The arrest affidavit says Covener took a computer program downloaded from the Internet and slipped it into three student government computers, allowing the computers to keep a secret record of everything that unsuspecting computer users typed. With that, he got student leaders' computer passwords and used their passwords to intercept their e-mail, the complaint says. A password is the key to a student's e-mail or academic data, said John Corro, a Penn State computer security official. Covener wasn't that ambitious, Sowerby said. He was simply on a reconnaissance mission, pilfering mail, trying to get the drop on political enemies in Penn State's fractious student government and share his discoveries with allies.
Information is power.
Penn State computer officials knew nothing until former Student Senate Communications Director Jeffrey Schlanger of Morganville, N.J., came to them last spring, offering a computer disk with four purloined e-mails, Sowerby said. Like any good tale of political deceit, this one came complete with a cover-up, police say. Covener feels isolated right now, forced out of office and listening to former allies testify against him, said Karen Muir of State College, Covener's attorney. For the time being, though, Covener said, he's worried about the criminal charges, not about his peers or impending judgment from students and faculty on Penn State's Judicial Affairs Board. With an otherwise clean criminal record and his role in student government, he figures Penn State won't expel him.