A student at Carleton University, in Ottawa, faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly hacking into the institution’s computer system to prove that it needed stronger security, The Ottawa Citizen reports.
The security breach came to light last week when campus officials received a pseudonymous, 16-page letter listing the network-account names and passwords of 32 students. The note went on to describe how the passwords were pilfered with the aid of a program that captures computer keystrokes, and the author urged the university to do more to secure its network.
The writer may have seen himself as a good Samaritan, but Carleton officials and local police were far from convinced. The target of their investigation, a 20-year-old student named Mansour Moufid, has now been charged with mischief to data and unauthorized use of a computer, and he will appear in court in October. —Brock Read
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