The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Mr. Rosso is the coolest guidance counselor/substitute teacher ever! He introduced me to The Dead and I never looked back.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Todd Lewis:
David Wright:
You guys had it easy. We didn't have Macs when I was at school. In fact there weren't any computers in schools in those days.

Showing my age here: What passed for pranks when I was in school was wandering through parking lots and [god help me] locking unlocked cars. Man, we were teh terrors!
I once wrapped some powdered drain-marking dye in balls of tissue and spent a lesson throwing them out the window into the pond beneath. The entire thing turned bright red which was hilarious, but the sudden death of all the fish did not go down well with the teachers.

Then there was the classic "set off the fire alarm at the end of term" prank. Only difference is that I lit smoke bombs on the fire escape, so everyone thought the school was geuinely burning and the exits were blocked. A lot of people thought they were going to die, one guy even jumped out a window and broke his ankle. It's a miracle there weren't more injuries.

I never got caught for any of this stuff. The trick is to work alone, getting friends involved is a surefire way to get ratted out.

One of the prefects set up the sound system to play The Wombling Song during the morning's hymn in Assembly one April 1. All very well, but another joker had removed the fuse from the organ so the hymn could not be played. Upshot was The Wombling Song started up during prayers instead which was a rather more heinous crime. The prefect was made to remove his special tie of prefecture and get his hair cut.

Britain in the 70's, eh? You can't make this stuff up.

Kensey · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

I got the reverse of this once in high school. After coming back from Christmas break, a lot of teachers had computers that were behaving oddly -- e.g. every time a floppy was inserted, the Mac would sneeze and eject it, another one had all the text mirror-reversed, etc. Everybody knew I was the most knowledgeable person about Macs in the school (it was a small school, so this is not claiming as much glory as it sounds like). Blame thus began to automatically attach to me, and as I went from class to class I kept hearing about these clever pranks "I" had pulled.

By the end of the day several teachers had gathered together and went to the administration to demand I be punished. At that meeting, the school librarian stood up and said "Joe didn't do it. I know because I did it."

Over the holiday break she had come to the school to check on compliance with the IT security policy (set by her) that said all mice and keyboards must be locked up outside class hours. Noncompliant teachers had their Macs "infected" with a program called MacJoke that allowed the perpetrator to select various kinds of prank actions. She was horrified when she heard that teachers were assuming I had done something terrible, and apologized to me later.

From this I learned two things:

Be careful what you're known for, it can bring you problems as easily as praise.
Do not ever, ever, EVER mess with a librarian.

Power Troll · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Oh, OK. TRWTF is that Bill went on to a career in IT. Got it.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

QJ:
Anonymous:
Todd Lewis:
David Wright:
You guys had it easy. We didn't have Macs when I was at school. In fact there weren't any computers in schools in those days.

Showing my age here: What passed for pranks when I was in school was wandering through parking lots and [god help me] locking unlocked cars. Man, we were teh terrors!
I once wrapped some powdered drain-marking dye in balls of tissue and spent a lesson throwing them out the window into the pond beneath. The entire thing turned bright red which was hilarious, but the sudden death of all the fish did not go down well with the teachers.

Then there was the classic "set off the fire alarm at the end of term" prank. Only difference is that I lit smoke bombs on the fire escape, so everyone thought the school was geuinely burning and the exits were blocked. A lot of people thought they were going to die, one guy even jumped out a window and broke his ankle. It's a miracle there weren't more injuries.

I never got caught for any of this stuff. The trick is to work alone, getting friends involved is a surefire way to get ratted out.

One of the prefects set up the sound system to play The Wombling Song during the morning's hymn in Assembly one April 1. All very well, but another joker had removed the fuse from the organ so the hymn could not be played. Upshot was The Wombling Song started up during prayers instead which was a rather more heinous crime. The prefect was made to remove his special tie of prefecture and get his hair cut.

Britain in the 70's, eh? You can't make this stuff up.

Yep, UK here too! School certainly had its moments.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Wow. Not only do we get one pointless "war" story in the article, but we get a gaggle of equally boring stories in the comments. Well done.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Vladimir Putin:
Wow. Not only do we get one pointless "war" story in the article, but we get a gaggle of equally boring stories in the comments. Well done.

And then we have your contribution, which doesn't even add a boring story to the mix. Well done.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Severity One:
Now I'm trying to think of something to say that isn't "frist" or something of the sort, but, um, this isn't really a WTF, is it? We've all done this sort of thing in our time, and even beyond high school or your national equivalent.

I mean, who hasn't done something like this?

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

I don't know if Remy chooses his own stuff or what, but he always seems to choose stories that are pointless and probably fiction.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Bryan the K:
TRWTF is that I just wasted a few minutes of my life reading that garbage.

And then spent a few more commenting on it ...

HellKarnassus · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
frits:
Really Bill, don't be such a wuss. I was suspended no less than 10 times, and they still let me into community college.

Frits, Have you heard of

aggrandize

To widen in scope; increase in size or intensity; enlarge; extend.

To make great or greater in power, wealth, rank, or honor.

To make (something) appear greater.

Yeah frits, you may be needing that.

[I wub Akismet] < - Not spam

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

frits:
Really Bill, don't be such a wuss. I was suspended no less than 10 times, and they still let me into community college.

I was suspended no less than 100 times, and they still let me into community service.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

This is just a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

rast:
This is just a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story

Oh, come on: if you're going to send somebody on a wiki-walk, at least use the most time-draining wiki: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShaggyDogStory

ShatteredArm · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Todd Lewis:
David Wright:
You guys had it easy. We didn't have Macs when I was at school. In fact there weren't any computers in schools in those days.

Showing my age here: What passed for pranks when I was in school was wandering through parking lots and [god help me] locking unlocked cars. Man, we were teh terrors!
I once wrapped some powdered drain-marking dye in balls of tissue and spent a lesson throwing them out the window into the pond beneath. The entire thing turned bright red which was hilarious, but the sudden death of all the fish did not go down well with the teachers.

Then there was the classic "set off the fire alarm at the end of term" prank. Only difference is that I lit smoke bombs on the fire escape, so everyone thought the school was geuinely burning and the exits were blocked. A lot of people thought they were going to die, one guy even jumped out a window and broke his ankle. It's a miracle there weren't more injuries.

I never got caught for any of this stuff. The trick is to work alone, getting friends involved is a surefire way to get ratted out.

My best high school prank was senior year AP english class, when we were doing a practice AP exam in small teams, and whichever team got the best score got out of doing an essay (which I had already done). The valedictorian candidates formed a team and turned in theirs first, because they were the "smartest," and the teacher started grading it while others were still completing theirs. I walked up to the teacher and started asking him some BS question about turning in past assignments which I didn't do (and had no intention of ever doing), and while he answered me, I memorized the answers. We of course purposely missed one so as to avoid detection, and of course, I arranged to be forgiven for all the missed assignments instead of getting out of writing an essay I had already written. And the "smart" kids were put in their place.

Wait, I guess that's not a prank; it's cheating.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Sobriquet:
Bill:
This story sucked. I always look forward to Featured Articles, but sh**, come on. This was boring and predictable.

I've got to admit, I never expected the surprise ending of "and then nothing happened."

That's what made it such an effective surprise ending: Who would have expected it?

(I'm surprised no one has replied to your post with Spanish Inquisition references, but I won't either.)

frits · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
frits:
Really Bill, don't be such a wuss. I was suspended no less than 10 times, and they still let me into community college.

Frits, Have you heard of

aggrandize

Is that the troll word of the day or something?

I'm not clear on what you mean. Should I have exaggerated more? I would take your comedy advice more seriously if you were, ya know, funny.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Bob the employed:
I did the same type of thing with many many computers in my old highschool, circa 1998. I installed custom windows startup files that were 100x better than the ones on the computers.
Got called to the office, they said I would get 2 days of in school suspension and if I didn't fix the computers they would charge my parents $1000 to have some idiot come in and reformat them all. So I changed back the startup files and went on with my education.

Still got in to my college of choice, this "permanent record" stuff is a big scam the schools try to play on you.

"Well, Mr Foobar," the president said, "You were my first choice for the post of secretary of defense, but then my screening teem discovered that according to your Permanent Record from high school, you once put a tack on another student's chair. I'm afraid this totally disqualifies you. I'm sorry, but I'll have to move on to my second choice ..."

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

That cartoon is awesome. lol

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Finally, I've been waiting for a story of no significance for quite some time. Thanks.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

So, the Macintosh LC was released in 1990, and Bill Gates was already enrolled at Harvard in 1973. Somehow, I don't think he would be back at his school 17 years later acting as a student

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Jay:
Bob the employed:
I did the same type of thing with many many computers in my old highschool, circa 1998. I installed custom windows startup files that were 100x better than the ones on the computers.
Got called to the office, they said I would get 2 days of in school suspension and if I didn't fix the computers they would charge my parents $1000 to have some idiot come in and reformat them all. So I changed back the startup files and went on with my education.

Still got in to my college of choice, this "permanent record" stuff is a big scam the schools try to play on you.

"Well, Mr Foobar," the president said, "You were my first choice for the post of secretary of defense, but then my screening teem discovered that according to your Permanent Record from high school, you once put a tack on another student's chair. I'm afraid this totally disqualifies you. I'm sorry, but I'll have to move on to my second choice ..."

So THAT's why he chose Janet for homeland security ...

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

FluffyMyBallz:
That cartoon is awesome. lol

But he should have included a link to the original:

http://xkcd.com/875/

Nagesh · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Leet Hakr:
frits:
Really Bill, don't be such a wuss. I was suspended no less than 10 times, and they still let me into community college.
I was suspended no less than 100 times, and they still let me into community service.

Is your name Lindsey Lohan?

tOmcOlins · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Silverwizard:
It's a Bill Code to hate Macintosh, of course.
At the same time - it seems to me that the main problem here is that the teacher let him delete what looked like system files without noticing.

You think someone who doesn't know how to turn on a freaking computer is going to say, "Hey, you're deleting system files!" ?

Nagesh · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

frits:
Nagesh:
frits:
Really Bill, don't be such a wuss. I was suspended no less than 10 times, and they still let me into community college.

Frits, Have you heard of

aggrandize

Is that the troll word of the day or something?

I'm not clear on what you mean. Should I have exaggerated more? I would take your comedy advice more seriously if you were, ya know, funny.

Comedy? I am very serious when I make comment. Are you pulling my leg, perchance?

Akismet, Moronic hater of all colored people, stop blocking my posts.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

What is troll? In my country and language, it is title of great respect.

In deference, Boris

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

TRWTF is people who purportedly have technical backgrounds and yet don't know the difference between "constantly" and "continually".

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Vladimir Putin:
Wow. Not only do we get one pointless "war" story in the article, but we get a gaggle of equally boring stories in the comments. Well done.
And then we have your contribution, which doesn't even add a boring story to the mix. Well done.

Yea so far I am enjoying the comments more than the original story...if you are that bored move along.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Your Name:
When I was in high school, I tried to keep things subtle. The computer labs were full of Windows 95 or 98 or whatever machines that were locked down by this crappy third-party program called "Fortres". Yes, spelled with one "S".
Anyway, I was one of like three people in the school who knew how to work a damn computer, and let's just say I'm not counting the school's IT guy. Eventually one of us figured out that he left the administrator password as "admin" or something similarly retarded.

Anyway, the other guys were pulling a few joke-type pranks, but I decided, instead, to remove this "Fortres" crap so thoroughly that you couldn't tell it had ever been on there in the first place. The thing didn't exactly have an uninstaller, but eventually I figured out the combination of files, registry keys, and AUTOEXEC.BAT and WIN.INI lines (remember that shit?) that needed to be exorcised and had a few computers liberated.

The IT guy never did figure out that his "secure" password was leaked. He ended up replacing the computers. No kidding.

TRWTF is that you think this story is something to boast about rather than be ashamed of.

Nagesh · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Boris Vladamir:
What is troll? In my country and language, it is title of great respect.
In deference, Boris

frits often talk about troll. I think it is language invented by grits. Perhaps one day he might also publish a dictionary for everybody. Then all of us can hope to be funny like frits.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

In my country, this is not option. Those only who have computer access are those only which know of computers. Computer programmer, I have studied under other computer programmers who know of PC.

I know of this Apple, which makes me laugh and reminds me of America: overpriced, underproducing hardware. Like your space program sending worthless products to lunar landscape. Cancellation of your shuttle is ultimate disgrace and demonstration of futility.

Here we have switch labeled "On" and "Off" which we use to initiate boot sequence, unlike stupid white machine named after inferior coffee producer. When light is on, we know it is accepting power, and when off we know off. Furthermore, if Brian had tried this trick on my headmaster, he would have found work PC infected with viruses and homework assignment to eliminate them.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

English Man:
Your Name:
When I was in high school, I tried to keep things subtle. The computer labs were full of Windows 95 or 98 or whatever machines that were locked down by this crappy third-party program called "Fortres". Yes, spelled with one "S".
Anyway, I was one of like three people in the school who knew how to work a damn computer, and let's just say I'm not counting the school's IT guy. Eventually one of us figured out that he left the administrator password as "admin" or something similarly retarded.

Anyway, the other guys were pulling a few joke-type pranks, but I decided, instead, to remove this "Fortres" crap so thoroughly that you couldn't tell it had ever been on there in the first place. The thing didn't exactly have an uninstaller, but eventually I figured out the combination of files, registry keys, and AUTOEXEC.BAT and WIN.INI lines (remember that shit?) that needed to be exorcised and had a few computers liberated.

The IT guy never did figure out that his "secure" password was leaked. He ended up replacing the computers. No kidding.

TRWTF is that you think this story is something to boast about rather than be ashamed of.

Oh look, an ex-prefect. When I was at school we used to spit on you guys from our customary smoking spot on the roof.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

asdf:
2017 called, but I couldn't understand what they were saying over all the screams...

They were probably screaming with delight that the world didn't end in 2012 after all. Plus there will be free healthcare for everybody by then. If you starve to death, that's not good health, so free healthcare means free food. Also if you freeze to death... so free housing. Basically no reason for anyone to work. 100% party time. Screaming with joy.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Boris Vladamir:
What is troll? In my country and language, it is title of great respect.
In deference, Boris

frits often talk about troll. I think it is language invented by grits. Perhaps one day he might also publish a dictionary for everybody. Then all of us can hope to be funny like frits.

You're an embarrassment to yourself Nagesh. We know you don't have a good grasp of English but that doesn't mean the rest of us have a problem with it. And by the way, you're replying to a joke.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
English Man:
Your Name:
When I was in high school, I tried to keep things subtle. The computer labs were full of Windows 95 or 98 or whatever machines that were locked down by this crappy third-party program called "Fortres". Yes, spelled with one "S".
Anyway, I was one of like three people in the school who knew how to work a damn computer, and let's just say I'm not counting the school's IT guy. Eventually one of us figured out that he left the administrator password as "admin" or something similarly retarded.

Anyway, the other guys were pulling a few joke-type pranks, but I decided, instead, to remove this "Fortres" crap so thoroughly that you couldn't tell it had ever been on there in the first place. The thing didn't exactly have an uninstaller, but eventually I figured out the combination of files, registry keys, and AUTOEXEC.BAT and WIN.INI lines (remember that shit?) that needed to be exorcised and had a few computers liberated.

The IT guy never did figure out that his "secure" password was leaked. He ended up replacing the computers. No kidding.

TRWTF is that you think this story is something to boast about rather than be ashamed of.
Oh look, an ex-prefect. When I was at school we used to spit on you guys from our customary smoking spot on the roof.

TRWFT is that you think THAT is something to brag about rather than be ashamed of.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Speaking of people being afraid that a suspension was the end of your academic career, we were never worried about that in High School.

First day of senior year, in English class, our teach gave a little speech addressed to those of us turning 18 that year. He said that, while he didn't advocate getting arrested, if we were going to do anything dumb enough to get taken to jail, do it now when it doesn't matter as opposed to after you turn 18.

Lo and behold, a month before my 18th, I got arrested for public intoxication and underage drinking. My unfortunate friend, 3 days into his 18th year, got the same two charges plus a contributing to the delinquency of a minor charge.

He got 18 months' probation and a record. I got 6 weeks of drug and alcohol re-education.

I pee on suspensions.

captcha: sino - student wino.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Ok, I give, what is "stupid white machine named after inferior coffee producer"?

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Sobriquet:
Obviously it was running A/UX.

Obviously not!

wikipedia:
A/UX ran only on 68k Apple machines with a floating point unit (FPU) and a paged memory management unit (PMMU).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_LC

wikipedia:
It had a 16 MHz 68020 microprocessor which lacked a floating-point coprocessor (although one could be added via the PDS). ... One difference between the Mac II and the Mac LC is the latter had no socket for a 68851 MMU

boog · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
frits often talk about troll.

Actually, I don't hear him talk about you much at all. Other than today of course.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Optimus Dime:
Anonymous:
English Man:
Your Name:
When I was in high school, I tried to keep things subtle. The computer labs were full of Windows 95 or 98 or whatever machines that were locked down by this crappy third-party program called "Fortres". Yes, spelled with one "S".
Anyway, I was one of like three people in the school who knew how to work a damn computer, and let's just say I'm not counting the school's IT guy. Eventually one of us figured out that he left the administrator password as "admin" or something similarly retarded.

Anyway, the other guys were pulling a few joke-type pranks, but I decided, instead, to remove this "Fortres" crap so thoroughly that you couldn't tell it had ever been on there in the first place. The thing didn't exactly have an uninstaller, but eventually I figured out the combination of files, registry keys, and AUTOEXEC.BAT and WIN.INI lines (remember that shit?) that needed to be exorcised and had a few computers liberated.

The IT guy never did figure out that his "secure" password was leaked. He ended up replacing the computers. No kidding.

TRWTF is that you think this story is something to boast about rather than be ashamed of.
Oh look, an ex-prefect. When I was at school we used to spit on you guys from our customary smoking spot on the roof.
TRWFT is that you think THAT is something to brag about rather than be ashamed of.

I'm not bragging, I'm fondly reminiscing. Spitting on prefects, smoking weed on the school roof, these were happy days that I'll always get misty-eyed over. Don't you have any fond memories of school?

ca1977a · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
English Man:
Your Name:
When I was in high school, I tried to keep things subtle. The computer labs were full of Windows 95 or 98 or whatever machines that were locked down by this crappy third-party program called "Fortres". Yes, spelled with one "S".
Anyway, I was one of like three people in the school who knew how to work a damn computer, and let's just say I'm not counting the school's IT guy. Eventually one of us figured out that he left the administrator password as "admin" or something similarly retarded.

Anyway, the other guys were pulling a few joke-type pranks, but I decided, instead, to remove this "Fortres" crap so thoroughly that you couldn't tell it had ever been on there in the first place. The thing didn't exactly have an uninstaller, but eventually I figured out the combination of files, registry keys, and AUTOEXEC.BAT and WIN.INI lines (remember that shit?) that needed to be exorcised and had a few computers liberated.

The IT guy never did figure out that his "secure" password was leaked. He ended up replacing the computers. No kidding.

TRWTF is that you think this story is something to boast about rather than be ashamed of.
Oh look, an ex-prefect. When I was at school we used to spit on you guys from our customary smoking spot on the roof.

Loogies are cool.

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Boris Vladamir:

"In my country, this is not option...

"Furthermore, if Brian had tried this trick on my headmaster..."

Come on, man. It's funnier if you stay in character.

Nagesh · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

boog:
Nagesh:
frits often talk about troll.
Actually, I don't hear him talk about you much at all. Other than today of course.

Well booger, you're wrong. :)

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

boog:
Silverwizard:
...it seems to me that the main problem here is that the teacher let him delete what looked like system files without noticing.
You mean the teacher that didn't know how to turn the computer on? You don't say...

I'll decloak as the original author of this story to say that one of the many changes Remy made was to make it look like the substitute teacher didn't know how to find the Mac's power button. That was the first thing that occurred to me when I found out s/he was having trouble turning it on, but when I got there, I found in fact that s/he knew full well about the Mac's power button. What actually stymied him/her was the fact that I had turned off the power strip under the desk!

So having established his/her level of competence, I felt I could try my luck deleting the file, and sure enough, s/he didn't think anything of it.

Thanks for the rewrite, Remy!

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Sobriquet:
I've got to admit, I never expected the surprise ending of "and then nothing happened."

That got me to. I'll fill in with my personal "hacked school Mac" story.

Grade 11 year, my Physics teacher did double-duty as the IT administrator. During the same block an English teacher got stuck teaching Basic Computing. (Nice teacher, just completely tech-clueless). So our teacher was constantly getting paged to the computer lab to help this guy out. After a few weeks, he started sending me and another clueful student instead (we were doing well enough in class and it was less disruptive that way).

One day, a particularly panicky call comes in over the intercom, and it was my turn to go down. Get into the class, and the teacher has evacuated one side of the classroom, because "one of the computers is infected". Apparently infected computers are contagious, or can explode - didn't have the heart to tell him that it's safe to be near a Mac Classic.

Get over to the computer, and see what's up - the screen is divided into sixteen squares, and pieces of the display are sliding around.

I bump the mouse, which turns off the screen saver. Reassure the teacher that yes, this is normal, and there's no need to punish the kid at that desk. Chuckle all the way back to class.

Oh, and

Kensey:
Do not ever, ever, EVER mess with a librarian.

This is truth. Librarians are up there with receptionists and the person who processes your paycheck on the list of "people you stay on good terms with".

2011-03-29 Reply Admin

My favourite story about bad Mac design was the "pizza box" Mac Centris/Quadra 600 series computers. They had a little slot for the floppy drive, and right underneath the floppy slot, a little round button. Naturally I assumed that this was, finally, a manual eject button like every other non-Apple computer had. Nope, it was the power button... Unfortunately I made this discovery on someone else's computer. Fortunately they didn't have any unsaved work...

My favorite high school computer prank was a System extension called "Radiation" that basically allowed you to pop up a dialog box from a remote machine. You could customize the icon (bomb, warning, etc.) and the text. The extension was so named because its default prank message was something like "Warning: radiation emissions from your monitor are getting dangerously high. Step away from your computer". I don't think anyone ever fell for that one, but it was fun targeting certain people with insulting messages.

Matt Westwood · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Leet Hakr:
frits:
Really Bill, don't be such a wuss. I was suspended no less than 10 times, and they still let me into community college.
I was suspended no less than 100 times, and they still let me into community service.

Bah. When I went to school, I was responsible. The teachers told me so.

Whenever anyone played a prank of any kind, the teacher would announce "Westwood! You're responsible!"

Matt Westwood · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Boris Vladamir:
In my country, this is not option. Those only who have computer access are those only which know of computers. Computer programmer, I have studied under other computer programmers who know of PC.
I know of this Apple, which makes me laugh and reminds me of America: overpriced, underproducing hardware. Like your space program sending worthless products to lunar landscape. Cancellation of your shuttle is ultimate disgrace and demonstration of futility.

Here we have switch labeled "On" and "Off" which we use to initiate boot sequence, unlike stupid white machine named after inferior coffee producer. When light is on, we know it is accepting power, and when off we know off. Furthermore, if Brian had tried this trick on my headmaster, he would have found work PC infected with viruses and homework assignment to eliminate them.

Boris! Ya tebya lyublyu! Tui ponymayesh Nagesh?

Matt Westwood · 2011-03-29 Reply Admin

Optimus Dime:
Anonymous:
English Man:
Your Name:
When I was in high school, I tried to keep things subtle. The computer labs were full of Windows 95 or 98 or whatever machines that were locked down by this crappy third-party program called "Fortres". Yes, spelled with one "S".
Anyway, I was one of like three people in the school who knew how to work a damn computer, and let's just say I'm not counting the school's IT guy. Eventually one of us figured out that he left the administrator password as "admin" or something similarly retarded.

Anyway, the other guys were pulling a few joke-type pranks, but I decided, instead, to remove this "Fortres" crap so thoroughly that you couldn't tell it had ever been on there in the first place. The thing didn't exactly have an uninstaller, but eventually I figured out the combination of files, registry keys, and AUTOEXEC.BAT and WIN.INI lines (remember that shit?) that needed to be exorcised and had a few computers liberated.

The IT guy never did figure out that his "secure" password was leaked. He ended up replacing the computers. No kidding.

TRWTF is that you think this story is something to boast about rather than be ashamed of.
Oh look, an ex-prefect. When I was at school we used to spit on you guys from our customary smoking spot on the roof.
TRWFT is that you think THAT is something to brag about rather than be ashamed of.

Blimey, who taught Frank Burns to use a computer?

Prank'd

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