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Admin
I can't believe how many different ways of annoying your co-workers you guys have come up with..
You should realize that pulling pranks on people is exactly the kind of fun that assholes enjoy the most.
In Finland (yeah, where I'm from..), it's generally very safe to leave your computer unlocked, and yet, contrary to what you might expect, we do have good atmosphere at workplaces, normal people with senses of humour and so on! -Amazing, isn't it?
This is the first time I've ever posted here, but I just had to get this off my chest. I'm damn glad I don't work in the States, assuming that's where most of you pranksters live.
I hope you get something worthwhile done between your prank-wars..
Admin
Here's my keyboard [image] I don't think I'd notice.
Admin
Wow! I'm glad you can speak for all companies, everywhere!
I'll inform my IT staff immediately that they are instituting our "mandatory lock your PC whenever you leave your desk for any amount of time" policy. I thought it had to do with the fact that in my business we have access to databases chock full of credit card numbers, and we have a pretty strict policy of security that is always followed. We get audited by a third party.
But thanks to your declaration, I now see that we’re doing it for totally the wrong reason! It’s the coworkers, not the auditors that we should be concerned about.
Much obliged!
Admin
I work for a company that has a massive presence in almost every country, including US and Finland, and it is very dangerous to leave one's computer unlocked. A homophobic Brit could leave his dev workstation unlocked and a mischeivious Swede will in short order change his wallpaper to something from a Jake Gyllenhaal fansite and swap his left/right mouse buttons. It has nothing to do with being immature. OK, it has alot to do with being immature. But a positive work environment is not one where no one plays pranks... it's one where everyone is comfortable enough to laugh at themselves when the joke's on them.
Admin
Bryan is obviously a 1337 h4xx0r, and should be hauled away by the IT Security dept.
Admin
It's also fun to switch the keys in the numpad to match the layout you would see on a telephone. (They're normally opposite each other... go ahead, take a look, I'll wait... ah, back now). It's one of those pranks that really screws with your head, since SOME of the numbers work correctly, and they LOOK correct...
Admin
If you're using WinXP you should could disable desktop icons with a rightclick and some option ^^
Admin
My co-workers love to tell you how they used to alter an unfortunate colleague's registry settings so the Solitaire or Minesweeper would start-up instead of Explorer, back in the days.
Admin
That would be the important part. It doesn't sound like the guy in the article is laughing along with the pranksters. He doesn't "get it".
Admin
A frequent prank round here is based on the our most prevalent Laptop type and model that we use, though it's probably useful across many makes an models.
A particular keyboard combination with cause the screen to flip upside down, for presentations. Excellent for that immediate laugh and easy fix.
Admin
I remember an event similar to the guy who mass-mailed everyone and inviting them for drinks after work. This was back in my university days.
We were using UNIX workstations, and being in a university environment, everyone followed the "use xlock when you leave your chair" policy closely. One day one of the students posted some really weird messages on our internal newsgroups. He had to follow these to explain that he really didn't post those, and didn't really want to do that to the secretaries down at campus administration etc etc.
He of course suspected that he had been hacked. He immediately changed his password, but the weird posts continue for another couple of days. He went to the admins and asked for logs, but his account were not logged in from anywhere else, or on times where he was not in the computer labs. He had a hard time convincing people that he did not post those messages.
It took him a week or two to figure out that his home directory was world writable. You can do funny stuff with .login files :)
Admin
I just hope that some female somewhere claims you sexually harassed her, especially if you didn't. You do realize that you're a douchebag, right? Pranks are one thing, but lying to fuck someone over? That's not right.
Admin
couldn't agree with you more man. I'd hate to work with that guy. Just another one of those people who make going to work a business of looking of your shoulder...
There were plenty of times where I had not locked my computer and my coworkers would tinker around. Nothing serious, and always something to lighten the mood. After a while though, I did find myself locking out my system more often. Coming back to find your old boss had changed your instant messenger name to "DogBalls" sorta puts you on the defensive. :D
Still all in fun. Good times.
Admin
Admin
My old favourite was prior to optical mice, was to have a spare mouse, specially rewired with the X and Y axis swapped. Replace someones mouse with the modded one, sit back and let the hilarity ensue.
Admin
back in the day? A qwerty keyboard turns into Dvorak keyboard very very easiy ;-)
Admin
Locking is a minor inconvenience that I can't understand why you wouldn't do it. It's similar to wearing a seatbelt.
For mine, the best prank doesn't involve a PC, A fresh fish, duct taped to the underside of someone's desk is always fun*.
The best targets, for those still studying, are PhD students and lecturers.
Admin
What's a fish punch?
Admin
Start -> Run -> RUNDLL32 USER32.DLL,SwapMouseButton
Admin
We had a colleague who loved to play computer games during working hours (yeh, management really had a tight reign at this company... not). This started to get on some of our nerves after a while so we devised a sneaky plan involving a little C program plus using the default Windows 2000 c$ admin share.
Whenever we felt like playing around with our game playing colleague, we would run a batch file which renamed all his game .exes to some temporary name, copied our C program to his computer and renamed it to the game .exes. The purpose of this C program was to throw up a fake Windows GPF and some random numbers. We then ran another batch file to put everything back to normal.
This went on for months with us laughing while his computer GPF'd randomly when running his games until it got to the stage where our victim, ahem colleague, ended up resorting to playing Windows Solitaire - at this stage we figured we'd pretty much broken his spirit...
Ahh, memories...
Admin
Admin
No, flashing a flashlighth into the eyes of epileptic is NOT funny. And so isn´t this...
Admin
Create a folder on the desktop named horsePr0n or something similar, take a screenshot, use that as background, remove the original folder and see them try to remove the offensive material.
Admin
Captcha: tastey (how does it know?)
Admin
I used to do pranks at uni, where I was a monitor for the computerlabs. If one of my fellow students left it unlocked I'd send him an e-mail from himself thinking him for his printerbudget. If it was a friend I'd do more. Change his background/hompage whatever. Also write a script that puts all the changes back every time you login or out.... Believe me, I never left my computer unlocked.
Now at work I don't care. I can trust the people around not mess with my machine. If there were real security issues then yes I would lock it. There aren't though, so I don't. If I thought there were pranksters around...I'd watch my back and look for an oppurtunity to get them instead.
It all depends on the company culture. Some places will appreciate the joke, some not. Just try to fit in. Personally I'd prefer to work somewhere where it is possible to play jokes on each other. If that isn't the culture however, don't do it.
Admin
What really annoys me about this kind of people is that they are just plain lying. If you hear a guy saying that he NEVER forgets to lock his computer while you KNOW that he actually NEVER locks his computer, how can you trust such a person any longer ?
I would immediatly flip the 'unreliable'-switch on him and doubt anything he says from then on.
Admin
For those idiots who don't want to lock their PCs, I have a real-life case for you.
A nefarious person managed to get into our building recently, during the day. They knew what they were doing and what they were looking for. They had access to a handful of Finance PCs for less than 5 minutes, but that was enough for them to mail some very sensitive information from an unlocked PC before they escaped.
I trust my immediate colleagues, and generally assume everyone else in the office is probably ok too (there's 800ish of us - can't know everyone!) But it's not just about them, there are so many things that could happen. Locking your screen won't stop someone who is determined, but it can slow them down.
Captcha seemed appropriate here - Burned!
Admin
Not if you unscrew the handset and stick the tape over the holes on the inside. And if you're doing that, you may as well use something like electrical tape, which doesn't just insulate against current...
Admin
We don't allow nefarious people in our building. We have locks on the doors. Visitors are incredibly rare (once a month) and must be supervised 100% of the time.
Of course we can call the cops if we even see an unauthorized person in the parking lot.
Admin
I hope you're not the same Dmitriy Kropivnitskiy who according to a google search is "... the database and system administrator for forsalebyowner.com." because i'd hate to give my financial info to a company which has people working with you're attitude towards information security.
Admin
Won't make much difference if he's a touch typist, surely?
Admin
...back in the day of CMS terminals...
I left mine unlocked one day and when I came back anything I typed in was repeated...
Hah! Trapped by the echo command! And hearing chuckles from my coworkers when I couldn't remember the command to get out of it...
captcha - pirates (how appropriate)
Admin
Locks on the doors don't ensure that a criminal can't get in. I work in a building that has security guards and locks on the doors, plus some areas that require a passcard and/or a combination.
A few months ago, a suspicious person tail-gated an employee into the audit division. No one stopped him. He made it all the way to the back of the room... a room that contained about 150 employees going about their varioust hings, before someone stopped him and realized he wasn't supposed to be there.
Company security isn't about locks and passwords and combinations. It's also about people. I trust my coworkers to not screw up my computer, but they're human and not always on the ball when it comes to other forms of security. I work for a bank, we have a strict policy about locking computers because we'd rather deal with that issue than a lawsuit because some criminal walked through and grabbed sensitive financial data from an unlocked workstation.
It happens. Quite often. So for those few wankers on here who claim that having a locked workstation policy is idiotic, think of that next time you're doing your banking. If everyone was security concious enough to ensure that no unauthorized people walked through the doors, locking a workstation might be unnecessary. But it's better to take several precautions to keep data safe in case one (or more!) other protections fail!
I'm glad those of you that think locking your workstation against your coworkers is silly... it means you probably don't work with sensitive information that can get you sued or destroy your company if it gets out. And it doesn't matter what country you're in... I'm pretty sure the banks in Finland have the same policies, unless Finland magically doesn't have criminals.
Seejay
Admin
Another thing that I forgot to mention... the division I work for is Investigations, including investigations into employees. We could easily have a suspect employee in our department for whatever reason (interviews, submitting evidence, etc). That would be just wondering if they happened to read up on their case and the evidence against them if an unlocked computer was in their range of vision. Or what about another random employee (not a suspect, but not part of our investigations division) who happens to read something about a coworker that's under suspicion? Yay for lack of confidentiality and potentially ruining a case.
Saying that a locking policy is dumb really shows how narrow of a view a person has if they can't even consider the privacy implications for all possibilities.
-- Seejay
(i have a captcha cause i can't remember my login and i'm using a different computer! yay!)
Admin
Dead on, Seejay.
You can also have some interesting implications if you work in the United States for a company which produces ITAR-controlled material. If, say, a Canadian looks at my computer, that may constitute an export, depending mostly on what was on the screen at the time. (If any technical data is visible, then an export has occurred.) If what's on my screen is ITAR-controlled, then I am probably guilty of violating ITAR. That's not something to take lightly. If you get caught, even a totally innocent act can result in jail time. Seriously. (More likely, your company will just get fined, and you might consequently end up out of a job.)
The scenario above is totally innocent and would quite like result in no harm to the United States. But now imagine a less innocent scenario. You leave your workstation unlocked. A janitor comes by to empty your trashcan. This janitor is a legal US resident, but is a citizen of China. The janitor sits down at your unlocked PC and begins snooping around. Congratulations: you've just exported technical data to China!
Admin
our usual action is to replace their desktop walpaper with barney or david hasselhoff or something else that's of questionable content and lock their machine
Admin
I usually take a screenshot of the desktop then delete all the icons and hide the ones I can't delete under the toolbar. Much fun.
Admin
Tailgating is prohibited (enforced by the certainty of being fired and a receptionist/guard at every door).
The janitors don't work during the day and computers are all turned off at night.
Basically there's no need to lock my computer because everyone that can gain physical access to it can look at the same exact information on their own computer. The only way someone could gain access to my computer is by literally breaking in and taking our office hostage, in which case I would lock my computer.
Different situations for different people.
Admin
Besides preventing prankin, a more reasonable usage of locking is to keep the keyboard and mouse from generating spurious input into whatever's in the foreground.
Those in cubes, for example, may have someone sitting on the edge of the desk, and bump your mouse or keyboard. Or accidentally cause mouse clicks. Or if you're putting an important document down for smoeone, may lay it down on the keyboard, bumping keys.
Or take Windows Update, with that dialog that says "Restart Now" or "Restart Later". An inadvertent <Enter> can say "Restart Now". Preventing spurious input is a great feature of locking.
Admin
Nor do we, in theory. We have some decent security guards and procedures, and we're supposed to look after the 200 or so visitors we get every week, but we have two gaping holes in our setup.
First, whilst visitors are supposed to be accompanied at all times, they've forgotton the human element - most people don't actually think about security, and will let visitors wander off.
Second, this guy took advantage of what seems to be a pretty standard security WtF. He went into the public part of our building, hit a fire alarm, then hung around the assembly point until the all-clear was given. At which point, up to 1000 people all file back into the building without going through standard security. Our senior management over-rode the security advice on the grounds that it would take "too long" to get everyone back to work and cost too much.
Admin
Exactly why I lock my home computer too. I live with a cat, and laptops are apparently warm and comfortable.
Admin
Admin
Admin
Haha.. I did that one to my roommate's PC a year or so back. I think his screensaver was set to about 30 minutes or something, but usually when he was done, he would turn off the monitor and walk away. He never mentioned anything about it, and eventually I totally forgot about it.
Probably 3 months later, I was sitting watching TV and he came to use his computer, turns on the monitor, and then gets really angry and says "That's it!! I'm buying a new computer".
"What's wrong?" I ask.
"This damn thing constantly crashes, every time it sits for a few hours, I'm buying a new one." Suddenly, I remember the screensaver and say "Move the mouse."
"What the.." he says with a confused look, which quickly turns to anger as he glares at me while I am laughing uncontrollably.
I couldn't believe that he put up with it for so long, or that he never ONCE moved the mouse or touched the keyboard before blindly resetting it. I did make sure to keep my computer locked after that, and so did he.
Admin
In college, I had a friend lived on my floor that LOVED "bonsai buddy" (that stupid purple monkey or whatever, that used a crappy text-to-speech engine to tell stupid jokes and do other dumb things). It really pissed us all off, because he'd keep his speakers turned up real loud, and loved to get people to listen to it for some reason (probably because he knew everyone hated it).
If you're not familiar with it, it basically comes up and says "Hello $name, would you like to hear a joke?" and all sorts of other inane things.
What started as simply changing the name to short insults eventually turned into a .BAT script that changed the name to a ridiculously long (as in it took close to a minute to say) profanity-laden insult, which of course ran on startup. I don't think he ever did figure out how we managed to change the name all the time, especially since he had screensaver and BIOS passwords (which was impressive for a criminology student) and never left it unlocked.. but at least he eventually uninstalled the program :)
Admin
"This janitor is a legal US resident, but is a citizen of China."
That's a giant WTF right there.
Admin
We did better with the shared a shared old win98 comp: we also put the taskbar at the side, minimized it and adjusted the monitor so the few pixels left from it wouldn't be visible. Of course, the screenshot showed the normal taskbar just fine. Linking normal shortcuts to irritating video content is a fine choice too, had a lot of fun with that :-)
Admin
Yep, we have a lock-your-screen policy too where I work. Makes perfect sense since at least in my department people have quite a lot of privileges, enough to break our service all over the world, and of course there are probably ways to access sensitive information.
So the lock-your-screen policy makes perfect sense, since there's no way you can make 100% sure that nobody malicious will ever get to your keyboard.
So if you sometimes forget to lock your screen you could come back to it and see hundreds of xeyes staring at you, you suddenly have a new shiney wallpaper, or whatever.
But if you see an unlocked screen and do these things, you do also lock the screen when you're ready. After all, that's what the policy is about.
Admin
But I tried pouring a glass of water on their keyboard planting cress on their chair. I got fired. Damn, I see I misread your suggestions. Oops.
Admin
Camaraderie it sure the he11 is not. PBBBST to camaraderie. Leave me alone and get off my lawn. OH, and I surely won't be inflicting pain to teach lessons. I hope "my god ignorance is everywhere" doesn't EVER have children. Violence and Pranks. Prank the wrong person, and you might rue it. I loathe jocks and jockstrap mentality. Take your "group think" and jockstrap mentality to your homes.