Two adolescents accused of disrupting school Wi-Fi in an attempt to avoid taking exams

The accused are facing charges of computer criminal activity after reportedly disrupting the network at the behest of their associates.

It was revealed by authorities on Monday that two 14-year-old boys are facing charges for disrupting their school's Wi-Fi network in an attempt to avoid exams.

The news outlet NJ.com revealed that high school freshmen in New Jersey have been charged with computer criminal activity and conspiracy to commit computer crimes. After the Wi-Fi network experienced multiple crashes over the course of a week, school officials contacted the police on Thursday.

As reported by NorthJersey.com, Capt. Dennis Miller mentioned that school officials at Secaucus High School alerted the Secaucus Police Department regarding two students who were part of a "scheme to disrupt the school's WiFi service whenever demanded."

The names of these individuals have not been disclosed as they are minors. They have been released to their parents and are scheduled to appear in the juvenile family court in Jersey City at a date that has not yet been revealed.

On Monday, Schools Superintendent Jennifer Montesano announced that the Wi-Fi has been restored and is operating smoothly. Although she did not disclose specific details, she did mention that an investigation uncovered two students who may have been involved in the disruption of our system.

How did they do it?

Some students conveyed to NJ.com their belief that the boys were using a Wi-Fi interrupter program or app to flood the school's routers with traffic in a denial of service (DoS) attack. This attack resulted in the network failing when students attempted to access it for classwork or online exams.

In a conversation with a student at Secaucus High School, the news outlet learned that she first learned about the Wi-Fi problem when a friend informed her that one of the suspects had been tasked with disrupting the signal during an exam.

It was done for both the exam-adverse and for fun, she said:

He resorted to this tactic in order to evade tests and similar tasks. Furthermore, one of the boys carried out this act on behalf of his friend, so that she could be spared from taking a test during the class. It was undoubtedly a significant prank.

Jamming phones, Wi-Fi and GPS is illegal

Some students were disgruntled – why should the whole class be disrupted because a few kids didn’t feel like squeezing out some brain juice that day? Others were impressed by the boys’ alleged technical acumen and sported more of a “Meh! Nobody got hurt” reaction, like this 10th grader:

I was amazed by the ability of a child our age, or approximately our age, to do something like this.

They are disrupting the education of others, but their actions are not causing harm to anyone.

The tampering with people's education is evident, yet it is not resulting in harm to anyone.

In reference to the initial point, it is advisable for those students not to be overly swayed by their classmates' supposed technology expertise. Despite the fact that signal jammer are prohibited from being marketed, sold, or used in the US - except for authorized, official use by the federal government - they are easily available online for a few hundred dollars.

With regards to nobody getting hurt when Wi-Fi crashes, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) begs to differ. When you use a gsm jammer, you’re jamming critical communications, the FCC points out in its jammers FAQ:

Jammers are more than an inconvenience; they present an unacceptable risk to public safety by potentially obstructing the transmission of emergency communications. cell phone jammer fail to differentiate between social conversations and emergency calls to family members or 9-1-1 responders. Similarly, GPS and wifi jammer maliciously disrupt both routine and critical communication services.

A man was charged with a felony a few years ago for deliberately jamming the phone signals of his fellow commuters. His frustration with their conversations led to this legal consequence.

While it is true that there were no reported injuries from the school Wi-Fi jamming, it is crucial for children to understand that this is not a harmless prank. The potential consequences are severe and should not be downplayed.