According to the article, he claimed to be a student. If that's true and this site was asking for his personal information, I think ethically he has the right to verify that the data is going to be stored securely. Granted, the details and facts are sketchy, but if USC had my data, I'd be thanking this guy for doing the right thing and reporting it. It seems to me that proving his intent to commit a crime could be difficult if he was truly a student as he claimed. Even if he accesses someone else's information incidentally, what harm was done? I recieved someone else's hospital bill along with mine recently, does that make me a criminal? If the facts support the original article, USC needs to step up and admit they were wrong and thank this guy, not prosecute him.

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/newsbriefs/191/914#914