How do you punish kids that hack?

A friend of mine brought her son's computer to work last week. He's about 13 years old. He just wanted to upgrade his processor so I told her I would help. We went through all the fun of upgrading a compaq's processsor (torture I tell you!!). Started his computer up, it had win2k on it. Well I'm not one to be nosy, so I left it be, because bios recognized everything, and it would bring to you the login screen, that was good enough for me. Well she was curious about what her son was doing, but we didn't know the password. Well he had the HDD formatted for fat32, muhaha. After using the good old win98 boot disk, steal the sam file and a few brute force hacking program, got his password and logged in. I think he had atleast 2 or 3 trojan clients like sub7, bo, etc in plain site on the desktop. Anyway, told her to have "the talk" with him. Next day, he apparently had trojaned his brothers (it's a big family) computers and a lot of his friends computers. She's not really sure how to punish him or if she should punish him. Not really sure if he's done anything *wrong*.

I've never really run into this kind of situation before? She is turning to me for advice, but I don't know if I will give the correct advice.

Should I:

• tell her to ground him and take away all computer equipment?
• tell her that boys will be boys, no harm done (that we know of)?
• tell her to be paranoid because now the FBI is coming to take her son away?
• take his pc and install a copy of Linux on the other hard drive to jumpstart his tech career?
• do nothing, hope for the best?

I know this isn't really security related unless you are one of his friends :( but feedback is certainly appreciated.

take it away. If this isn't stopped now, then its just going to get worse. She should also have a serious talk with him about it.

:spank:
hmmmm tough one - i guess it depends what he was doing once he gained access......screwing around with ur bro's can be fun just as long as its nuthin malicous - but then again he may get into trouble with some form of 'higher' authority at some point if she don't have a talk with him.......

maybe some sort of net monitor is needed? or even a firewall to block all outgoing traffic cept for ones for browser (80) etc?

But as long as he ain't going to far with it my tendancy would lean towards the whole boys will be boys :lildevil: Hey theres alot worse things he could be getting himself into online!!!

have her take his computer away or at least his internet access. Or if she has a friend from the police department have him come and scare the **** out of her son and see if he will do it again.

mm... I think the kids equipment should be taken away. Yes on one hand it is only his brother and friends that he is hacking it to. But if he did this without their consent... well look at it this way. Sooner or later the kid will want to see "who else he can connect to" and he will want to explore alittle more. I'm all for exploring, when it is legal.

I would also look at it from this view. is the kid being destructive or is he just having fun. Certainly if he is abusing the power, the power should be taken away and stronger punishment should be enforced.

Either way the kid won't see it the parents way. (I'm 18, i know, my computer has been taken away many times) He will try and find ways to hide his crime. I think the parents should somehow present the risk he faces if he gets caught and let them know that his machine is being taken away (for a short while) to protect him from that risk

I actually found a few documents here on the site about kids and hacking. Well it seems that most here agree to "take the computer away". I should probably tell her to have a good *talk* with him and perhaps he shouldn't have his computer for a while. Although

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Or if she has a friend from the police department have him come and scare the **** out of her son and see if he will do it again.

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sounds like an interesting idea, hehe :D Anyway, I'll leave it up to her, but my advice will certainly help. Big thanks to everyone for the feedback :)

Capital punishment.

Only messing I recommend simply scaring him with tales of hackers in jail and taking away the internet for a while or he will escalate like all trojan users into a full blown script kiddie [this is more likely than him becoming a real hacker which some trojan users do].

Good luck anyway.

What to do with kids who hack?

Well I guess this would all depend on the kid himself... What is his ethics? Why did he do it, for fun? or malicous intent? How mature is this kid? Did he think it was "l33t and keVVL" or was he just experimenting. The unfortunate truth is the internet offers many malicous temptations for children and teenages who think that messing with other peoples computer are cool. I guess the question is "what kind of kid is this? is he ignorant and deserves, for his and everyone elses good not to have access to a computer. Or is he mature enough to understand the impact of his choices?

Just my thoughts on the subject!

That will be left up to the mom. From what she tells me, he does really well in school, never gets in trouble at school, does his homework, respects his brothers (except for the backdoor he put on their system :) ) and just loves taking computers apart, putting them together, play online games, etc. I don't think he intented on breaking into a bank system, but when parents step it, it's always for a reason. I think I hated my parents a lot long ago, I thought they were strict bastards, but now I'm glad they were. But, this is out of my hands now, I wish her the best of luck.

Sounds like a pretty ok kid, [and smart].

As for strict parents well mine were kinda strict but I think it dosent matter bout the parents its the kid him/herself and what way they choose to go.

I've done stupid **** like that all the time, at school, home and other comps, no to brag.
Kids will be kids....Let um learn until he accually ****s something up. Then let him take the punishment by law......

I think the mother should have a talk with him, as well as take the computer away for a while. I DON'T think she should go too harsh on him, though. If she goes too hard on him he may rebel and try that much harder to "hack" and go that much deeper into the criminal aspects of the art. I think the mother should be educated as well as the son on what hacking really is and how to do it legally and ethically. They could start with the Happy Hacker web site. I think they should especially start on the "sucks to be me" pages of that site. Then he should try out a *nix. Linux or FreeBSD are good choices. Just my two cents worth. Hope this helps.

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Originally posted by limp1058
I've done stupid **** like that all the time, at school, home and other comps, no to brag.
Kids will be kids....Let um learn until he accually ****s something up. Then let him take the punishment by law......

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that's how i was tought!!!

Let him learn the hard way, tough love they call it and it sure as hell works.

I think you should explain to him how other people tend to react when they find out. Try to get him to understand how criminal it is, even if it is a 'neat thing to do with the computer'. Let other people know that he used a trojan on someone. I think a priority, is to Make It Uncool, if he's the social type. If he's not, simply allude to technical knowledge WAAAY beyond his level, and hopefully by the time he learns enough technical know-how to feel like nobody will catch him, he'll have learned some maturity...

I dunno, really. I don't know the kid.

I don't think ignoring it and waiting until he gets into big trouble is the right answer. She should warn him and have other adults or that policeman explain what could happen to him. I think taking away the computer is the wrong thing to do. Computers are good things, they just have to be used right. If he won't listen to his mom and other adults, then he'll get what's coming to him. Bars on all side of the walls and a cellmate named Bubba. :D

Dudes, Dudes, Dudes... Heh the funniest thing possible in the world is that the exact same thing happened to me. I used bo2k to hack all of my friends comps, as in installing it on their comps when they slept or whatever. Sending it to them over aim telling them its not a virus its just residue left over from my computer (they are soo gullible) well anyways my parents got many a phone call, they were pretty upset... I actually hacked my friend's dad's comp which is a lawyers computer w/ legal documents all over the place lol. I am 13 and after my parents got 2 phone calls they were pretty upset. The worst thing in the world for a parent to do is take away the computer. Right now I am completely obsessed with the computer and how it works and programs and everything... hacking is very entertaining etc. I still enjoy exploring but I have deleted bo2k and now I am learning to program and I want to learn to gain access w/out a prog or a trojan. I personally think that all that should happen is he should have a long talk and have to delete the remote access programs. The worst possible thing to do to a computer literate kid like me is to take the most entertaining and exciting but fun to learn thing away... I may someday be richer than bill gates you never know considering I am a computer genius, or at least everyone I know can't do half the crap I can on the computer... they ask me a question about the computer if they have one... heh well don't punish the kid too hard.

Let the kid do what he wants. For crying out loud he has a sub trojan and has infected his kids computer. At least he is learning and didn't install a monitoring software on there and then think he was all cool cause he figured out how to find out what others are doing. He won't turn into a full fledge hacker (Even if he probably thinks he is one now) by playing around with trojans. He probably just read grc.com and was like cool.

No Biggy

Katari

I think you should tell her to take his computer away. If he wants to hack because he has a passion for the technology, that's fine as long as he does no harm. He, however, obviously doesn't care at all for the knowledge part of hacking, and CERTAINLY doesn't respect what he's doing. He just wants to do damage. He needs to have his computer taken away before he gets in over his head.

i suppose you could just cut off his feet.

:confused: :confused:
why take his computer away so far u have no evidence to prove he has done anything wrong but anyway
install a firewall limit him to port 25, 80 , 8080 etc
that should fix the problem and also if he really has the skills it will present him with a challenge!

give them a job at microsoft...if they don't quit hacking after that nothing will stop those poor ******z

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Originally posted by tripstone
give them a job at microsoft...if they don't quit hacking after that nothing will stop those poor ******z

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LOL :D

Well maybe he could come in as an intern. He's not old enough to be paid to work (legally), that should be a big plus with the boss ;)

I was once in a similar situation(i was the perpetrator), and i was told that by law breaking into someones computer without their knowledge held the same punishment as physically breaking into their house.

Whether it was true or not it did the trick for me. With a victim list as large as mine was I decided it wasn't worth the risk.


PS. does anyone know what the actual punishment is for using a trojan to access someone's computer without their consent?

Im sure its the same as what youd get for cracking a server with an exploit or whatever.

Taking the computer away seems to be the main idea coming from the people here and I agree.

Not being a parent, I may not be qualified to answer but I would say, don't punish him, encourage him.

A little guidance goes a long way.

Encourage him to register here and read the forum on a regular basis. If he is a bright kid (sounds like he is) he will quickly learn the difference between malicious and ethical hacking.

Before I came to Antionline, I thought all hackers were crackers (if I'm using the terms correctly). Since I have been reading here (almost a year), I have learned a lot about security but, more importantly, I have learned about the opinions and attitudes of top notch security professionals. It's been a real eye opener for me.

I'm proud to be a regular member of Antionline. I'm sure he will be too.

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Originally posted by KapperDog

Before I came to Antionline, I thought all hackers were crackers (if I'm using the terms correctly). Since I have been reading here (almost a year), I have learned a lot about security but, more importantly, I have learned about the opinions and attitudes of top notch security professionals. It's been a real eye opener for me.

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Thats the truth. The same thing happened to me.

KaKoKoOl discribed it the best in his hacker definition post
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=118754 :jester: