when enemies become friends
This year has been a great year for my education. Things that I never thought would happen have. And to my surprise, once enemies have become friends.
Like anyone else on this form, you place me in a room filled will computers and I will start exploring. The more successful my exploring, like any human soul, the more excited I get. The trouble comes, when you tick off the local admin by pulling stupied pranks, like messing up the bios settings so it won't detect the hard drive on boot. Funny yes. Esp the admin face after trying all afternoon to fix the problem. I finally told the man, and to my surprised he didn't believe me. I showed him, and my parents got called :(
that was freshmen year in high school. It is now my senior. Same admin, same kid who loves to explore systems. One difference. He comes to me, and ask me to explore. He also ask me to teach him about some security weaknesses, And not only that but also he surprises the hell out of me by giving me a computer that is in the server room. I was told I could do anything I wanted with that computer, as long as I informed him on what I was doing, if I did any exploring. I couldn't believe it. so to say thanks, I explore. This time deleteing the computerize gradebook program the school uses. ( Called Skyward)
Servers were easy to find. The ip was divisable by ten. and to clear security settings, you disconnected the cable from the wall right after you hit the log in button, and reconnected it after it booted. (win 2k) what this does, it tells the machine to use the temp account permissions, instead of downloading the user permissionions from the server. In my case this gave me two advantages. 1.) I now had access to the command prompt 2.)I had full file permissions
From the command prompt, I connect to the server, and to my surprise, the Skyward directory has no permissions set.
Skyward is mixed between html and php based. runs across the local network and has a lot of nice features for the admin and the teachers.
I quickly throw together a html file, backup skywards in my local folder and then replace the main file with my html file on the server and sit back and wait.
Not five minutes goes by when I hear the intercom come on.... " Mr. XXXXXX please come to room XX" then " Mr. XXXXXX please come to room XX+1" and " Mr. XXXXXX please come to room XX" and again " Mr. XXXXXX please come to room XX+2". all the way down the line. I laugh, the local admin is now running around the school, trying to come up with some answer to give the teachers why the gradebook program got replaced with a qoute from albert einstien (see my signature)
I wait until the calls stop and start walking out of the lab to show him the really simple security hole, when I here my name being called over the intercom. And not in the voice a cheerful admin would give you.
I showed him the error, He thanked me. We restored skyward, "and there was much rejoycing" ( monty python)
