In my time we would leave a batch file at the root of the hard drive with an appealing name that printed a message stating it would copy some pornographic stuff to the floppy drive, but in reality would just format the hard drive. It was a very rough job, it didn't even try to conceal the format command warnings. One computing class in the same classroom later, and all computers would be out of order. :)
We had those, with that menu system on them that Scottie mentioned. There were about 10 numbered options to start different programs.
One trick we used to pull in class was pressing the button to start 'Sounds Like Bach' at the same time, although we were always a little out of sync, so you had 7 or 8 computers grinding out a disjointed beeper version of a Bach composition on the PC's internal speaker. Drove our IT teacher mad, that did. :D
I also found a way to hack into DOS using the BBC emulator they had on there. If you ran
Chain "COMMAND.COM"
it would launch a DOS prompt and you could search through the directories and launch stuff. These were 386s with pretty limited memory though, which were already running the Nimbus OS (basically DOS) and the BBC Emulator, then DOS again on top of that, so it was pretty easy to make them fall over if you tried to run anything intensive, which happened quite a lot. Eventually the IT teacher pulled me on it, because I kept crashing the machine and rebooting to try again, and it left a bunch of orphaned processes on the server that were making it chug (all with my User ID handily attached to them). She was OK about it though, she just told me to knock it off.
We had networked BBC's and when someone had typed in the huge listings we had to copy for class. I just copied what was on his screen to mine. The joys of networked BBC's. (also, we used to play a network adventure game on the BBC, Anyone remember what it was?....)
Not at school but uni. I remember our IT dept which was distinct from the computer science department (there was always a constant struggle between them) was a delightful mix of incompetency, over zealous rules and charging the department for what ever they could get away with.
One student wrote at Windows batch script with Net Send * "F**K OFF!" in a loop. Needless to say he was caught within moments. However, apparently he had managed to send all computers on the domain, that's class rooms, academics, administrators, vice chancellors, several hundred popups containing those strong words. I was in another class then it happened and jumped back as a slew of popups appeared. I thought the work station been hacked.
What suppress me more is was that this operation has not been prevented in the first place.
Comments
/Pedro
We had those, with that menu system on them that Scottie mentioned. There were about 10 numbered options to start different programs.
One trick we used to pull in class was pressing the button to start 'Sounds Like Bach' at the same time, although we were always a little out of sync, so you had 7 or 8 computers grinding out a disjointed beeper version of a Bach composition on the PC's internal speaker. Drove our IT teacher mad, that did. :D
I also found a way to hack into DOS using the BBC emulator they had on there.
If you ran
Chain "COMMAND.COM"
it would launch a DOS prompt and you could search through the directories and launch stuff. These were 386s with pretty limited memory though, which were already running the Nimbus OS (basically DOS) and the BBC Emulator, then DOS again on top of that, so it was pretty easy to make them fall over if you tried to run anything intensive, which happened quite a lot. Eventually the IT teacher pulled me on it, because I kept crashing the machine and rebooting to try again, and it left a bunch of orphaned processes on the server that were making it chug (all with my User ID handily attached to them). She was OK about it though, she just told me to knock it off.
(also, we used to play a network adventure game on the BBC, Anyone remember what it was?....)
Not at school but uni. I remember our IT dept which was distinct from the computer science department (there was always a constant struggle between them) was a delightful mix of incompetency, over zealous rules and charging the department for what ever they could get away with.
One student wrote at Windows batch script with Net Send * "F**K OFF!" in a loop. Needless to say he was caught within moments. However, apparently he had managed to send all computers on the domain, that's class rooms, academics, administrators, vice chancellors, several hundred popups containing those strong words. I was in another class then it happened and jumped back as a slew of popups appeared. I thought the work station been hacked.
What suppress me more is was that this operation has not been prevented in the first place.