A student from Montgomery Blair made second semester schedules available to MCPS students at his website MCPS Schedule Viewer (URL: mcpsschedule.me) on Nov. 18 before being shut down the next day.
An Instagram account with username “malwareman” published a post on Nov. 18 advertising the site. Students spread the website through Instagram, Snapchat, other social media and word-of-mouth. The account has the name “the kmh” with a bio “creator of schedule.kmh.zone, mcpsschedule.me mbhs ‘21” and a link to kmh.zone. This suggests that the student is a senior. He has reportedly been making schedules available through the MCPS system since his freshman year.
The interface of the website asked for a user’s MCPS student ID and password in exchange for their schedule on the condition that they check a box next to this statement: “I acknowledge that by clicking the [Log In] button below, my class enrollment will be shared with others in the same class.” After one entered their information and checked the box, their MCPS schedule would show up including period, course, teacher, and names of other students in their classes who had used the website.
There was a disclaimer that “MCPS Schedule Viewer is not affiliated with or endorsed by Montgomery County Public Schools.”
Despite some concern about security, many students used the site. “I did think it was sketchy, but my friends all said it was trustworthy so I used it,” sophomore Joyce Wang said.
A Wootton student, who asked to remain anonymous and who knows “malwareman,” said that the log-in information is, in fact, saved. “The info everyone types in to check their schedules is also saved — on an Excel sheet I think,” he said.
On the next day, the website was updated with the message “MCPS has blocked the method I was using to get schedules. Follow @malwareman on Instagram for updates,” which was also posted to the instagram with an unhappy face emoticon for a caption. One student commented, “free malwareman #justice4malwareman.”
“I think MCPS should give us our schedules,” Wang said.
Since Nov. 26, all mcpsschedule.me says is, “Probably not coming back :(.“ This was also posted to the Instagram account with caption “was fun.”
In addition to the schedule site, the student also has a website at kmh.zone, where there are a handful of links to online tools and simple games including a spelling dictionary and “Trump Pong.” The latter is a Brick Breaker-esque game where the president’s face is the ball and the player must hit the face back toward the blocks with a virtual paddle resembling his signature wall (being made of red brick).
While his initials are alluded to in the URL of kmh.zone, and a link to a Flickr account there reveals his first name, the student will not be identified here as he declined to comment and wishes to remain anonymous to the public, though MCPS does know his identity.
