As I thought about how funny these two stories are (to me, anyway), I kept remembering more and more details. I thought about adding them in, and then having to clarify and stating my moral stance on things like ethics and hacking and school kids doing things on the computer that the adults don't want them to (the same adults who only knew the difference between Microsoft Works and Claris Works, and tying
meccpro on the older computers would bring up WordMuncher, yadda-yadda-yadda®, and decided to just say "fuck it" and write the damn blog.
Have whatever opinions you want. I don't care what they are.
In my freshman year, I had decided that my high school, and everything in it was really out dated. I'm not going to mention the school's name, because, truth be told, it's a lot better now. There's a five and ten year gap between my younger siblings and I, and from what they've told me, the school has improved vastly. When my little brother graduated (early, w00t), they even had their own robotics and programming teams. Not too shabby.
But back in 1999, when I was 15, the only computer related classes were
Intro to Computers and
Intro to C++. Boring classes, but computers where one of my hobbies, so I took them. And this was before I knew anything about hacking.
Hacking:(computing) Playful solving of technical work that requires deep understanding, especially of a computer system.
From hacker: "A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular."
I didn't know it at the time, but by definition, I, and many of my friends, were already "hackers". Neat.
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Lots of good fun that is funny! |
So the school network, back in the day, ran on a network operating system called Novell. Novell sucked then, and kinda sucks now. I had heard a rumor that a student was able to get what the rumor mill was calling "admin" or "super user" access to the network. Immediately I imagined Mathew Broderick in WarGames changing his love intrest's biology grade from an F to an A. I personally would never do that (an A would be suspicious... maybe a C...) but I bet there was some fun to be had.
I thought in reverse, something that has proved invaluable to me. I went to a search engine (probably Yahoo, since I hadn't yet decided Google was right for me), and searched "How do I stop users from getting admin?" That's when I discovered
The Net Plug exploit. It ran like this: I intentionally screw up my log in three times to get locked out of my account, reboot the computer, and press '
del' to get into the BIOS menu. Then I tell the teacher that my computer's messed up. The IT guy comes and boots the conmputer into Windows. At the log in prompt, I tell him I'm logged out. I tell him my username, and then run to the bathroom holding my tummy and ass. Then I have some one... we'll call him P---, run interference. He laughs and yells as run out "I told you not to eat that chili!" The IT guy logs into
his account on
my workstation and resets my password. I spend at least 20 minutes in the can. IT guy gets impatient, writes my temporary password down, gives it to the teacher, and tells him it is very important that I change my password as soon as I log in. As soon as the IT guy leaves, P--- unplugs the network cable to my workstation. I return, with only a few minutes of class time left, and reboot the machine. With the network cable unplugged, I select the option that allows me to - without a password or user name - log in to the local machine. Then I plug the cable back in. Confused, Windows asks Novell what user I am. Just as confused, Novell tells Windows that I'm the IT guy. And in true retard fashion, Novell asks Windows who I am, and Windows tells Novell that I'm the IT guy.
Guess what? Now I'm the IT guy.
Using the IT guy's account, I created several student accounts that had admin level access, and used them to create users that had teacher level access. The I changed my password, and never logged into any of those accounts I created, out of fear of being caught. They were all set to expire in December of 2003. And so it goes.
But I
did use this "thinking backwards" method for more fun. In stead of searching for "How do I bypass Bessie Content Filter?", I searched "How do I prevent users from bypassing Bessie Content Filter?" And I did the same thing for Novell Messenger. These searches led me to regedit.exe, which allowed me to disable the content filter, and enable the messenger. Cool, I guess. I looked at boobs and paint ball guns and IMed other students.
"What a slacker!"
Sure, why not. Call me a slacker. Other shenanigans involved pranking some of my friends. Let's call one of them E---. It was my turn to prank E---, and I knew that the teacher of
Intro to Computers has a pet-peeve; he hated when kids wrote on his dry-erase board. He also had a habit of yelling really loudly, and suffering from halitosis. So, naturally, when he wasn't looking, I wrote on the board.
I wrote:
E---HAS NO WIENER!!
Then I pointed to the board and said "E---! Look what I, Tony, have done!"
He retaliated by erasing his name, and writing Tony, except before he got finished with the 'n', I yelled "MR. S----, LOOK WHAT E--- IS DOING!" And E--- had to smell Mr. S----'s perpetual fish breathe.
Then, when I became a high school upper classmen, I went to the local vocational school to study computers even more. (Better than burying my face in a history book from 1976, right?)
At the vocational school, we learned about Net Send, something more useful than Novell Messenger, since it didn't require us to change anything. Our computer teacher actually encouraged us to use it when working on assignments that allowed collaboration, as it would keep the noise down. We found a little utility that used a GUI, and everyone downloaded it. Then, the school's head IT guy discovered it on my computer, and threatened to have me expelled. The teacher threw me under the bus, claiming she had never
condoned the use of Net Send. (Italicized because you know who you are). I was facing a suspension, and being prhibited from touching a computer on school grounds, meaning I would have to drop out of my computer classes, and return to the high school I had just escaped. Luckily for me, my nerd like qualities had me in places of power in a ton of student organisations, and was actually an intern on the school's marketing/PR department (and later IT department. Go figure). I pulled some strings, and got out of it. Politics are the devil, BTW.
Anyway, I kept the whole Novell messenger thing a secret until there were only two weeks left of our senior year. I told some students who where in some other computer classes. (I was in networking, there was also the Cisco class that I was
supposed to have been in, a business class, electronics, and programming & web design.
Some how word of my dry-erase board trick spread to a student in the electronic class. A student named C----. C---- was good friends with E---, and thought that was hilarious. He also thought, during a project that involved all of the classes, that it would be funny to send E--- the message "E--- HAS NO WIENER!!" during class. But he didn't stop there. When selecting the recipient of the message, he clicked on EVERY SINGLE USER NAME IN THE SYSTEM.
Let me explain that a little better. Novell Messenger is an administration utility for admins to send messages to users, so the sender is presented with a convenient list of every single user account. That's teachers, students, other IT personnel, the secretary, public relations (yes, we had a PR department), principle, vice principles, the janitor, EVERYONE! Now, let me explain why, in addition to users,
servers were included in this list. If a specific server needed to be rebooted, for whatever reason, an admin could message that server, and the server would in turn forward that message to every user on that server. Student server needs rebooting? Send this message to
student.server:
Attention users, please log out within five minutes and do not log back in until an announcement stating that it's okay to log in or all your progress will be lost.
You get the idea now, right? Anyway, he selected the servers too, so after the shock set in, and the student or teacher selected "OK", they were presented with the message again.
Suffice it to say, the entire school came to a screeching halt. The cherry on top was when the loud speakers, throughout the school, rang out with "C----- T-----, please report to the office. C----- T-----, please report to the office, IMMEDIATELY!"
But wait, there's more!
Allow me to explain the vocational school's relationship with the highschools in the county (and one in a neighboring county). Students who's grades were high enough had the option, in 11th and 12th grade, to either spend the entire day at their high school, half at their high school and half at the vocational school, or the entire day at the vocational school.
While I spent my entire day at the vocational school, many did not. So, naturally word spread to the seven high schools that feed into the vocational school, but it happened faster than you might think. That's because the principles and vice principles were connected, probably via a VPN, to the vocational school's network, so they got this pop-up message as well!
Aaaaaaaaaaand
Then there were the students at the vocational school who weren't in a computer class, and there for didn't use a school computer every day. But those students all had reports due before finals week. Whether it was an entire English class using a computer lab, or a couple of cosmetology or mechanics students in the library, all students would eventually log in. And one by one, they were all greeted with:
"Who the hell is E---?" they'd ask each other. "Who is C.T----?" and "E--- has no wiener!" they'd shout!
It left a legacy. Years after my departure, they were still talking about the user C.T----- and the alleged eunuch named E---.
Epilogue:
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| 'Hackers', MFW |
Does screwing around on the computer mean that s student is bad and won't amount to anything? During middle school, I was involved in a group called Civil Air Patrol. CAP is the civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force. Although many saw it as a weird Boy Scouts clone, CAP is actually responsible for over 90% of all inland search and rescue operations in the United States. In addition to learning about aeronautics & aerospace, flying a single-engine aircraft (with instructor pilot), learning about and using two-way radio communication, building model rockets and flying them in competitions, learning basic survival skills, and training for search and rescue with CAP and other organizations, such as the USAF, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, local, state, and county law enforcement, and becoming acclimated to a military way of life, we actually went on search and rescue sorties and found downed aircraft.
Later, in high school, I was the president of our local chapter of Key Club, the secretary (then later vice-president) of our school's Business Professionals of America chapter, a tour-guide for groups of prospective students that would come see the school, and a school representative that would go to the local high schools, and give a presentation to the students there. I was a journalist in our schools chapter of the CNN Student-Bureau. I also interned for the school's IT department, and the IT department of one of the other high schools. I also had a full time job,and bills, the entire time.
And then how did this
SLACKER do at graduation time? I'll let my two honors diplomas speak for themselves.
I went on to study aeronautics and spent some time in the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. I am now an FAA licensed pilot, and I am currently studying computer forensics and network security at the collegiate level.
I'm not trying to brag, just trying to preemptively address some of the "kids shouldn't screw around at school or they'll spend their life flipping burgers and America will degrade and be invaded by Canada and Mexico in a hundred years." rhetoric that fucking morons always spew when they encounter anything involving students "screwing around" with computers. I guess they forgot about the students who lit stink bombs and stuff when they were kids. Or maybe
those pranksters didn't do as well in life as the "hackers" did? I don't know.
I've rambled.
tl;dr Hackers, FTW. Old people are teh lulz
