By Lester Haines
Published Wednesday 10th August 2005 14:08 GMT

US authorites are preparing to throw the book at 13 high school kids for "computer trespass" after the Dirty Baker's Dozen - aka the Kutztown 13 - bypassed school computer security measures to indulge in an orgy of net surfing and online chat.

The Pennsylvania perps face a 24 August meeting with the beak in the rather agreeably named Berks County juvenile court charged with computer trespass - an "offense state law defines as altering computer data, programs or software without permission" as AP explains. The possible punishments if they are found guilty include juvenile detention, probation and community service, although mercifully it appears that the prosecution will not be pushing for them to meet Ol' Sparky.

Which is surprising, since the list of outrages perpetrated by the gang makes chilling reading indeed.

It all began last Autumn when the education authority supplied around 600 Apple iBook laptops to students at the high school. Naturally, they came complete with net-access-limiting filtering programme, and snooping software allowing the powers that be to see just what their charges were up to.

The administrators had not, however, reckoned on the sheer determination and machiavellian cunning of the students. They quickly found the admin password allowing unrestricted internet access - not by a keystoke logging black op or extracting it from the IT manager at the point of a gun - but rather because it was taped to the back of every machine.

Unsurprisingly, the miscreants immediately ran amok online, surfing with impunity and indulging in that most forbidden of fruits - iChat.

Naturally, in the same way as youngsters sent to borstal will normally complete their sentence rather better informed about improved criminal methodology than rehabilitated back into society, once the Kutztown 13 had access to the wild wild web, they became more sophisticated in their criminal activities.

Although the admin password on some laptops was changed, the rascals cracked that using a decryption programme they found on the net. They also disabled the remote monitoring function and used it to spy on the administrators' own machines.

Finally, and most disturbingly, AP reports that "at least one student viewed pornography".

Hence the 24 August dateline with destiny. The parents of the Kutztown 13 claim that the school has overreacted, and that the kids are being punished for making monkeys of the system, rather than any serious misdemeanour.

One of the criminal masterminds, 15-year-old John Shrawder, reckons a felony conviction could hurt his future prospects. He told AP: "There are a lot of adults who go 10 miles over the speed limit or don't come to a complete stop at a stop sign. They know it's not right, but they expect a fine, not a felony offense."

Shrawder's uncle John agrees, and has set up a campaigning website to champion their cause. He said: "As parents, we don't want our kid breaking in to the Defense Department or stealing credit card numbers. But downloading iChat and chatting with their friends? They are not hurting anybody. They're just curious."

That's as maybe. The school's legal representative, Jeffrey Tucker, insisted: "The students fully knew it was wrong and they kept doing it. Parents thought we should reward them for being creative. We don't accept that."

We're inclined to agree. Older readers will recall that such behaviour in our day would certainly have attracted a sound thrashing with the birch and most likely transportation to the antipodes. The problem with the kids of today is that... [Editorial note: The remainder of this analysis of the state of modern youth can be heard later today in the snug of Ye Olde Boy in Witheringspoonhampton where our correspondent will be found - as ever - muttering "When I were a lad..." into his foaming flagon of Thruppleton's light and mild]. ®

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i got confused when you said orgy of internet surfing. then it came to me what you meant by that. fyew...

So... bypassing the blocker to keep games and chat out... is illegal?

Net surfing and online chats are now illegal huh???? Boys will be boys.......

Just harmless kids who wanted to get on the internet...thats all....

Remember one thing.... the internet is the most corrupt thing in the world....
so the net is more dangerous than the kids......

i do stuff like that all the time on my school computers i didn't know it was illegal!!!!????

The schools own fault.

1. They had the admin passwords on the back
2. They didnt cut off the Internet access to the machines
3. They didnt take the machines off the kids?

Schools these days really need more knowledgable IT teachers, in my school the filter on the pc can be disabled by pressing ctrl+alt+del and ending the process. Than teachers seem amazed when we figure out how to do it

That's becoming a real problem Nemesis. The young generation have been born into a world of technology. Where as the teachers are still learning at an Adult pace, and the children have never lived in a world without it. The changes have come upon us so quickly, that even people who studied computers 10 years ago, would have to learn more to get up to speed with todays technology.

The education system actualy refers to children as Technological natives, and the older generation, as Technological immigrants.

Considering the wages teachers get [in Australia anyway], all the IT guys who know what they're doing would be way more interested in a $100, 000 yearly wage than the limited amount teachers seem to get.

got my teachers password but shes stupid she lets us use her comp for work some times and she has it in a folder on her comp but why if she cant find her password how is she going to get on but theres other ways of getting kids passwords to.

I think the kids were pretty smart, and the administrators were pretty stupid. I don't think they should get felony charges. The teachers should take away their computers and make them type their papers on a typewriter or something.

this is just plain stupid,the pw's were on the freakin machine for crying outloud...they basically gave them the permision they are now trying to say was "broken" into

I hope this insanity is limited to this single state and not the whole country.

Hmm, interesting topic

In reference to Kismit reply, today's Schools, College's and Universities are now conducting a strict IT Policy, most of which are included in this 'crime'. This is certainly apparent within Scotland and the surrounding countries at least

However, it is rather pathetic that the county police department in considering this as a felony. If this was indeed Scotland, the justice system would laugh their ass off at this and throw it out before it could even reach a level were they begin to hand out punishment. However, considering this is the U.S, anything can bloody happen.

It is right for the school to employ IT Guidelines but I do also think that even though the children do have some explaining to do, there must be SERIOUS flaws in the system. And someone will answer to why the password was strapped to the back of the laptop.

Has anyone there heard of common-sense, I'm guessing not?

My friend bypassed the windows lockouts in the system (easy enough) and changed the administrative password. He then sent a "net send message" to the whole school. 5 day suspension for that. No lawsuite. The 13 year old kid in the article should have just gotten detention.