> In the letter to teachers, Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven said “an individual took the records of at least three educators, unencrypted the source code from the webpage, and viewed the social security number (SSN) of those specific educators.”
> But in the press release, DESE called the person who discovered the vulnerability a “hacker” and said that individual “took the records of at least three educators”
This squares perfectly with my own experience. As a middle schooler I had several interactions with my school system's IT department where they baselessly accused me of hacking and malicious intent; I responsibly disclosed a method of bypassing their web content filter and they responded by going through my roaming profile and leveling charges at me of "remotely hacking computer systems" because of a screenshot of a terminal emulator they found. I was a good kid with a perfect disciplinary record. In retrospect it was a series of incompetent staffers covering for their inability by bullying a child.
The US needs to stop using public facilities (schools, the military, etc) as white-collar welfare and hire more people that actually care. Ignorance is forgivable but when combined with a steadfast opposition to personal growth it becomes malicious. It'd be better for society to fire clowns like these and administer them unemployment than to have them crowd out those that actually give a shit.
*EDIT: To clarify for anybody that would read the above as "government workers don't care": there are plenty that do. I break bread with them and want them to be able to do their jobs unimpeded by the ones that _don't_.