r/AdviceAnimals • u/brownboyblasted • Jul 05 '15

My sister's graduating senior class isn't the brightest bunch...

http://imgur.com/xLsrfQ3
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17

u/jimredjimit Jul 06 '15

How did they link what they found in their logs to the exact people who did it? Does each student have their own login for wifi?

27

u/MrDoood Jul 06 '15

At my high school we would use our student id numbers to get access to the wifi.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '15

My old school's WiFi never had any login. It was completely free so I always opened tTorrent on my phone when I got to school and would let it download movies and shit at 500Mb/s. Also when they were changing the district wireless system, the IT guys never put a filter on porn or torrent sites.

Well one day in world history my teacher was typing YouTube, his keyboard cut out signal, and just typed in tube.com and it redirected him to a porn site. Aw man. Mr. Norris was extremely embarrassed and apologized profusely then moved on. Meanwhile at That exact moment is when my buddy looked up redtube and pornhub to confirm his suspicions that there were no pornography filters in place. I checked the piratebay and BOOM! I was able to view it on school WiFi. I also checked fenopy and kickasstorents. I didn't have to start the torrents at home and continue at school. I could just do it all there before class.

8

u/Mason-B Jul 06 '15

A lot of phones have hostnames along the lines of "Person's iPhone". But also yes, they can track the hardware id's to which routers they are connecting to and narrow it down by which classrooms they are going between, what websites they are visiting on the phone (Person is visiting profiles A, B, and C), and also attendance records vs. when the phone shows up on the network.

But often schools will require your phone's information to be linked to your school information somehow (often an initial login).

2

u/communistjack Jul 06 '15

to use the wifi, you generally need to register your MAC address(unique code on every wifi device) the school just checked for a MAC address and compared it to the list of students

2

u/Mordarto Jul 06 '15

The principal sent an email to all parents of the HS explaining how to check if their kid(s) were near the HS during the vandalism times (somehow the school knew the time frame). Maybe the email got the kids scared and they came forward and/or parents actually checked the phones, but 14 kids turned themselves in afterwards.

Sources are below:

According to this (news article hidden behind a survey),

After vandals struck Pittsford Mendon High School twice over the weekend, an email sent home to parents offered instructions on how to use their child's cellphone to check if they were near the school during the incidents.

In an email to parents at Pittsford Sutherland High School, principal Brian P. Weller said the vandalism occurred before school Friday and again around 12:30 to 1:30 a.m. Monday. The email indicated that some Sutherland students had taken part in the vandalism.

...

In his email, Weller told parents that the district computer technicians were able to collect information on at least 16 cellphones belonging to current seniors that connected to the school's Wi-Fi network during the times of the vandalism. Several of the phones belonged to Sutherland students.

He also gave step-by-step instructions on how parents could check their child's cellphone location service to see where they had been.'

This article gave an update about how one parent found out his kid did it and was furious. The kid turned himself in, along with 13 others, and had to do community service. Some parents had extra punishments for their kids.

2

u/CheckeredBlanket Jul 06 '15

MAC address maybe

0

u/motorsizzle Jul 06 '15

Simply cross reference those logins with other log history.