Georgia Tech hacker gets charges dropped for hilarious UGA football hack
Make sure your football rivalry pranks are legal. That’s the lesson from the story of Georgia Tech student Ryan Pickren.
Pickren was charged with computer trespassing a little over a year ago when he posted a calendar entry on the University of Georgia online calendar that read, “Get Ass Kicked By GT.”
Rivalries are rivalries, but I think Georgia fans can appreciate the humor in the prank that Pickren pulled, and we can all agree that it was quite harmless.
Today, charges against Pickren were dropped, and it prompted a long entry on Pickren’s Facebook page:
Hi everybody,
Today all of the charges regarding my incident with the University of Georgia have officially been dismissed. I would like to take a moment to tell my story about how I ended up in a jail cell Christmas 2014.
While studying Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, I discovered my passion for cyber security. I sought out special topics classes and did undergraduate research to learn everything I could about the industry. Living in the age of “Bug Bounties” and “Ethical Hacking,” I became desensitized to the impact that a computer breach could have on organizations. But I was about to learn the hard way that not all “research” ends with cash rewards and free merchandise.
A month before my arrest, I was at home spending Thanksgiving with my family in Tampa, Florida. The week preceding Thanksgiving is a particularly exciting time at Georgia Tech. It is the UGA vs. GT Hate Week- a 100-year-old tradition that every Tech student looks forward to. Growing up with a Georgia Tech alum for a grandfather, I heard all sorts of rivalry pranks. Stunts that ranged from stealing the other team’s mascot to spray painting the UGA arch gold… Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate. While sitting in my room waiting for Thanksgiving dinner, I decided that I was going to play a prank of my own. I pulled up the University of Georgia’s homepage and started poking around. A few minutes later I stumbled upon their master calendar for campus events. I will spare you the technical details, but I had a hunch that I could circumvent their approval process by carefully forming an HTTP POST request. At that moment, I made the biggest mistake of my life. I posted “Get Ass Kicked By GT” on UGA’s master calendar for the time of the annual football game.
In shock that it actually worked, I ran downstairs to show my parents what I had done. I informed them that IT departments these days would find it funny and that the university expects pranks this time of year. My family laughed and gave me high fives. Later that night, I pulled up my computer to find that a reporter for ESPN discovered the hack and tweeted about it. It even ended up in a small article on Yahoo Sports and was mentioned on a fan blog. The next morning it was in my local newspaper in Tampa, Florida. Apparently it was a bigger deal than I thought. My grandfather said it was the best prank in Georgia Tech’s history!
Little did I realize the firestorm that I had started. The University of Georgia launched a full investigation to find the culprit. A few weeks later, I was contacted by a detective from the UGA police department asking to meet with him over coffee. I was in shock. I didn’t even know this could be considered illegal. I didn’t steal anyone’s password, install malware, or take any personal data. I just found a bug in their site that allowed my seemingly harmless prank. A few more nervous weeks went by, then I received another phone call. This time it was informing me that there was a warrant out for my arrest. Computer Trespass is a felony in the state of Georgia that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. At that moment everything became very real. My family stopped our holiday celebrations, and my dad drove me to Athens so I could turn myself in. On Christmas Eve, I sat in a jail cell trying to figure out what happened. A few hours later I was out on bail, still in shock.
Apparently an engineering student facing time in prison for computer hacking makes a good headline because my story went viral. I went from being a normal college student to being compared to North Korean hackers in the New York Times. My mug shot was everywhere and people recognized my face on campus. When I entered a classroom, heads turned, people whispered and professors took notice. My LinkedIn page activity skyrocketed and oddly enough job offers started flowing in.
After reading numerous articles about the incident, I realized that I put the University of Georgia in a terrible position. Fortunately, the Judge, the Athens Courthouse, and the employees at the county jail were professional and treated me fairly throughout the entire legal ordeal. The District Attorney graciously offered me entrance to a Pre-Trial Diversion program without requiring me to plead guilty or no contest. This program had me write an apology letter to UGA, do community service, and stay out of trouble for 12 months in return for the charges against me being dropped.
I completed my community service for TechBridge, an Atlanta based non-profit organization that provides technical support to other non-profits. While volunteering, I developed security tools to help them protect their clients from hackers. Yes, there was some irony in the service, but it was indeed the best way for me to use my skills to give back to the community.
So here I am 12 months later. All of the charges brought against me have been dropped, the arrest and indictment have been expunged, and the record has been sealed. I am still loving my curriculum at Georgia Tech and plan on pursuing a career in the tech industry after I graduate in May 2017.
I want to thank everyone who supported me throughout this entire process. I really appreciate those who contributed to the GoFundMe page started by my sister that helped pay for my legal fees. This has been a huge learning experience for me and I hope this incident spreads awareness about the possible repercussions of cyber pranks.
For what it’s worth, Georgia Tech beat Georgia that day.
Regardless of the famous UGa lack of a sense of Humor, it was a funny prank. Especially since UF had beat them earlier in the year. And Spurrier had beaten them as well so they managed to lose to the three top rivals they have in the same year.
Never hated the kid or thought he deserved the legal reprimand, and yeah that year was bad for the Dawgs but it was also the year Chubb broke out against the hogs and was instantly and will always be better than Collins.
Matter of Opinion on Chubb vs Collins, but remember till this year Collins was NEVER the feature back he was #2 behind JWill and he still clocked over a thousand for the season. When was the last time UGa had 2 backs with over a thousand in the same backfield?
When was the last time Arkansas was relevant to college football?
Arkansas lost to Toledo and Texas Tech, while UGA once again finished with 10 wins..
Enjoy your dumpster school and mediocre football program. You guys have no chance of winning your division for at least five years.
Toledo
Guess you just dont really pay attention to college football much then do you?
Toledo and Texas Tech
Needless to say that same Georgia team you referenced waxed arkansas and scored 38 unanswered points at one time in the game. I think Nick Chubb just scored on ya’ll again. Enjoy your less than mediocre program bud!
I’d bet anything this guy is a techie at heart.
Also UGA kicked Arkansas a$$ that year! I think UGA was up by 30 or so points at the half!
Amusing to watch UGA and Arky fans sword fight in the bath tub.
See a dentist please
Damn, ya’ll ackin like a pack uh Hog Dawgs! ;)
yeah cause they lost to a team that went 3-9 that year and had NO passing game at all.
You know how I know you’re an idiot?? Because we lost(in overtime and with a couple of unlucky plays) to a GT team that went 11-3, destroyed Miss State in the Orange Bowl, and finished no. 8 in the country.
Are you that retarded? No wonder you went to Arkansas, UGA beat GT this year and lost to them when they went 11-3 and won the Orange Bowl.
Meanwhile Arkansas went 7-6 and called it the best season in program history!
Toledo
Do you just pick and choose games from different seasons and paste them together to form one imaginary season? Must be why you think Arkansas is any good…
Great Article!
Can’t say that very often.
To be fair, the majority of the words in this “article” were written by the Georgia Tech kid.
It is a shame that he had to endure all of that. A good, innocent prank. Well played and well handled by this young man.
It was an innocent prank and the penalty he took was because f some butthurt administrators in the head office.
You are clearly an idiot, so I will do my best to explain this the same way I explained it to my 10 year old.
The fact that the message was “Get Ass Kicked By GT” was out on the calendar is not the point. The point is that there was unauthorized access to the UGA site. Was the Tech student’s intentions harmless? Absolutely. Did he do anything wrong? I don’t think so. Think about this though. It is possible that someone could have seen this story and said: if a college student can access their site, then maybe there is a way for me to access student records. Social security numbers, account information, etc. I want you to try something you probably have never done before: look at something at someone else’s point of view:
Someone was able to access our site that shouldn’t have had access. That is a problem. What was done and who did it are irrelevant.
Enjoy your fat, Yankee weasel coach while we enjoy Pittman.
If anything, the kid did the dumbass uga administrators a favor by showing them the weaknesses in their cyber security. They should have sent him a thank you note.
Your ten-year-old must be in pain, trying to keep from laughing in your face.
“Someone” accessed the UGA calendar because security was inadequate. If they wanted to do something malicious, they could have done much, much worse – something that had real consequences besides a bit of a red face (that is one of your colors, right?). You said:
“someone could have seen this story and said: if a college student can access their site, then maybe there is a way for me to access student records. Social security numbers, account information, etc.”
I have news for you buddy, hackers that want to do that needed no notice, advice, or hint. They have probably already done so and would continue to do so until security is adequate.
UGA should have thanked ESPN for pointing it out and removed the calendar event. They then could have used all that effort and time and money to do something useful. You know – hire an OC.
An html post command is pretty innocuous. All he really did was alter some text on a fairly static web page. He didn’t get into any DB’s, hack passwords, or install any malicious software. UGA should have just scared the kid leaving well enough alone. Who knows how much money was spent on this 50K or more total? And for what? Would have been very different had he actually done something malicious to they system. Altering text on a static web page? Not a big deal, especially in context.
Wow, UGA can’t take a joke. Good job kid! UGA got mad because Tech beat them, and took it out on a poor Tech kid. Its not like he stole anything. He just added the butt whoopin to the calendar.
He exposed a flaw in security which could have been exploited by someone else with malicious intentions, like someone looking to steal something. They were clearly concerned that there was unauthorized access. I do not think they actually gave a s*** about what was done.
butthurt freely flows through the uga administration
And you who are clearly obsessed with Georgia and anything negative that happens to them so you can make your worthless self feel better. Keep enjoying those bricks!
If they did not care, they should have fixed the problem and written a nice thank you note to this guy, including a gift card to some nice restaurant in Athens. I doubt you represent the majority of UGA fans on this matter.
either way..auburn still finished 7-6