FBI raids dental software researcher who discovered patient data on FTP server
This reminds me of something that happened to me in high school back in 1999. I found an Excel doc in a public network drive that contained every single student&#x27;s SSN, DOB, whether they had free&#x2F;reduced lunch, address, phone, etc. I was admittedly snooping around, but this was all public stuff every student and teacher had full access to.<p>When I found it, I told one of the teachers that I trusted and she insisted that I must tell the principal. So I went down to the principal&#x27;s office and told her. My primary goal was to get this removed or made private because even at that young age I knew this was very sensitive data and I wouldn&#x27;t want just anyone having access to my information like that.<p>When I got home from school, I found my mother upset because we&#x27;d been called to return to school for an emergency meeting. I was questioned, and when I told them I only wanted this sensitive information properly secured I was told by the county IT administrator &quot;Did you ever stop to think if maybe this information was public for a reason?&quot; I took a second, and literally wanted to say &quot;There is no reason this information should ever be public&quot; but I ended up keeping my mouth shut in hopes to not get into further trouble.<p>I was nearly expelled for &quot;hacking&quot;. They placed me on &quot;academic probation&quot; and threatened that if I did so much as forget my school ID at home one day, I would be immediately expelled without question. I was removed from my elective classes that involved computers and was disallowed from touching any computers at school.<p>Fun fact: Someone on the yearbook staff accidentally deleted the only copy of the yearbook files and our yearbook was in danger of basically not being made. I was called to the principal&#x27;s office and asked to help. I was able to recover the deleted files and save the day. At some point they realized I never had malicious intent, but I still hold a small grudge for the way I was treated as a criminal for uncovering such a big security hole.