Getting Suspended For Booting Into Linux At School

Im 14 and a freshman in high school and one day in my java class there was a sub and i was working on a paper about Linus Torvalds, so i though to myself why not boot into Linux of my Linux Live flash drive and while i was in there i deleted system 32 of the system and this kid Logan told the principle and they brought me down to the office and the it guy was there and he had found batch files on my account on the school network that opened cmd and one that made a admin account on the local system. Besides deleting system 32 did i really do anything wrong. They said that by booting into the flash drive that i was hacking. But hacking is just using something in a way that it wasn't intended for. Your going to tell me that computers are not supposed to run operating systems. He claimed that by booting into the flash drive that i was giving myself greater than admin powers and was unmasking the ip. Apparently he has never herd of websites like ip chicken. So since the assistant principle didn't know what the fuck he was talking about he only gave me a day of in school suspension and my computer log on taken down for 4 weeks so that i couldn't  do it again . I tried explaining to him that i didn't even log in to do this. I was just trying to help and be a white hat so i could tell them about flaws in there system. But then me and my friend got the bright idea to delete system 32. They said i was in violation of the code of conduct that i sighed to even be able to go on the computers, but i never sighed it and they got even more mad at that. My question is did i do any thing wrong (besides deleting system 32) because i didnt violate the code of conduct because i never sighed it. Sorry for suck a long post.

 

 

Update: I wasn't the one who actually deleted the files. There was this kid Brian who was behind me and i was looking through the files and i was looking at the system32 files for whatever reason and he quickly reached over and pressed Ctrl+A and then delete. It wasn't my fault i just wanted to see people reaction to if i actually did do that. So all i did was boot into Linux was that wrong too?

As far as if you did something wrong or not it would seem that you did gain unauthorized access to a PC (and yes it's painfully obvious that the people in your school responsible for IT / security are idiots) and it would have been ok staying like that, but you got yourself caught... Next time make sure there are no Logans around hehe. And for the love of God, why did you delete system32?

P.S White hat? Gray hats are cooler.

P.P.S Sign the damn paper that they wanted you to sign in the first place and generally try to play along. Lulling them into a false sense of security and doing what you want to do (responsibly) is the best thing you can do for yourself and in the mean time continue to pursue your PC interests and develop your skills.

Deleting system32 is technically malicious.  TruCrypt would have saved them from this mess.  Booting from that drive would not have gotten you into the system disk so long as you did not know the TruCrypt password.

I feel bad that you got in trouble for exploring technology in a place of learning, but I feel like you could have used better judgement, and you know, not deleted anything.  

Awesome to hear about a 14 year old playing with Linux though.  Keep on truckin!

You're an idiot.

Of course you're going to get into trouble for booting into a linux distro and messing with the files on a school PC. 

Especially deleting System 32 files. 

 

If you didn't know that deleting those files would break the OS, then you are in no position to call them idiots.

They have a right to freak out. They don't know what you're doing. If I had several PC's, and some snot nosed little freshman was on one, booted into linux. Id throw you out myself. 

They don't know you on a personal level. They don't know what you can/can't do. I'm surprised you didn't get arrested for vandalism. 

Are the school's IT/admins ignorant? Yes.

Are they justified in suspending a tiny little shit for fucking up their OS? Yes.

Sure, they may have backups. It may be easy for them to fix it. Hell. Our PCs were frozen at school, all changes reverted after a restart, no matter what they were. 

But you shouldn't have fucked shit up.

You got busted doing something you know was wrong, stop whinging about it and man the fuck up!

Phantom, could not be any more correct if he/she tried!

You are purposely and knowingly fucking up a computer system.

This is part of the Computer Misuse Act of 1990

i was going to call you an idiot, but i figured someone else would come along and do it better, i was correct

Phantom basically summed up everything I was going to say you are an idiot   

Also this reminds me of when I got banned from my high school computers for 2 years all because I watched a movie during Saturday school. Apparently I was hacking the system    

Honestly its your fault and deleting system 32 was just plain silly.

And it doesn't help that most IT tech guys at schools don't like linux. That just amplifies the trouble you would get in.

Yep, phantom nailed it. He's exactly right; heed his advice.

I'll share a story... Pretend like anything that is not yours cost $10,000 and is made out of glass. It is hopefully a good/hard lesson you have learned, but you'll be better for it. If you want to color outside the lines, you'll be a lot better off having respect for stuff that is not yours and "being gentle." You've got to get the support of a teacher or faculty or something, and I bet not everyone there is a moron. 

In my highschool, many moons ago, there was a rule.. you were not allowed to use dos. The school did not have internet access at first, but it was later added. However only a few computers were configured to get on the internet.. the technical reasons for this was that it was a Novell Netware system, which is based around the ipx protocol and the 'internet enabled' machines also had tcp/ip configured. Because I was friends with some teachers, they would let me experiment in a controlled/sane way (usually on "broken" equipment that would be fixed or replaced at the end of the year). 

I figured out how to enable the windows TCP driver, dhcp did the rest. You just had to edit some ini files to do it.. well, the teacher and the principal were pretty happy we could setup internet in all the computer labs but the IT manager had to sign off. So the principal and teachers worked with me to introduce the idea to the IT manager. I would describe the IT manager as "cagey" and "deathly afraid of inadvertently letting the magic smoke out" so.. any sort of coloring outside the lines.. was frowned upon.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but its story time and you listen up. I explained why some machines had internet, and some didn't as best I could and I walked them through what I had done with one of the other teachers permission to get internet working. I opened a dos prompt and explained how to navigate the windows folder and how to edit an ini file to enable the driver and lo and behold the first machine in a new lab was on the internet. 

I asked if there were any questions and tried to be very reserved, and go very slowly. But the IT manager without even looking at me turned to the principal and said, with a completely straight face "he used dos to do that.. that's a violation of the rules and he needs detention" Inside I was very much like ("Oh? wtf? ??? ") Fortunately the principal was just as puzzled as I was and fortunately it gave my slow-moving brain a chance to blurt out "Oh, sorry. I was showing you how you could use dos to do it because I thought that'd be faster for you. I can show you how to do it again without using dos if you want?" 

The principal had to leave the room because she was laughing. I didn't get detention. And the IT manager turned 3 shades of red and I could hear the grinding of teeth. (I will reluctantly admit that was a bit satisfying.) Moral of the story? Not everyone are morons and an holier-than-thou attitude will not get you anywhere in society, high school or life in general. 

 

 

 

Maybe while you're at school you could stop trying to break shit and learn how to form coherent sentences.

+1

This whole thing is the first sentence:

Im 14 and a freshman in high school and one day in my java class there was a sub and i was working on a paper about Linus Torvalds, so i though to myself why not boot into Linux of my Linux Live flash drive and while i was in there i deleted system 32 of the system and this kid Logan told the principle and they brought me down to the office and the it guy was there and he had found batch files on my account on the school network that opened cmd and one that made a admin account on the local system.

Consider yourself lucky. I got expelled for doing something similar in my senior year of high school. The lesson to be learned here is that if you did not pay for the computer, it is not yours and shall not be used in any way that the real owner does not want you to use it. Stop being a brat and take your lumps, then don't do it again.

I hope you learn a valuable lesson from this: DON'T GET CAUGHT

linux seems harmless to me butthe system 32 thing was dumb and in my opinion you probably deserved a suspension for that. exploring new tech i cool but dont mess up stuff that someone else will need to fix

 

also schools should totally start getting on the linux bandwagon. my school is all messed up with budget cuts but they still spend the money to upgrade to the latest windows. linux is free and has lots of free content.

 

 

Is it even legally binding to get a kid to sign a contract like that? I mean, they kinda say 'you need the PC for school work' and hover over you until you more or less sign it. Even in normal law that counts as duress....

lol that being said though, you did something wrong and got caught. What you should have said, is that you needed the OS so you could do some programming work (like testing your java across platforms). Since they don't really know what that means, they may have just let you off.

Cop it on the chin and either be more sneaky next time, or don't do it at all. Either way, it's not the end of the world.

Booting in to Linux is considered malicious. And deleting Sys 32 is tampering. You are lucky you only got a suspension. 

Lol, school computers running Windows... learning helplessness...

I also have a good one: remember dBase III? In my school they had been trying to figure out how to use it the hard way, and the Jesuit principal had enough of the waste of time and they got me out of whatever class I was in because I knew the magic word "assist".

Most teachers didn't know English that well and there was little non-English software, and I worked after school in a computer store and in software development, so I did problem solving for the school administration. They had an IBM token ring network, always good for some networking chaos. And those BNC-connectors right? Coax FTFW...