A student at a Canton, Ohio high school has been arrested and thrown in jail for inciting a devious computer crime. I’m somewhat fearful to reveal the details of his horrid crime, since spreading knowledge of such nefarious criminality could undo the very fabric of the modern internet.
Despite the risks to all of humanity, here are the details of his crime. He encouraged people to navigate to his school’s website. Then, once there, he told them to….press the refresh button!!! A bunch of times!!!!!!!
I’ll admit, the kid was being malicious: he wanted his school’s website to crash. But is this worth the time of a judge, police officers, and a county prosecuter? To say nothing of throwing the kid in jail and potentially giving him a criminal record.
I dunno- seems like an over-reaction to me. And the funny thing is…the kid’s action didn’t bring down the school’s website. But as a result of the kid’s arrest story going public, tens of thousands of people all went to the school’s web page (which, out of the goodness of my heart, I’m not publishing here). And their web is now down.
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