A US teenager has been accused of breaking into his high school’s computers and making a number of indelicate additions to the annual yearbook, including poorly disguised Hitler quotes and references to the Boston Marathon bomber.
When Glastonbury High School in Connecticut published its yearbook in May, there was little reason to suspect that the booklet would contain anything other than benign student statements and cliche aphorisms.
Unbeknownst to school administrators, the book had been covertly modified, turning it into a ticking scandal timebomb.
A quote placed under a photograph of one of the Connecticut school’s pupils read: “It is a quite special secret pleasure how the people around us fail to realize what is really happening to them.” The quote was attributed to George Floyd, the black man killed at the hands of Minneapolis police last year. But in reality, it was a line uttered by Adolf Hitler.
The alleged mastermind behind the juvenile edit was an 18-year-old student who is accused of hacking into the school’s computer databases.
Also on rt.com Hackers demand $70 million to restore data from hundreds of companies hit by cyberattack – reportsPolice believe that the same student is also responsible for another yearbook alteration that made reference to the Boston Marathon bombers and illegal drug use. The teen, who was a student at the school, was barred from attending his graduation ceremony. He now faces two counts of third-degree computer crime.
The school only spotted the unbecoming alterations after it began distributing the yearbook. Administrators recalled the book in order to remove the unauthorized edits.
“We deeply regret not having caught the act of bigotry and vandalism before the yearbook was printed,” the school’s leadership said in a statement when the yearbooks were pulled from circulation. “We are examining and will revise our yearbook procedures for collecting and reviewing future student submissions.”
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