1,200 Washington Prisoners Lose Laptops After One Shows Up on eBay
By March 2, 2024, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) had collected laptops from some 1,200 state prisoners who had been issued them for course work in college programming—throwing a huge monkey wrench into their plans to work toward degrees.
“This is a critical moment because students in our BA [undergrad] program are preparing to graduate and finish research and writing for their capstone projects,” noted Tanya Erzen, faculty director of Freedom Education Project Puget Sound. “It’s already a struggle to conduct research without access to the internet or databases, and this will only exacerbate the situation.”
It all started when one of the laptops showed up offered by online reseller eBay. Not knowing the device was designed to keep imprisoned users off the internet, Boston electrical engineer Wenting Zhang bought it and then proceeded to “jailbreak” the device. His post documenting the successful effort on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, was then linked to a thread on a website popular with hackers, and someone there shared the default password for the operating software in the device, a Justice Tech Solutions Securebook 5.
Five days later, DOC announced it was collecting all devices that had been issued to incarcerated students “to provide an immediate system update,” spokesperson Chris Wright said. Though no one had attempted to jailbreak a laptop, all were confiscated “out of an abundance of caution.”
Prisoners who lost the computers fretted over losing access to their completed coursework, too. Those in degree-granting programs worried about not getting the device back in before the term ends. Washington Corrections Center prisoner Steve Pawlak said the instructor for his math course from Centralia Community College had students complete coursework on spreadsheets, telling them “we already have computers” so “you don’t need to be one.”
“If this is how my first class goes, I have no idea what the rest will be like,” Pawlak said.
Chief Technology Officer Jessica Hicklin at St. Louis education tech nonprofit Unlocked Labs said there was little risk to DOC even if a prisoner had jailbroken a laptop. “As long as the network is properly secured, then there is no real credible security threat,” she said. Justice Tech President Jeremy Schwartz agreed, noting that the device would still need to have a USB port to connect an internet cable, as well as a new operating system plus access to a docking station.
The device that started it all was one of about 100 that had been sold by an unnamed prison system to an unidentified nonprofit, which disposed of them on eBay.
Source: Open Campus
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