He wasn't charged with hacking. The charge was unauthorized access.

The student had authorized access to the computing system. The student logged into the system with higher privileges without permission than the student was intended to access the system with -- using the credentials to another user's account which the student learned using lawful means (There was no surreptitious spying, keylogging, deceptive/fraudulent activity, or attacking of the computer system required to get access to the login used).

No. This is the equivalent if locking the grade book away when the student knows where the key is. It's the changing of the grade that is wrong not the finding of the key.

Ok, sure... the teacher locked the grade book away, then in plain sight of the students set the key on the desk, or left the key in the lock. The point is there is no 'breaking and entering' involved here.

The teacher/staff of the school are totally complicit in any wrongdoing, due to inadequate supervision and improper precautions. If they expected to secure their accounts, they should have actually chosen a password for the Password field, instead of using their name: which all the students are told on 1st day of class, therefore the teacher actually indirectly disclosed her password on the 1st day of class, most likely.

Except, the student didn't look at or change the grades; although the student in theory could have. Even if the student did change the grade... a criminal charge would be ridiculous. Just give the student an academic penalty and a disciplinary charge --- fail the course, suspended pending review by a disciplinary committee and possible expulsion.

As long as you have a sub-basement below the frost line; you could carve a narrow transport tube, with a larger holding area at the other end, and deposit additional capsules.

Retrieval is a harder problem, and you better make sure you choose non-combustible non-thermally conductive materials and a nice long plug for your transport tube.

And for the really paranoid, two banks, located in different parts of the country (or a different continent).

For the less paranoid.... Make sure the data is encrypted. get yourself a piece of sewer pipe.. stick the media in with some baggies of Silica gel.. cap off the ends of the tube with airtight/watertight seal, so nothing is getting in Use a post hole digger to create a hole in the backyard 3 to 4 feet deep, and bury the piece of tubing so the top is at least 36 inches down.

It's still stupid for the teacher to do so, but the kids are also still trespassing on the teacher's property.

No... your new analogy is not a good one. The kids are not trespassing on the teacher's real property, only on portable belongings which are located on the school grounds.

Invading someone's house is a serious crime. Although the teacher informing the kids there's a key under the doormat would be tacit permission to enter , since telling someone how to get into your house is a way of granting implicit permission -- thus making it a non-crime to use the key.

In fact.... the students' have permission to use the computer. The problem is not going somewhere they shouldn't; it's doing something with the property they have not been granted permission to do with that property, even if they weren't explicitly told they cannot do it.

So they're discriminating against the student and choosing to file criminal charges because of his sexual orientation, whereas a heterosexual posting a cat picture as wallpaper would not have been charged?

The law is screwed up. This isn't hacking. Hacking is when someone intrudes into a properly secured computer system containing high-valued data and conducts ransom, espionage, theft, damage in a large amount, such as stealing SSNs, identity theft, or intellectual property on which a business is based.

This is the equivalent of the teacher leaving the grade book unattended on his table instead of locking it in the desk and exits the room for a moment, and a student sneaks over to it and pencils in a lewd picture on the cover.

The kid is deserving of detention, and possibly suspension for petty vandalism, especially if there's an ongoing discipline issue.

No friggin' jail time or criminal charges for ordinary childish behavior.

If there's a crime; it should be misdemeanor for disorderly conduct in posting sexually explicit photos.

If you know you're "negotiating," you ask for more than you want based on the expectation that you'll meet in the middle, somewhere close to what you actually want.

Not necessarily.... That's called deceptive negotiating, which is a specific kind of very aggressive negotiation strategy. Which can also backfire through sticker shock or insulting the other party. A more respectful form of negotiation is to first know what you really want, and ask for what you think is fair, as close to what you expect to get as possible --- but overestimate slightly towards your favor never underestimate...

All negotiation is: is knowing that you want; asking for more, and attempting to persuade the counterparty to agree to more; and being willing and prepared to walk away from a deal and make no agreement, instead opting for a next best option ---- since you need some form of leverage to effectively persuade the other party.

Sometimes you do your research, you decide on what you want in exchange for X. You offer what you want, Y.

If the other party tries to counter with Y - 5%, then you say no; I want Y.

And you get Y, or you leave the discussion and make no deal, or go to think about it.

Depending on the position you are in.... just because you are prepared negotiate, does not necessarily mean you are willing to allow the other party to talk down your demands. Sometimes you can accept a 1%, 2%, or 5% decrease to meet the other party...... sometimes, the circumstances are very much in your favor, so you don't bend at all..

If I did negotiate and get a much larger salary than someone with the same skills as me, isn't that unfair and selfish?

No... what's unfair and selfish is that the employer is taking unfair advantage of the other person by accepting their work and not paying nearly as much as they are willing to pay for that kind of work.

In other words, the company is exploiting them for more than the company's fair share of the profit from their work.

And you with your negotiation stood up to them and avoided that level of injustice.

It's selfishness and unfairness; sure, but not on your part... on the employer's part.

The "outdated business model" I speak of is having gaming as a gated resource.

Gated gaming is coming back..... welcome to in-app purchases. I saw a game the other day, where you run out of lives, you can pay $1 for an extra 3 lives, or start over... Free App, but you gotta pay if you want to win.

I think what they also missed was that Nintendo enabled this model in the first place. The Coin OP model was viable, so long as consumers could not or would not buy the systems themselves, and not after. Once the model was no longer profitable for Nintendo compared to other options, then Nintendo no longer had any reason to incur the costs to support the coin op model, as they could make more $$$ selling large numbers of copies of software for home systems, instead of selling a few games to niche players operating games in select venues.

I don't see where Nintendo would incur an obligation to write exclusive software to help promote the old Coin Op model, when doing so would just hurt Nintendo's bottom line, and they didn't really owe anything to the businesspeople who were buying their systems in the hope of reselling 1000x+ uses of Nintendo's their software.

Is it just me.... or has Xkcd gotten a cartoon for everything [on Slashdot] now, much like the Simpsons have done everything?

Using a Company network gives the company the right to snoop the traffic and see what you are doing.

It also gives the company the right to dictate what you (the user) are allowed to do with that computer, which is their property.

With a single phone call, the employer can inform at any time they are able to make contact with you (the end user).. even 10pm on a Sunday... they might say please power off the computer immediately, do not press any keys; we have revoked your permission to access the laptop, you are no longer authorized to perform any activities on the laptop, and please return it to our offices at your earliest convenience, tomorrow morning

If you login to it after that point to grab a personal file, or delete some personal files, after that, then you would be committing the crime of unauthorized access to a computer system. So your access to "personal" files could be lost at any point in time, outside your control.

Likewise.... if they hand you a Linux system and tell you that installing software, or changing the operating system is not allowed, and you go format and install Windows 7 on it, or boot it from a Knoppix CD / Boot and Nuke CD / reimage it, or gain access to restricted accounts such as local Administrator (through hacking) to install unapproved software such as a file shredder, then you might be looking at civil or criminal charges for gaining the unauthorized access or the destruction of "personal files".

I have already set some fileserver folders to Read-Only for him and taken a backup of his mailbox in case he empties it on the last day.

Most folks aren't going to be engaged in destructive behavior when they leave ----- especially if moving to a new job. Therefore marking folders 'read-only' shouldn't be the pertinent thing. The greater danger is, they steal information. Not they destroy or corrupt information, which should be backed up anyways. And if they were going to, they probably had all the time they needed already. Why would they engage in the suspicious activity AFTER giving notice; given that they may be able to reasonably expect being released on the spot (for security reasons)? If someone wanted to be naughty..... wouldn't it make more sense to do the naughty things, and then turn in their notice after they had been doing the naughty thing for 6 months in small bite-size pieces unlikely to be noticed, or explainable away in any one instance?

I refer you to IT separation duties:

Even if IT is the custodian of the information, employee's may be able to access sensitive information. Two classic examples are contact lists and contracts. If a salesperson is leaving an organization, it is a time honored tradition to try to leave with the entire customer contact list. Receiving and providing contracts give a clear picture of the revenue and cost structure of an organization. These should be protected not only with digital means, but also with physical security protections.

Perhaps not the best idea.... unless these are permissions he wouldn't notice going away.

I would firmly suggest instead: audit all activity.

You do have file access auditing on your file server, and capture of audit logs to a safe location, right?

You might adjust the auditing parameters for the user to audit all activity, even when normally not all is audited.

Get him to delete anything personal, because chances are his co-workers are going to be asking for access to his files and emails so they can continue whatever work he was in the middle of.

No.... IT should have a backup of company computers he has access to, and they should be kept.

Anything deleted, to be done with management approval. Now is not the time to go around willy nilly deleting things.

I realize co-workers are indeed going to be asking for access to files and e-mails. The "personal files" issue, is one of the reasons co-workers should not be given blanket access to his or her files.

If the file was pertinent to the team's work, then it should have been in a shared location, unless it was a private draft they were working on but had not published out yet.

If they didn't need to be shared when (s)he was working, they shouldn't need to be shared when (s)he leaves.

In order to protect the company; management should be reviewing things before deciding if co-workers get to see it.

If the Schmuck Company sold Arduino-designed boards under the name Schmuckware, without referring to Arduino, it would infringe on the CC license.

The CC-BY-SA is not an advertising clause. They can include the attribution as a label or note attached to the product package as accompanying it. BY-SA doesn't require (Or grant permission for) them to print that the item is an Arduino or Arduino brand product in marketing material.

The sea level rise is approximately 1 to 4 millmeters per year.

Something tells me there aren't a very large number of cities within a few inches of having to relocate.