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Great Hacks and Pranks Of Our Time
Luther Blissett writes "There's a history of pranks and hacks in the year-end issue of the Economist, including MIT hacks, the Bonsai Kitten, and the Pentagon hack by my favorite, Abbie Hoffman." From the article: "At Harvard's neighbour, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 'hacks', as the MIT crowd calls them, are more serious. So serious, in fact, that in 2003 the institute's best hacks were assembled in a 178-page book, 'Nightwork'. The pranks at MIT tend to be feats of engineering. They are positively encouraged, because they teach students to work in teams, solve complex problems and, sometimes, get a message across. Mr Peterson's book includes an 11-point code for pranksters: leave no damage, do not steal, do not drop things off a building without a ground crew, and so on. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, at least, student pranks have become an establishment activity."
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em
I have no idea how relations are today, but at The University of Alabama in the mid 80s people who lived in greek houses and those that lived off-campus were constantly at odds over who should be elected to student council.
Usually the Greeks banded together and block voted their person into office against a normally fractured off-campus crowd.
So for this particular election season a particular popular off-campus person was running for student council president. He was likely to be elected.
The ensuing rivalry from all accounts was as bitter as had been witnessed in a long time. Spying, dirty tricks, etc. were frequently reported.
The student newspaper had withheld judgement but it decided to print a negative article about the greeks' candidate the day before the election.
All was fair about this, it had been done plenty of times before...
But, this particular issue of the paper was different.
It had something incredibly desirable in it. That will be revealed a bit later...
So the day the paper was printed came upon the campus. The paper was delivered in the night to all the free locations all around the campus.
Now that particular day two intrepid mates of mine had a very early engineering class, something insane like 6:30 am, maybe 7am at the latest.
Irregardless of the eaxct early time, my friends went off to their class. While waiting for their class, that took a look at the paper.
Low-and-behold there was a coupon in it for two whoppers and two frys for two dollars at the local BK. Now that was great in and of itself, but what made this coupon incredibly desirable was that it didn't have an expiration date.
So, in a pure stroke of pure genious, my friends skipped class and rushed from building to building around campus grabbing all of the newspapers and stuffing them into their light blue rambler.
By all accounts they managed to grab a fast majority of the newspapers which had been distributed earlier that morning. And they did it without being detected.
Personally I knew none of this, I had no idea what my two friends had done.
By midday the fury of the off-campus people was at a boil. Obviously the greeks had stolen all of the newspapers. It was a conspiracy of the grandest nature.
Of course the greeks were at a loss over the entire matter.
The news of the greeks supposed theft traveled quickly and the next day the off-campus candidate was easily elected.
The bad feelings went on until the next year when the greeks probably took back the presidency, I don't remember. I just remember it took a long time for the bad feelings to go away.
A couple months after the election I happened to be over at my friends apartment and I was offered some BK coupons. I gladly accepted and was lead into one of my friend's bedroom. Lining the walls of this bedroom was the most awesome collection of the campus newspaper I had ever seen. Every wall was lined/stacked from floor to ceiling with newspapers.
I was personally provided a five foot high stack of papers.
I ate whoppers off of that stack for easily a year.
After six, or so, months it was funny to walk into the local BK and they would look at the coupon, see the correct address, and they would ask where I got it from since they hadn't seen one. High-turnover you see. This was before the days of laser printers, etc.
As far as I know this story has never been told in a public forum, but it actually happened.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Unlikely as it seems, that happens in a 'fast majority' (sic) of /. posts.
One of the best pranks that I ever heard of was one done by a bunch of my cousins friends in high school. Now, he graduated in the late 70's and the lockers all had external combination pad locks, by the time I got there 10 years later all the locks were mounted in the doors. What they managed to do was to steal the master key for all the locks(this part of the story left out as there is too much lore into how and where he lost the janitor), hideout in the school until everyone left for the night. Then the few hiding in the school opened up the doors for the rest of the group and then proceeded to take the locks off and switch them....not just one or two down, but from one locker bank in one part of the school to a locker bank on the other side of the school. Oh yeah, all done at the start of finals week in the spring. Good prank, and they spent the summer sorting out locks as punishment.
Insert funny smart-ass comment here.
When I was at Warwick Uni I heard about this prank which supposedly happened a few years earlier, although I can't confirm it:
There were some roadworks going on near the Westwood campus, so the students phoned up the foreman and told him that some students, dressed up as policemen, were going to come and try to stop them. Then they phoned the police and told them that some students, dressed up as workmen, were digging up the road.
And as they say, hilarity ensued.
Ho hum for the life of a bear
The best one I've heard was when someone left three (harmless) snakes in a student's room. The real killer was the note left prominently on the bed: 'There are four snakes in your room.'