In April, several hundred thousand files were compromised through a network security breach at Ohio University. Four years earlier, a student hacked the same system in an effort to demonstrate to officials the networks security holes. University officials didn’t listen.

Four years ago, Jeremy Valeda cracked the Ohio University computer servers and plucked a few Social Security numbers to prove that the system was vulnerable.

Instead of fixing the security problems, university officials focused on punishing him, said Valeda, who was a member of the Student Senate at the time.

Now the university is dealing with a computer crisis because hackers gained access to personal information in more than 367,000 files starting in mid-April. Valeda said it was no shock when a friend e-mailed him about the intrusion.

“This was not an ‘I told you so’ moment, and I wish nothing bad on anyone,” the 24-year-old Valeda said from his New York apartment. “But I certainly wasn’t surprised to hear the news.”

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