Man pleads guilty to hacking school computers, changing grades

There are plenty of movies and TV series that portray students hacking into their high school’s computer system to falsely improve their performance records. In those shows there never seems to be much of a penalty involved, but one former high school student has found out first hand that the real world punishment for such behavior can actually be quite high.

Omar Shahid Khan, who is now 21 and a student at Cal Poly Pomona, pleaded guilty last week to two felony commercial burglary counts, as well as a felony count each of altering public records, stealing or removing public records and attempting to steal or remove public records in connection with incidents that occurred in 2008 and 2009 when he was a senior at Tesoro High School in South Orange County.

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Khan, co-defendant Tanvir Singh, and 8 other students who were minors at the time, were all accused of activities related to breaking into their high school administrative offices to steal tests, as well as hacking into the schools computer systems in order to improve their grades.

Kahn "installed spyware devices on the computers of several teachers and school administrators throughout his senior year," which gave him the passwords he needed to perform the grade hacking, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office.

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Singh pleaded guilty to the crimes in 2008, and charges against him were subsequently dismissed after his probationary period expired. The eight minors involved were required to appear in juvenile court, and their records are not public. Kahn, however, was about to go to trial this week facing charges that could have carried 38 years in prison, but accepted a plea deal which dismissed dozens of felony charges and would not require his former classmates to testify in court.

Thanks to that guilty plea, Khan is now expected to receive a drastically reduced sentence of 30 days in jail, 3 years of probation, 500 hours of community service, and $15,000 in fines. Sentencing is expected to take place on August 30th.

30 days in jail is a world of difference than 38 years in a federal prison, but still seems harsh for a kid who was caught cheating in high school. Sure, Khan has passed into that magical age of 18 where he was suddenly an adult and expected to know better, but he was still a high school student which makes me wonder if he understood the severity of his hijinks.

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Despite the incident, I’m sure Khan will end up finding success, maybe as part of a digital security company that could use his “skills.” But I seriously doubt that his sentence, or any kind of threats, will prevent some high school students from using such tactics to cheat in the future.

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