You provided a vital public service when you fact-checked the article about the rampant crime perpetrated on the streets (ice?) of Club Penguin.

However, elevating the manipulation of the environment, by users, into some sort of mortal sin of biblical proportion seems a bit much. Given the veracity of the other claims and the technical difficulty involved, I would not be too sure that more than a handful of children are engaged in hacking Club Penguin.

Let’s say that kids ARE packet sniffing to win more bananas for their penguins… Is this really stealing or an example of Modding? What if this is just the manifestiatin of a very human desire to control their environment?

When I was a kid, I could change the code in timeshare games to help me win with a key press or greet me with “Hello, Gary! How are you today?” when a kid who knew nothing about computing was looking over my shoulder. This is how most programmers learn to program.

Isn’t creating and publishing video-based tutorials an example of sharing, the opposite of stealing?

Given the fact that schools seem to have taken a sacred oath to deny students any real knowledge of or agency over computers, “hacking” Club Penguin seems quite reasonable and expected.

-=Gary