A conditional discharge has been granted to Keith Horwood, the former student responsible for changing the word “election” to “erection”, on Western University’s student union election website February 2012, according to London’s criminal court office.
Horwood pleaded guilty on Sept. 20 to two out of four counts of intercepting computer functions and mischief to data. He will have to pay a $10,000 restitution order, complete 100 hours of community service and will be on probation for 12 months, according to London’s criminal court office.
“I was peripherally aware and didn’t think of the consequences to real people, just the technological aspects,” 23-year-old Horwood said of the incident via email.
Horwood didn’t initially realize the hack would cause such a strong retaliation, thinking it wouldn’t be as widely noticed as it quickly became, he said.
“Part of me figured Western would apologize and sweep it under the table,” he said.
Though he had initially hoped for anonymity, Horwood came to the conclusion that it would be best to turn himself in and demonstrate his remorse to the student body.
He posted a video on YouTube shortly after the incident offering his “sincerest apologies” for the hack.
“I wasn’t thinking. It was stupid of me, it was naïve, it was silly,” he said in the video.
Horwood said his friend initially recognized the security flaw on the University Student Council (USC) website, making it possible for Horwood to hack into the page and prompting him to decide to “tinker around.”
“Anybody with the right knowledge could have very easily made their own separate modifications,” Horwood said.
“And what Western didn’t choose to publicize was that I was not the only person aware of the security flaw, nor was I the only person making use of it.”
He altered the election title, changing it to “Justin Bieber Hairstyle Vote 2012” and “USC Erections” he said.
Some confusion arose over whether Horwood also tried to delete all of the votes that had been compiled on the website. Among other things, he attempted “drop table” and “delete” queries, which tested the limitations of the website’s security, he said.
Though he ran queries attempting to delete data, “the intention. . .was never actually to remove content,” he said.
“Attempting “delete” queries gave [me], by far and large the most information about how the database was structured – without actually removing any content.”
Horwood is no longer a student at Western. He quit graduate school in October where he was working on a masters of science in biochemistry in favor of starting his own software corporation, which will be launched within a month, he said.
“We recognize that there was damage done by this hacking, and we are just looking to move on,” USC vice-president (communications) Jeremy Santucci said via email.
Though the members of Western University’s USC were upset about the hacking, Horwood said he has received an outpouring of support from the student body at Western.
“People have come up to me individually and made it very clear that they wish me the best. I’m very grateful for the response.” θ
