--- title: "Teen Hacks School Computer System, Rickrolls Entire School District" description: "In April, a pioneering 14-year-old high school student and white hat hacker caused all displays in every school making up the Township High School District 214, the second-largest high school district in Illinois, to play the music video to Rick Astley’s 1980s hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.” In other words, the student literally rickrolled […]" date: "2021-10-14" modified: "2021-10-14" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/teen-hacks-school-computer-system-rickrolls-entire-school-district" categories: - "Cybersecurity" - "Future Society" - "Hacking" tags: - "hackers" - "hacking" - "the digest" --- # Teen Hacks School Computer System, Rickrolls Entire School District ![A 14-year-old high school student and white hat hacker rickrolled their entire school district by hacking into the school's internet-connected devices.]() *\Image: Tom Tran\* ## Never Gonna In April, an enterprising 14-year-old high school student and white hat hacker caused all displays in every school making up the Township High School District 214, the second-largest high school district in Illinois, to play the music video to Rick Astley's 1980s hit "Never Gonna Give You Up." In other words, the student literally rickrolled their entire school district — and in perfect synchronization. A [video]() of the event, dubbed "the Big Rick," shows every school projector playing the video and blaring the song at exactly the same time. https://twitter.com/FashionChef/status/1388293752045903876 ## Give You Up The teen, who goes by the moniker WhiteHoodHacker, explained the big exploit in a [post on their website](). First, with the help of other volunteers, they scanned all IP addresses of every device in the district's network. "Our scanning generated so much traffic that our school's technology supervisor caught wind of it and came in at one point to ask us to stop," the hacker writes. "From the results, we found various devices exposed on the district network. These included printers, IP phones... and even security cameras without any password authentication!" The prolific team even managed to gain control over all bell schedules in the district after discovering most of the servers serving content and announcements to students were using the same login credentials. The hackers were fully aware that what they were doing was illegal, but the team "prepared complete documentation of everything we did, including recommendations to remediate the vulnerabilities we discovered." The team even made sure the rendition of Rick Astley's hit single was not disrupting classes or AP standardized testing, which began the following day. After the ruse was up, the students sat down with the administration — instead of letting them down and deserting them, if you will — to help them fix their clearly less-than-stellar cybersecurity. "We even managed to get the district to look into expanding the IT/cybersecurity program and hopefully, sponsoring a D214 \[hacking competition\]," the blog reads. **More on hacking:** *[Elon Musk Mocks “Anonymous” For Threatening Him]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()