Zhang, an electrical engineer in Boston, decided to post about trying to unlock his Justice Tech Solutions Securebook 5 on the social platform X. The thread went viral — also catching the attention of Washington corrections officials, who have used the device for college programming since 2020.
Of particular concern was an article about Zhang’s thread published on a hacker website that shared the default password for the underlying software that starts the laptop’s operating system, presenting what the Department of Corrections considered a security concern.
The department then announced Thursday, five days after Zhang’s viral post, that it would collect all secure laptops from incarcerated students statewide “to provide an immediate system update.” By Saturday, corrections staff had collected around 1,200 laptops, spokesperson Chris Wright said in an email.
Wright confirmed no one incarcerated in Washington prisons had attempted to unlock their devices but said the decision was “made out of an abundance of caution.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether other states whose corrections departments use Securebook 5 laptops have also pulled the devices.
Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/LS3co
e; updated the title due to popular demand
They didn’t lose their laptop. They got taken to be updated because of a security breach
Intentionally inflammatory and misleading headlines on Lemmy? Pshaw. The hell you say.
Not a Lemmy issue. Click bait unfortunately works to drive views through all social media platforms.
The thing I love is being able to click into the comments first to see the auto-generated summary. Prevents the site from getting my traffic.
I never realize what responses like this add to the discussion.
do you have any other community platform free from clickbaits? do you need a pat on the back cuz you think you’re immune to clickbaits? what’s the point?
Calling it a security breach is a bit of a stretch, to be fair. The company that issued them never changed the default BIOS password, so inmates could gain admin control over them if they wanted. Changing default passwords is like the most basic Help Desk 1 training.
I can almost guarantee that the company is owned by someone who also has direct ties to the prison’s leadership, and they spun up the corporation just to issue (and profit from) the laptops. Because there’s no way that an experienced IT team would allow 1200 laptops to walk out the door with default passwords.
Having root access to that computer means they can do a lot of throngs they aren’t supposed to. I fail to see this as anything but a security breach for this.
Yea the title is extra click baity
The article is news worthy but I downvoted the post due to the title being garbage.
They were taken for reasons that inmates had nothing to do with, they have not been replaced, and it’s unclear when they’ll be returned. Inmates who are enrolled in college courses are having to handwrite papers that are due soon.
There was no security breach. Did you even read the summary, let alone the article? There wasn’t even an attempted breach.
There is a breach as he released the default password, but no one attempted to breach it, as in no one tried to use the default password on their computer. Did you even try to understand what you read?
It’s a vulnerability, not a breach. As you pointed out, no one attempted to breach it.
Lol using a “master password” is the “security concern”
Its going to get leaked again and they still won’t criticise company lol
TIL that Washington state has at least 1200 incarcerated students.
I hope they use unique, random passwords for each device this time. Not that I’m rooting for Corrections, but this is educational time that’s being lost
You should be rooting for “corrections” rather than imprisonment.
Nice how they call it a “Securebook” when it has a static default password.
I mean, shouldn’t they better call it a “High IQ System”?
B-)
Thanks for changing that title, OP.
Good call, the OG title was terrible.
An engineer bought a prison laptop on eBay. Then 1,200 incarcerated students lost their devices.
justice123
Hunter2
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I’m thinking they used the same BIOS password for all of them.
default password
It’s 2024 and we still have news about these “security problems”?
That Zhang guy can only hope not to go to jail anytime soon. Every prisoner who knew about that password wants to have “the talk” with him. Snitches get stitches…
Every prisoner who knew about that password
Meanwhile, back in reality
Wright confirmed no one incarcerated in Washington prisons had attempted to unlock their devices but said the decision was “made out of an abundance of caution.”
I honestly thought to myself that someone had to go and ruin it.
