School Suspension for Network Trouble

Check this out...

I was in my Cisco CCNA 4 Class the other day along with 6 of my school mates...(Im in 12th grade) And we were sending messages with the NET SEND command in Windows2000 Pro. I typed: NET SEND * Windows Error

thinking that this message would reach my 6 friends in the computer lab with no trouble. Little did I know my message was sent and recieved on more than 150 computers throughout campus. Of course my computer name was on the message so the Admin rushed in and quickly busted me.

He told the dean that I caused serious network latency and made everyone not able to log on. In addition to blaming me for his poor admin skills he tried to get me thrown out of my CCNA class and my Digital Electronics class. He took away my computer logon account and my internet logon name...(Im using a borrowed account as we speak...hehe)

I argued about my classes with them untill i was blue in the face. they finally decided to suspend me for two days...so here i am.
Isnt that kind of unfair? Let me know what you think of my situation...do i deserve this or have i been wronged?

I am not the one to answer this question..

I've been fired for a simmilar joke..

But I do think the admin was out of line by lying ( --caused serious network latency and made everyone not able to log on-- ) about what realy happened..

Well, I'll tell you this:

1. It is a common understanding that the administrators of high schools tend to become rather afraid whenever something involves a command line. Thus, it is to be avoided.

2. He is incorrect in claiming latency drops to Net Send, and the inability for others to login.

3. Windows 2kpro can be setup so that all Net send commands are broadcasted on the entire workgroup. This is what happened.


All in all. I have learned that the best thing to do in computer classes, is to simply not do. If you even possibly think it could get you into trouble, then don't do it. So, do I think you deserve it? No, not at all. But I say that only because I understand net send and it's capabilities, and am thus not afraid of it. Do I hope you learned your lesson regardless, in concern about typical school admins, and their ph33r of cmd.exe? Yes.

best bet is to learn on your own PC at home. Set one up, get some buddies to bring theirs over, hack the hell out of each other. but dont do it with the school property. Those who dont understand a harmless prank WILL tweak you. Now, thats what Ill say on YOUR side. On THIER side, you didnt cause latency, you didnt disrupt logins. you DID make about 150 uneducated computer users yell for help...

Just curious where you go to school? When I was in High School (Grade 12) we had no such advanced computing classes, but I would have to say at that age you should have known better.

Also, if they took away your logon and internet account and someone else is stupid enough to allow you to use it after what just happened. I think both of you deserve to be kicked out of the classes.

Dude, that's crap. Using NET SEND to * just broadcasts it on the xxx.xxx.xxx.255 broadcast address (depending on the class of network you're on). It doesn't have anything to do with disallowing anyone a logon, it doesn't cause latency (it uses UDP for God's sake!!).

Tell that to the admin, then ask him if he knows what UDP stands for..

But, what have we learned? Stop chatting during class.

l00p

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3. Windows 2kpro can be setup so that all Net send commands are broadcasted on the entire workgroup. This is what happened.

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No it happened because he used * meaning all.

If the admin was so worried about it, why didnt he just disable the command line? I dont side with you because you were chatting in class and didnt bother to look at the help for net send, but if he was so worried, then he can easily disable the command prompt in Group Policy on a W2k domain controller.

Ahhh I did not catch the *. Ouch....

Not only is this admin dumb, but he's got his hole network 150 hosts in a single subnet...

Eh, what do you want, I can't admin all the schools out there ;)


Ammo

Hi Sephir0th,

Welcome to AO, although the circumstances may not be described as "auspicious" :)

Pooh has given you some sound advice......don't mess around, it is like playing with fire?

I once came across this when a guy in Admin (I was head of Development) was doing an operators command language programming course.......as part of the course he had to send a "shutdown in 15 minutes" message to all the branches (in this fictitious environment), the problem was that we actually had branches...........................oops!

We had the sales Director storming round......"what the £$%%^&* is going on"?

My boss was an OK guy but a bit weak, so I stepped in and said:

"How many branches reported to you, and when...I have Bristol because they rang me directly, your line was engaged (that bit was true).........by the way, what good is a fire drill if you have a warning?"

That sent him off with his tail between his legs :D

The only other time was when it was fairly late in the evening, and I was quietly winding the Group Financial Accountant up by sending him horrific system error messages...........then the EVP Finance, who was sitting next to me, burst out laughing and blew it all....and I am sure that I could have played Ian for another 10 minutes or so :(

My message is that back in the early 1980's you could do those sorts of thing, and get away with it..............now there are so many bad guys around you have to be very careful, even though you guys today have the same sense of humour that we had then?

It isn't right, but it is reality?

Stay safe

The admin may not have disabled the command line because the CCNA students may be using it for telneting into the routers.

I know that they can use other programs like Hyperterminal and ProComm+ and so on, but it dosent seem like the admin is smart enough to pick that up :-) Maybye the admin was leaving it open because he thought they needed it for the CCNA class?

Or maybe he dosent know how to disable it :-) Or another real world senario, maybe he is understaffed and overworked and dosent have time to do it...lol

Or how about he wanted to make the kids look bad and make himself look better for a raise....hehe a Social Engineering attack on his bosses :-)

The possibilities and endless!!!

CXGJarrod wouldn't be much of a ccna class without access to telnet.

and it wouldn't be much of a school either if everyone thought they could mass net send anything to everyone and you did send it to everyone

Ammo,

Why not have them all on a single subnet ? I think around 250 is fine on switched 100mbps network for this sort of thing.

Second I have a 138.1-255 and 136.1-255 subnets and it does cross the boundaries through the router.

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Originally posted here by Tedob1
CXGJarrod wouldn't be much of a ccna class without access to telnet.

and it wouldn't be much of a school either if everyone thought they could mass net send anything to everyone and you did send it to everyone

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I only mentioned it because you can assign group policy to groups of people. So you could create a CCNA class and allow them access to the command line, but deny it for everyone else. (Or only allow the command line for certain parts of the day - ie during class) He probably is not the only one who has sent a net send to everyone.

My school is under construction so they moved the CCNA class to the internet lab. (a place where people can just go and sit down and use a computer.) They should have been less priveleged machines b/c the CCNA people use HyperTerm for all COM port stuff. I think its a pretty sketchy topology/ security policy if a simple command that should have been disabled went to over 150 comps and made them temp. "useless".
"I should have known better" is right... i just gave the silly admin the doubt and figured it would stay pretty local. I learned my lesson im not gonna be doing anything that could get me into trouble with comps. At least getting caught doing anything.
Red Bank New Jersey REPRESENT!!
-Sephir0th

bottom line - the computer wasn't yours...the network didn't belong to you either...you did something you kow you shouldn't have because it is disallowed by those who own (or have as in this case have been put in charge of the network by the owner) so whatever punishment they wish to give out is up to them

You want to mess around do it at home on your own PC that way you ahve nothing to worry about.

v_Ln

Hah!

Now I see.......they "cut corners" and put you in a "senior/unrestricted" lab whilst the mods to the school go on?

That would explain why it happened..............It would not have done in your normal environment?

What age are you in twelfth grade?...I am in England, and do not understand your terms :)

"Red Bank New Jersey"........who/what are they?

Hey, please remember that AO is an INTERNATIONAL forum :D

Good Luck

i think that the dean was a little harsh in his first ruling. the second was better, but you should have explained to him that it was an accident.

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Originally posted here by Sephir0th
"I should have known better" is right... i just gave the silly admin the doubt and figured it would stay pretty local.

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Yeah, they got nothing better to do. 12th grade?? GROW UP!

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Red Bank New Jersey REPRESENT!!

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:withstupi
:booty:
:flip:
AGAIN: GROW UP

Please tell me you don't go to the Connecticut 2600 meetings?

for (int i=0; i < 65535; i++)
system(net send * I HATE NET SEND)

I dont know why some peple are dicks about this. I posted just to find an opinion about my punishment..it was a mistake...dont gotta take anti-points away....jerks...

And I dont goto conneticut 2600 meet ups. im trying to make one around me but no one signs up...