I find this to be somewhat ironic that the day after I post a link to my blog on Digg.com I receive a call from the Police. Turns out that my High School is not going to follow through with any charges now that they know who did it and they wanted to be sure to let my family know before Christmas. Could it be that my blog making it to the front page of Digg made an impact...? Who knows.
Anyways, they dropped the two felony charges against me and I can pickup ALMOST all of my stuff from the police station. They decided to keep all the CDs and DVDs they took to make sure I don't have any pirated software.
As for you non-believers that think I just completely fabricated this entire story... In two weeks when I can pick up my family's stuff and the case is closed, I will post some pictures of whatever I can. In fact, I have a piece of paper stating exactly what happened the day of the intrusion. I don't want to go and start posting things like that on the internet until the case is completely closed.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Why The Swat Team Raided My House!
My name is Justin and I am currently a Senior in High School. I have been accepted and plan on attending Florida State University next year.
But, here is the problem; on December 8th, 2006 all my plans for the future have been interfered with. Picture this, I am in my third period class on this day, I receive a text message from my mother saying, "Why are the cops at our house?" Suddenly, I try to think about anything I have ever done wrong. But, you know what, I couldn't think of anything! I received one more message from my mom that day; it said, "the lawyer says not to talk to the police." The rest of my school day was spent wondering how much trouble I have gotten myself in to.
My trip home from school I kept thinking, "I really have to go to the bathroom, I hope they will let me go before they arrest me!" Oddly enough, the police were not there. Even worse though, my mom was there and about to cry after I walked in. She just said one thing, "Justin, they took everything. What did you do?" I asked her to tell me what happened because really, I had no idea what was going on at this point.
My Mom's Story... "I got a call from the neighbors while I was at work, they told me to come home quick before the cops at our house beat down the door. I came home as soon as possible only to find eight police vehicles and a swat car in front of the house. Dozens of armed police officers were surrounding the house. I let them in without any trouble because they had a search warrant to confiscate anything computer related. The cops spent at least three hours in the house searching everywhere. They took so much!"
I looked at the search warrant and the list of everything confiscated. They took over $20,000 in computers, Palm Pilots, CDs/ DVDs, and pretty much anything else with a hard drive. The search warrant also explained that someone from our household illegally accessed an Orange County Public School computer system. It was that moment that I knew exactly what I did.
What I Did... I am in Web Design class at school and the teacher is so impressed with my Web Designing skills that she always had me doing different things for the school website. So in turn, I know the password to log into the school website and make changes (through FTP). Now, here is where this all comes in to play... Several months ago my High School, Winter Park High School, played our biggest rivals, Edgewater High School in a football game. They beat us at our homecoming game 35-14. I was at home the night after the game and noticed that the school website was updated to say, "Winter Park defeated by Edgewater". I thought it would be funny to see the reaction of this football player in my Web Design class if the website were to say something different. So, I changed it from "Winter Park defeated..." to, "Winter Park CRUSHED by Edgewater 35-14!"
I got a real big kick out of it the next day! But, little did I know, the OCPS system administrators were alerted of the change. The next two months were dedicated to locating where the change was made from. Which leads me to where I am today, being charged with two felony counts, illegally accessing OCPS networks and illegally transferring data to an OCPS network. Along with that, they are going to keep my stuff for three to six months to investigate!
I sure hope this doesn't interfere with me going to FSU next year! That's right everyone, my future at FSU could be jeopardized because the Orlando Police Department sent the swat team to my house in response to my changing of the word "defeated" to "CRUSHED" on the school website.
*CHECK MY MOST RECENT BLOG FOR AN UPDATE* (12/22/06)
But, here is the problem; on December 8th, 2006 all my plans for the future have been interfered with. Picture this, I am in my third period class on this day, I receive a text message from my mother saying, "Why are the cops at our house?" Suddenly, I try to think about anything I have ever done wrong. But, you know what, I couldn't think of anything! I received one more message from my mom that day; it said, "the lawyer says not to talk to the police." The rest of my school day was spent wondering how much trouble I have gotten myself in to.
My trip home from school I kept thinking, "I really have to go to the bathroom, I hope they will let me go before they arrest me!" Oddly enough, the police were not there. Even worse though, my mom was there and about to cry after I walked in. She just said one thing, "Justin, they took everything. What did you do?" I asked her to tell me what happened because really, I had no idea what was going on at this point.
My Mom's Story... "I got a call from the neighbors while I was at work, they told me to come home quick before the cops at our house beat down the door. I came home as soon as possible only to find eight police vehicles and a swat car in front of the house. Dozens of armed police officers were surrounding the house. I let them in without any trouble because they had a search warrant to confiscate anything computer related. The cops spent at least three hours in the house searching everywhere. They took so much!"
I looked at the search warrant and the list of everything confiscated. They took over $20,000 in computers, Palm Pilots, CDs/ DVDs, and pretty much anything else with a hard drive. The search warrant also explained that someone from our household illegally accessed an Orange County Public School computer system. It was that moment that I knew exactly what I did.
What I Did... I am in Web Design class at school and the teacher is so impressed with my Web Designing skills that she always had me doing different things for the school website. So in turn, I know the password to log into the school website and make changes (through FTP). Now, here is where this all comes in to play... Several months ago my High School, Winter Park High School, played our biggest rivals, Edgewater High School in a football game. They beat us at our homecoming game 35-14. I was at home the night after the game and noticed that the school website was updated to say, "Winter Park defeated by Edgewater". I thought it would be funny to see the reaction of this football player in my Web Design class if the website were to say something different. So, I changed it from "Winter Park defeated..." to, "Winter Park CRUSHED by Edgewater 35-14!"
I got a real big kick out of it the next day! But, little did I know, the OCPS system administrators were alerted of the change. The next two months were dedicated to locating where the change was made from. Which leads me to where I am today, being charged with two felony counts, illegally accessing OCPS networks and illegally transferring data to an OCPS network. Along with that, they are going to keep my stuff for three to six months to investigate!
I sure hope this doesn't interfere with me going to FSU next year! That's right everyone, my future at FSU could be jeopardized because the Orlando Police Department sent the swat team to my house in response to my changing of the word "defeated" to "CRUSHED" on the school website.
*CHECK MY MOST RECENT BLOG FOR AN UPDATE* (12/22/06)
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