Woody Allen joked that he cheated on his metaphysics exam by looking into the soul of the boy sitting next to him. One can only imagine how his philosophy teacher might have punished such a crime.

But how do you punish a pupil who has repeatedly broken into campus, installed secret “spyware” on school hardware, and changed his exam results as well as those of his friends? A rap on the knuckles with a ruler? Or 38 years in jail?

In 2004, Joseph McElroy, a schoolboy from East London, provoked a security alert at an American nuclear research lab after hacking into its computer system. He was ordered to do 200 hours community service and narrowly avoided jail.

And what would be an appropriate punishment for Adam Dabrowski? The 14-year-old electronics whizkid was arrested after causing havoc in Lodz, Poland, in 2003, after he hacked into the tram network and used it like a giant trainset, derailing at least four trams and injuring dozens of people. Perhaps Californian judges should take note: there must be a better place to use a whizkid’s talents than an Orange County jail.

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