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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."
Like lemmings we click on the bonsai kitten link to find out more. The snopes bonsai kitten link is here.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
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
... 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.
Unlikely as it seems, that happens in a 'fast majority' (sic) of /. posts.
Not really.
The recent MIT administrations have a very two-faced policy toward hacks. While they pretend to extoll the virtues of such creative acts (sending out a picture of the Wright Flier hack as part of the alumni literature), they also discipline any students involved harshly (As in the aformentioned Wright Flier case). I suspect that this is one of the reasons that the hacking culture has gotten weaker lately.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
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.
My experience with colleges/universities (I went to 4- 2 undergrad, one masters, one Doc) has always been that (for non felonies) uniqueness is what gets you kicked out. For example, getting drunk and hurting someone (fistfight, whatever) won't get you kicked out... underage drinking wont get you kicked out... Common things.
But urinating off the top of a 4 story dorm will get you booted.
They have to boot some people out to set an example. But they cant boot you out for something common, because they need the tuition....
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
In this video, MIT's Samuel Jay Keyser discusses the culture and history of hacks at MIT; he's for them. You can read excerpts from the Nightwork book on the MIT alumni site.
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.
Interesting. For reference, here is the original text and links (from before the article "went live", as seen by subscribers):
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."
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Can be found here. Unfortunately it ends in 2004...
One of the favorite ones that I witnessed firsthand was the police car on top of the MIT dome.
I also get a kick out of all the hacks that MIT has pulled off at the Havard/Yale football games. One at least one of those occasions the local papers stated that MIT had won the game. (In fact I seem to recall they DID win, technically, by hacking into the scoreboard and changing the score during one game)
You kid, but yea, the University of Alabama in Huntsville (the UA he speaks of is in Tuscaloosa) is actually an excellent engineering school. Huntsville is the home of one of the 2nd largest research park in the US (fourth in the world), huge missile and space access R&D occurs here (Marshall space flight center, Army Aviation & Missile Command, Strategic Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal [where I work]) ... we're #4 on the hit list if nuclear war ever breaks out... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsville,_Alabama
-everphilski-
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
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.
Too bad your story is bullshit.
1. Laser pointers were very rare in 1991.
2. Laser pointers work in visible light, not Radar.
3. You can't produce Radar with any sort of laser.
4. Navy pilots aren't idiots, and they wouldn't freak out by being lit up over Oregon. They would just say "Hmm, something is up with my plane" or "Seems like something must be interfering with my radar detector.".
5. Friend or Foe is based on codes encoded into the radar signal itself, and has nothing to do with frequency, especially since many many radars operate on any given frequency range.
6. It is basically impossible to only hit a single plane in a formation with radar. It is simply not that directional.
7. You suck.
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.'
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