Teens charged with hacking computers

In the US, three teenagers face felony charges for allegedly hacking into their school computer system to ''fix'' grades -- not for themselves but for friends.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (3 September) that the 16-year-olds are enrolled in advanced computer classes at Bay High School, and sheriff's investigator Paul Vecker said they didn't need to change their own grades.

They mostly changed friends' grades by small increments to avoid notice. However, they allegedly made a big change for one junior, who reportedly would've failed if her grade hadn't been changed from an F to a B, investigators said.

The AP/NYT report says that one of the teens is charged with offense against intellectual property and the other two face charges of being principal to offense against intellectual property. A county juvenile detention supervisor said Saturday he couldn't say if they had been released on bail because of privacy laws protecting juveniles.