raise them all to A's, it is blatantly obvious. Change the F to a C at max, the C to a B and the D to a C. It won't look as nice a straight A's, but it's a lot less noticeable.

i'm sure the sentencing will not be consecutive years. he'll serve 2-3 years.

No one is going to use the term "cracker" to describe a criminal hacker. Even those of us who actually know the subtle difference between the two, using that term within earshot of the vast majority who do not know it will more likely bring to mind the invocation of a racist slur. So shut up about your precious distinction, nerds! For the rest of us, there are "programmers" (the positive) and then there are "hackers" (the negative). THAT is how it is, so again shut the fnck up!

There are many many worse things that happen these days and the consequences are not even close for a stupid thing that happened!!!!!!!! Same things happen @ middle school, kids get into fight and they get in school suspension and someone 'hacks' and get 5 day suspensions!?!?! retards! screw them {seriously, really tight} This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

38 years??? That's more than some people get for murder! That's really unfair! They're taking away 38 years of his life simply because he had some fun with the school's computers! That's dumb.

wow that is sad i could go kill about 5 people and not even get the same amount of time he got, that is just funny, killing a human is minimal compared to hacking into a computer and changing some grades, they can just change the grades back wow stupid faggot government

u people r all stupid saying this about this dude. this guy was retarded in his own way but we r not to judge because he might have had other problems we dont know about.

38 years is unfair! he will be 56 years old when he finally gets out of jail! they should only lock him up for 5 years. there's no reason to take his life away from him

If the alleged is true. Khan should face all 38 years. This is the exact lesson to be learned for excepting responsibility of a crime. If Khan is let go with a slap on the wrist, he may end up committing other crimes as well. This will also teach other students throughout to think first before acting. RESPECT YOUR PARENTS AND DO WHAT THEY SAY. STUPID! Serve the time. Maybe the judge will be leaniant on Khan for his age, but if this were an adult just a couple years older. The judge would obviously not let this incident slide so easily. If Khan wanted to play an adult, he should be treated like one. Act like a criminal and be treated like one.

Maybe we ought to raise the bar on murderers and rapists. If convicted of rape by any means or murder without just cause. Get the death penalty. And make it quick. True blood comes on at 10pm. Maybe hardening the sentences for more discusting crimes, then people might think twice about commiting them. In Texas, it is still legal to kill the person who steals your horse. But it's ok to cut off someones head. This "Khan" should learn a lesson. Maybe then his friends will think twice as well before doing something stupid that others work so hard to accomplish.

im sorry but stilling an id is not hacking the kid sucked at triing it the hard way so he stole it! He got what came to him and i dont feel bad at all!

Sarah Jessica Parker is a fashionable woman. With great pleasure I watched every episode of http://rapid4me.com/?q=sex and the city this film.

38 years for this? That's ridiculous. I speak from first hand experience. Last year (my senior year) I got slapped with computer trespass and computer invasion of privacy for pulling something similar to this. My teacher left his login information above his computer, and from there I gained access to school servers which stored lists of every student's personal info. I never used any of it, and never even thought about changing my grades. I did it because I was bored in lab one day, but I got off with 32 hours of community service. I learned my lesson, hopefully this guy will too. But I don't think years in prison is necessary.

wouldnt it be the schools fault for not having a suitable security application running for ****'s sake it is a bit sad though i would say it would be the schools fault and his tbh. yes he shouldnt of done it but with my mates we dont do anything like that but we still make an example of the technisions at our school and most kids have done it

I did the same thing to my school, I could access anything, except I never did anything he did, like change grades, especially on purpose. Its very unfortunate that I got caught because of an investigation of a fake email, they found out my secret connection I had for 11 months, which I couldve easily deleted, but I like a fool didn't bother to and now I am in very serious trouble now with police. I really don't deserve 30 or even 10 years in prison for just hacking passwords and being able to access anything in my school from anywhere in the world. Its not fair that this has to happen to me and I think I might want to kill myself if the police tries to lock me up in jail like what is happening to this poor guy. I only hope that since God was an asshole to get me caught, I hope God is using all his power to keep me from going to jail, because I really do not deserve this at all. I never meant any harm to anyone or the school, I just like having access to everyones password in the school and to keep it to myself without doing any physical or computer damage.