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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."
... has to be the Harvard "WE SUCK" prank. It's there for everybody to see, it's during the Yale-Harvard football game when everyone who cares about Yale-Harvard is out in force, it requires a non-trivial amount of planning and good execution, and, last but not least, it is self-inflicted. An absolute thing of beauty. I wish people would do that at a Raiders or Yankees game. Although that might end in a brawl. Which would make it even better. :D
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I think the best of them all still has to be the Caltech rose bowl prank. Nothing I've read about even comes close to the level of skill and amazingness that they pulled back in the sixties.
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
Caltech has a long tradition of pranks as well. Not sure if they still do it, and even these stories are second-hand, but senior ditch day was a tradition in which seniors would go off campus and booby-trap their rooms, while underclassmen tried to break in. Depending on the fiendishness of the defenses, the underclassmen would carry out various levels of pranks upon entering the room.
One example: Someone once poured a concrete barrier behind his door. An underclassman, catching wind of it, messed with the mix beforehand so that it wouldn't set properly and was easily removed.
My favorite, of course, is the group that disassembled a car and reassembled it inside the room, in working order.
But, I understand that a lot of pranking can easily get out of hand... still it's a shame.
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... and how to run from the authorities.
The recent Wright Flyer hack - the same one that gave the university much positive publicity - resulted in severe consequences: the students have a mark against their permanent record, and were fined $50. They were about to change the fine for being caught on the roof to a maximum of $500, but the students succesfully petitioned to change that to 10 hours of community service - because students said that if there was a possible $500 fine, hackers would be more willing to run and seriously injure themselves than risk getting caught by the police.
Of course MIT has the legal responsibility if someone falls from a roof, but there ought to be a way to cover that without punishing the same hackers that the university celebrated. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Skaggs
He's pulled some *GREAT* hoaxes on the media and general public.
Like most grad students in liberal arts, I spent an inordinate amount of time in Sterling Memorial Library. A wonderful building but at that time still fairly antiquated: the electronic book database didn't extend to pre-1975 titles, there was no air conditioning in the stacks (meaning book rot was even more accelerated) and there were two systems a book could be indexed under: Library of Congress or the "Yale system," a maddening combination of letters and numbers that was sure to send you in the wrong direction.
If I recall, and it has been a while, the library has 6 floors accessible by elevator and within those 6 more "between-floors" accessible only by twisty staircase. You would find your book's call number on the main floor (especially since the few computers within the stacks were either malfuctioning or being used) and then delve into the stacks.
To guide you on your way, there were one-page charts posted throughout the stacks and in the elevators that indicated which floor your book could be found, based on its call number. It was a common sight to see a confused student looking at the chart, then at the paper in their hand, then back at the chart, ad infinitum.The library also left a handy stack of these guide charts by the front desk for students to take.
I took a chart home and set about changing the floors for about half of the call number groups on the chart. Since this was way back when I worked off a grayscale Powerbook 520 with no Photoshop etc., I had to use exacto knife and photocopier.
I printed off a shitload of the fake call number charts and then, first thing in the morning on April 1, replaced every posted chart in public areas throughout the library, including within the two elevators. Then, for good measure, I replaced the helpful "take one" stack with my own version.
I left a few clues on the chart--for those who had looked for their books and then returned to look again, more carefully--indicating that it was a prank. By April 2 all the bogus charts had been replaced, but I had gotten a good laugh out of it, even though it was a subtle prank that didn't have a large, noticable payoff.
I had a co-worker that was at Cornell at the time, and claims to know the perpetrators. Further inquiries were met with vague comments about the statute of limitations.
Reading some of these stories makes me think than noone has ever been caught. That there are no consequences. If you don't feel like reading my post it can be summed up as: Don't do pranks on the computer. Do something physical and do it intoxicated.
I've been booted, I have to say that it's disrupted my entire life. It hasn't been a fun experience. I went to a small engineering college in Indiana. My sophomore year was the year that the Olsen twins were choosing where to go. At this time the fake CNN news generator was out.
We recieved an e-mail from admissions that the Olsen twins thing was a joke (apparently they had a huge issue with alumni believing this.) On the way home from dinner my roomates and I sketched "Welcome Olsens" into the snow on the lake in 30' letters. Then I thought it would be a funny prank if I photoshopped the Olsen twins in front of one of our buildings. It was a quick and dirty job. I never intended for anyone to believe it. Not to mention the best photo I had found had them in the wrong age frame.
Our school had a "allstudents" e-mail address, however it could only be accessed by a few people. In addition it required a *.instudent.*.edu address. I did some scanning and found some computers that were turned off at night. I spoofed my MAC address and sent out the e-mail from the person that had originally sent the "it's not true" e-mail.
Nothing. No e-mail recieved. Nothing. A week later the dean of students called me into his office. They suspected me of sending the e-mail. What happened was the attachment was too big and bounced back to the woman I spoofed. She freaked out and contacted computer services. I guess how they caught me was my computer requested an old IP address in the DHCP negotiation. The dean forwarded the case onto the "Computer Use Policy", their ruling was that I had committed a felony: identity theft
I put up a fake news story on my away message to relay what had happened to my friends. At this point I wasn't suspended, but I was on probation.
One day the DHCP servers went down, so I did what any intelligent person would do: I set everything up on manual. The way I had done it a year before when the SAME THING happened. I got a call from the dean again. I had violated my probation, I was stealing IP addresses. This has elevated my case, and I was suspended by the Dean. I appealed, but on my appeal there were a few more 'charges' than a fake e-mail and a stolen IP address. Somehow someone forwarded on the fake news story on to the dean; in addition a year before I was running BitchX on my shell account. I eventually went before all of the faculty to beg (literally) not to kick me out. Explain to a room full of very intelligent Ph D engineers that know very little about computers (other than the CS/CO teachers) how 'BitchX' is nothing more than a chat client, how manually assigning an IP address is not stealing it, etc.
However as some people have posted, anything alcohol related is overlooked. Indiana Excise Police busted a party 3 weeks before I was suspended, however nothing was ever in the papers about it. My sophomore year someone, drunk, used an entire fire exinguisher in our dorm. It set off the fire alarms and everyone was evactuated at 3 am. Nothing ever came of it than a slap on the wrist. Someone 'stole' a fork lift that had its keys left in it and rammed it into one of the monuments on campus. Again. Nothing happened. People fear computers.
It's still upsets me when I think about what I was kicked out of school for: An e-mail prank, a fake news story among friends, a stolen IP addresses, and an IRC client.
It has disrupted my entire life. My ex girlfriend and I had a hard time with the distance. I lost quite a few credits and had to repeat course