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Topic: Security

Albert Gonzalez was hacking in high school...where were the safety nets?

Summary: We talk a lot in education about the idea of safety nets. These are support systems that we put into place to figuratively catch kids who might otherwise not be successful.

Christopher Dawson

By for ZDNet Education |

We talk a lot in education about the idea of safety nets. These are support systems that we put into place to figuratively catch kids who might otherwise not be successful. They can be as simple as extra time after school for help or involve more significant remediation programs.

Safety nets aren't just for kids who struggle or have learning disabilities, however. They can be for gifted students whose talents would otherwise go untapped, unnoticed, or undeveloped. Albert Gonzalez, now charged with stealing 130 million credit card numbers (the largest such fraud in history), was precisely one of the kids whose incredible skill should have been identified and channeled in school.

As the Miami Herald reports, the Miami native showed remarkable talent early on:

Years before his arrest in the nation's largest credit card heist, Albert Gonzalez launched a bold plan from a computer in his high school library: hack into the government network of India.

By the time FBI agents descended on South Miami Senior High School, the quiet 17-year-old senior had already shattered the security systems and left his mark: offensive notes on government message boards.

The consequence? Gonzalez was told to stay away from computers for 6 months. How much differently would this have turned out if a gifted program could have put him in touch with a mentor at a security company or put him to work doing some serious programming? He breezed through computer classes at school, but where was the connection to local universities or businesses?

A friend of Gonzalez is quoted as saying,

the accused hacker is 'very remorseful as to what has happened. He's put himself in a very tough situation. He feels sorry for what he has done.'''

I know as well as anyone that safety nets cost money which is all too hard to find in public education. Safety nets require individual attention which is just as hard to come by in overcrowded public schools.

I also know that not every bored smart kid in high school will turn into a notorious cybercriminal. Lots of them just end up writing blogs for ZDNet. However, how many really bright kids slip on through without meeting their full potential? And how many, without the right direction and modeling, end up on the wrong side of the law?

Most schools provide quite a bit of support to the kids who are obviously having trouble. If the Gonzalez case doesn't teach us anything else, though, we need to take away the importance of safety nets for kids who don't have any trouble at all.

Topic: Security

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29 comments
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  • I agree.....

    Most of our schools are not equipt for the new age of computers and programming. Most of our schools but not all are still stuck in the liberal arts mode of teaching and not letting students focus on their strengths. Its all about well rounded B-S. Schools are slowly getting better, but Math and Science should be offered in the fullest extent for the 21st century. I think by the time you are in high school they should have focused paths of study to help you excel in your studies at college or what not. Sorry if they can't write a damn english paper, but if they can write a program then they are acheiving success which can help boost ones confidence and success in life.
    OhTheHumanity
    Reply Vote

    • RE: I agree...

      It really comes down to funding in the public schools. Many school systems simply do not have the funding to provide proper resources in computers and programming. While I agree with you that many schools are stuck in the liberal arts mode of teaching, and they do need to be teaching more math and science, it is also important to have a well-rounded education. That provides the well rounded skills set to succeed in the world. It is an important skill to be able to write a good english paper so that you know how to write a presentation in the future. That's one thing programmers and software developers do in seeking funding for their programs. Perhaps if the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would donate more money to computer education in public schools here in the US, they might have more resources for people like Gonzalez. That might help them have more confidence and success in life.
      wolflight
      Reply Vote

    • Interesting

      In these technical environments the schools should emphasis math and science; but I have to disagree with cutting out what you call liberal arts mode. One one hand it is important to find the student's strengths and build on those strengths; but on the other hand we will end up with robots who are not able to think outside their speciality.

      Most children do not know what they really want to do when they grow up and get pushed into a path that could become a dead end for them. Even adults in midlife are not sure what they want to be when they grow up.

      I like what Heinlein wrote in one of his novels, that a person should be able to hunt, fish, farm, change diapers, construct and so on because specialization is for insects.
      sboverie
      Reply Vote

      • Well......

        If you want kids to be able to fish, farm and construct get them into scouts or something. My father was an eagle scout and he is very handy person when it comes to building and constructing things. None of that stuff is what I learned in a liberal arts mode school. I learned it all from him and it gave me confidence to take on things I was not experienced in and the ability to learn them on my own. Good parenting is irreplacable and can never be made up in school.

        School was a rehash over and over. I understand you should have a well rounded education in some ways, alot of those things can be taught at home by good parents and not at school. Its good to have some experience in writing papers for example but who needs to be an expert in that when its not your goal in life. Trust me those damn music and art classes did absolutely nothing for me in my older years. History/Social Studies, Math, and Science should be the core of our education and all else electives.

        Computer programmers are usually not the person that wakes up one day and says "I guess I will be a programmer". Its more of an interest that turns into a hobby and there is not much options for the kids to excel in this field early on. We have plenty of money to spend on these things, but most is spent in the wrong ways and wasted in many cases since its more or less a government entity that doesn't control itself the way it should or that we must in our own lives.
        OhTheHumanity
        Reply Vote

      • Yes Listen to someone who writes

        LMAO you are listening to advice from a writter, from the sounds of it they write fiction at that.... We all by deafult can to the hunting, fishing etc ... That is why we have oppossing thumbs.. The real skill set is specializing in the unique, otherwise we be master of nothing and who wants Joe the plumber doing neuro surgery.... But I would Like Joe to unblock my drains....
        seveprim@...
        Reply Vote

    • Schools should teach, not preach

      The real root of the problem is that the public school system is no longer invested in teaching children how to think or problem solve or even to have basic literacy skills (3 Rs). For the last 50 years our public school system is more interested in political indoctrination and "right-thinking" than in teaching our youngsters how to solve problems and think for themselves. If you teach a kid from an early age how to analyze situations and problem solve, they'll be able to excel at any specialization that interests them down the line. If you give them basic literacy skills, they can teach themselves any esoteric knowledge that a specialization requires by reading about it. This is the reason my wife and I decided to home-school our two daughters. Right now, I'd put my 11-year-old up against 80% of high-school seniors in problem solving and literacy skills. And all without spending the roughly $10,000 per student that public schools do (as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics).
      Snuffy.
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Albert Gonzalez was hacking in high school...where were the safety nets?

    What we need in schools is for teachers to call on the kids who sit in the back of the room and don't say anything. The first priority is finding out what's going on in that head early on. When are we going to wake up, hmm?
    jemd@...
    Reply Vote

    • Back of the Room?

      Sometimes it might be a teacher who's not trying.

      Sometimes it's an underfunded public school with 35 or 40 kids in a room, and in that environment the loud obnoxious ones get all the attention, because there's nowhere to send them. So they stay in the room, ruin the class, and the quiet ones tune out.
      KerryK_CHA
      Reply Vote

    • bad teachers

      If a teacher leaves kids at the back and works only with the swots at the front - that's bad classroom management. Teachers are supposed to get the best out of everyone, and that means taking an interest in everyone, making sure those needing most attention are put where they'll get it, and insisting on high standards. And the brightest / dumbest / laziest all need that attention.

      I agree nothing will substitute for good parenting, as in the message before this; but I think the biggest factor in most schools is the head teacher. If he/she sets clear policies, makes demands of both students and teachers, created an evironment where learning is a positive thing, then standards rocket up.

      Individual teachers can be inspiring; not everyone can be like this; but overall teachers can make sure they're respected by kids by doing the right thing, consistently.

      Yours, a teacher.
      dgrainge
      Reply Vote

  • Who is to blame?

    Have a Child who is "above the norm", the problem I find with schools in NY, is that the school budget (dont even start about school taxes on LI) cut out the programs that would most identify and benifit these kids. The school needs to cut the enrichment program so that the 2nd grade teacher making $175,000 a year can get a nice raise!
    Once again, the kids are the ones who loose out and kids that are that "bright" will find other ways to fufill their excelerated minds.
    How many gifted programs are offered at that Miami school?
    Sad
    ITGuy70
    Reply Vote

    • WHAT!!!!!

      I apparently work in the wrong district...our elementary teachers make $24K to start, and NONE make over $52K, and they would need to have a doctorate and have been teaching for 30 years to make that...
      Seriously, you have $175K teachers? Or is that just BS?
      ajole
      Reply Vote

      • 17 cents worth

        I suspect the comma must be in the wrong place :-)
        dgrainge
        Reply Vote

        • He probably only pays the taxes, not work

          in the district, otherwise he'd know those numbers are not real.
          TechTeach_z
          Reply Vote

  • RE: Albert Gonzalez was hacking in high school...where were the safety nets?

    The biggest share of responsibility lies on the corporations that just won't spend what it takes to put up a SECURE system. They are too greedy with all the fees they charge their customers, and finding ways to improve the bottom line,

    Perhaps they need several LARGE lawsuits to get their attention. Computer security is fairly easy but costs $$$ to actually put in place.
    rbethman@...
    Reply Vote

    • Kudos

      First of all - let's quit blaming the teachers and the school systems - they're always the scapegoats. Our lazy society is the one who puts more importance on football and basketball players (to name a few) and hence investments in money than we do our teachers, firefighters and policemen.

      But, that aside, you have a good point with the security of the data. Personally, I feel that there should be a zero tolerance level when it comes to securing personal data. If you put yourself in a position of trust with properly safeguarding our personal information, there is no acceptable reasons for breaking that trust. Allow hackers into your system and you get shut down - first time.
      teknicalservices
      Reply Vote

      • the cult of the individual

        This will perpetuate while we have a culture where a person's individual gratification is considered more important that helping others. Call me naive if you want.

        Not that means we need better parenting; but it means teachers and nurses and doctors and firemen and policement who do their jobs effectively. Whose salaries get torn down as everyone else climbs on top of the heap.

        > Allow hackers into your system and
        > you get shut down - first time

        Get real - this is as impossible to prevent 100% as it is for Microsoft to write bugproof software. Hold on, the two are connected ....
        dgrainge
        Reply Vote

  • If only...

    You dream the same dream I do, Chris. I was pretty much in the same situation as this hacker only 3-7 years ago (while I was in high school myself). Bored, bored, bored. And yes, initially, I dealt with the boredom by letting myself into pretty much every closed digital door in the school. I never did any damage, but other than play internet games, what else was there to do during lab time?

    Ironically, I was saved by the world's laziest teacher. I was one of three students in my computer engineering class who ended up finishing our projects early. As he had us display our working projects to him as soon as we were finished, he knew that we were getting way ahead of the other students in the class. So he dumped the whole curriculum on us and told us to have fun. We finishing inside of a month. It turns out, he had requested some new computers for his lab (as our class was currently working two to a computer), and he was given a bunch of broken computers and told to make the best use of those that he could. So he gave them to us and told us to put together as many working stations as we could using the parts we had, and then to set them up on their own private network. We had great fun doing it and I learned more doing that than I did doing the actual curriculum. And we became unofficial techies for the school, leaving class all the time to help teachers with their computer problems.

    Moral of the story: when you have two problems (bored students and way too much work to do) fix it by off-loading some of your own simple tasks on these students. They'll learn a ton and they'll enjoy it a lot more than doing boring school work :P
    Caggles
    Reply Vote

    • not a bad idea

      It doesn't take any classes out of the curriculum, allows for the students to learn valuable skills, doesn't detract from the slower students learning environment and it saves time and money.

      If we could all stop throwing out our home machines and donate them to schools as part of a curriculum, we'd even help to stop the filling up of landfills with old computers. Each student gets to take home one machine each so the next years students can do the project all over again.
      tmsbrdrs
      Reply Vote

    • Congratz...

      You have your teacher understand his class requirement and talents. How lucky you are.
      Unfortunately, imho, good teacher and student like yours is only one in thousands.
      oomdiet
      Reply Vote

    • RE: If Only

      You had a better teacher than you could ever know. I've met too many in
      my time who only could see only the syllabus and not the students, and
      God help you if you were a student who was curious to explore a subject
      mentioned briefly in class the teacher didn't want to spend time on.
      rblevitt1
      Reply Vote
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