Many years ago, my young son brought a letter home from school to inform me that he would be held in detention at school the following two evenings for “hacking the school computer system”.

This sounded serious so I asked him to explain.

“We were in computer class. I found a page that listed the names of the teachers. I clicked on one and a message popped up saying PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD. So I typed PASSWORD and a folder appeared that contained lots of filenames. I turned to tell my teacher but he was standing right behind me, staring at the screen. He took me to the headmaster who said he would report it to you. He made me bring this letter.”

I wrote a reply to the headmaster, pointing out the obvious lack of security in the school computer system and hoping that he could issue an individual password to every teacher before the next school governors’ meeting. (I wasn’t a school governor but I doubted that he knew that.) Further, I told him that my son would not be attending detention and that I expected he (the headmaster) would praise my son for discovering such a serious problem and saving the school from possible future embarrassment. I sealed the note in an envelope and told my son to deliver it to the headmaster, next day, and to be sure to come home on time.

Next day he came home from school on time, his little face beaming. “Thanks, dad. I don’t know what you wrote but the headmaster has been really nice to me!”

(Thanks to Sarah Madden for pointing out my stupid mistake, now corrected.)