College Kid Tries To Pull A Ferris Bueller On His Grades, Gets An 'F' In Covering His Tracks

from the anyone?--anyone?--buehler? dept

We've covered stories in the past involving students attempting to hack into school networks for the purpose of changing their grades. I'll admit this was something of an obsession of mine when I was younger as well, because apparently the work acquiring the skills to pull this off was somehow less of an effort than just reading a damned textbook once in a while.

In any case, this is apparently a thing students still occasionally attempt. An alumnus of Purdue University allegedly decided he'd have a better shot at getting into another school for his master's degree if he altered his previous college marks electronically. Police released the following mugshot of the perp.

Okay, fine, so the actual perp's name is Roy Sun, a 25 year old who was already earning $70,000 a year with his engineering degree. Once it was discovered that he had changed his grades electronically, Sun was sentenced to four years in jail, of which he'll only serve 90 days, with the balance being served on supervised probation. Sun's willingness to be forthcoming on what he did is impressive.

Sun first hacked into a professor's computer account and changed his grade in 2008. He said he volunteered to be the guinea pig to see if he and fellow Purdue student Mitsutoashi Shirasaki would get caught. They didn't, which emboldened Sun.

"When I came back in 2009, I felt really arrogant," he said during the sentencing hearing. "I thought I was untouchable. It became so much easier to change my grades than going to class and working real hard."

So with the exception of one course, Sun quit attending classes his senior year and still received straight A's.

Well, okay then. This seems to raise the more alarming question of how network security at Purdue is handled, given the ease with which Sun seemed to play master over his electronic marks. That isn't to say that Sun doesn't cut an impressive figure, however. The judge handling his case noted as much.

Before sentencing, Judge Thomas Busch said, "The most troubling thing about this is how brilliant you are and how capable your are to devise this and carry it out. ... I worry about people who are as bright as you who are as dishonest as you because you can do more damage."

One wonders why someone so brilliant couldn't devise a way to better cover his tracks, however. Instead, Sun will have to live the rest of his life as a convicted felon and figure out a way to either get another school to accept him and pursue a degree, or else pursue work in the technology world without such a degree. This isn't unheard of, of course, but it seems Sun made his life a lot harder by trying to cheat on his marks.

Filed Under: ferris bueller, hacking, purdue university, roy sun