IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district • Hacker News Board

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#371

Post by Scoundreller » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 5:45 AM UTC

specialist wrote: post #305

acidburnNSA wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 'worked' for my own high school's IT dept, a few hours a week, as a student. It was an amazing experience working with those guys. I learned so many things, from how to punch, terminate, and run cables to how to set up a Ghost image and deploy it en masse across the district. One day one of the old macs was showing the frowny face in a in-session classroom. Boss sent me down there with specific instructions: "pull…

> ...pull out the HD. I beat it with the handle, like a good 10 times... Heh. Nice. A coworker's Mac wouldn't boot. I couldn't hear the hard drive. It was a model with the tip of the spindle exposed. I found a pencil with a gummy eraser. Gave the spindle a twist as I turned the power on. Told the amazed user, "Do not turn off your computer until after you have backed up your data. That probably won't work twice." Goo…

It probably would. Static friction is a lot harder to overcome than dynamic friction in terms of torque.

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#372

Post by Scoundreller » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 5:47 AM UTC

niccl wrote: post #365

shwoopdiwoop wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the term for this is ‘percussive maintenance’

A few years ago a friend ran a camera shop. From time to time someone would come in with an SLR that wouldn't behave (long exposure, no exposure, nothing in viewfinder). He'd take it, tell them to go away and come back in an hour, then hit it on a telephone directory. 9 times out of 10 that would free the stuck/sticking mirror and everything would be fine. He had to tell the customer to go away, though, so they didn'…

I suspect people hand their parcels to the post office with the same care, blissfully unaware of what their parcel is about to go through.

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#373

Post by rypskar » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 7:51 AM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #269

jimt1234 wrote: post #206

Working in IT/tech for school district is the worst. My experience from many years ago - around 2002, I think: 1. First day on the job, email to boss: "Hey, the computer lab at Springfield High has a ton of known security flaws that are begging to be exploited." 2. Reply, 1 week later: "Sorry, we don't have any money for that. Just keep everything up-and-running." 3. 3 weeks later the computer lab at Springfield High…

I 'worked' for my own high school's IT dept, a few hours a week, as a student. It was an amazing experience working with those guys. I learned so many things, from how to punch, terminate, and run cables to how to set up a Ghost image and deploy it en masse across the district. One day one of the old macs was showing the frowny face in a in-session classroom. Boss sent me down there with specific instructions: "pull…

The difference between a professional mechanic and an amateur is that the professional know where to hit something with the handle of a screwdriver

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#374

Post by croon » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 8:24 AM UTC

oaiey wrote: post #271

acidburnNSA wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 'worked' for my own high school's IT dept, a few hours a week, as a student. It was an amazing experience working with those guys. I learned so many things, from how to punch, terminate, and run cables to how to set up a Ghost image and deploy it en masse across the district. One day one of the old macs was showing the frowny face in a in-session classroom. Boss sent me down there with specific instructions: "pull…

And now ... a group of 30 - no-longer - students treat their IT equipment with hits by a screw driver ... because it works. Our education system is amazing ;)

Cargo culting in a nutshell.

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#375

Post by charcircuit » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

I had a teacher say that if I knew the root password to the machine students tested programs they made on that I didn't have to take the final.

Little did he know the kernel was old and had a privilege escalation vulnerability. I ended up leaving a note about it on the back of my final exam.

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#376

Post by sciprojguy » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 9:53 AM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #269

jimt1234 wrote: post #206

Working in IT/tech for school district is the worst. My experience from many years ago - around 2002, I think: 1. First day on the job, email to boss: "Hey, the computer lab at Springfield High has a ton of known security flaws that are begging to be exploited." 2. Reply, 1 week later: "Sorry, we don't have any money for that. Just keep everything up-and-running." 3. 3 weeks later the computer lab at Springfield High…

I 'worked' for my own high school's IT dept, a few hours a week, as a student. It was an amazing experience working with those guys. I learned so many things, from how to punch, terminate, and run cables to how to set up a Ghost image and deploy it en masse across the district. One day one of the old macs was showing the frowny face in a in-session classroom. Boss sent me down there with specific instructions: "pull…

Was this a Seagate drive?

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#377

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 10:38 AM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #269

jimt1234 wrote: post #206

Working in IT/tech for school district is the worst. My experience from many years ago - around 2002, I think: 1. First day on the job, email to boss: "Hey, the computer lab at Springfield High has a ton of known security flaws that are begging to be exploited." 2. Reply, 1 week later: "Sorry, we don't have any money for that. Just keep everything up-and-running." 3. 3 weeks later the computer lab at Springfield High…

I 'worked' for my own high school's IT dept, a few hours a week, as a student. It was an amazing experience working with those guys. I learned so many things, from how to punch, terminate, and run cables to how to set up a Ghost image and deploy it en masse across the district. One day one of the old macs was showing the frowny face in a in-session classroom. Boss sent me down there with specific instructions: "pull…

[deleted]

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#378

Post by unwind » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 12:52 PM UTC

Cool, I guess, but "scary" and as always a bit obnoxious to read about for me.

Anyway, it was fun to learn about the "obscure ARC architecture" used by the IoT devices in question. Unpacked to "Argonaut RISC Core", that made me curious enough to look it up since I hadn't heard of it. And sure enough, it was related to Argonaut as in "the UK game developers founded by Jez San" [1]. That's a really interesting development! :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synopsys#ARC_International

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#379

Post by noasaservice » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

brundolf wrote: post #346

ubermonkey wrote: post #170

Three things are remarkable about this, and make it a happy story. First, that the pranksters were so egregiously responsible in the way they went about it. They avoided disrupting any actual educational activities; it was meant to be harmless fun, not vandalism. No harm came to anything here. Second, that they documented their findings to the administration as part of the action, including recommendations for improv…

For contrast, I once got suspended from the school computer labs for two weeks for the heinous crime of... running an unauthorized executable from a flash drive. It was Rainmeter; I was showing it to a friend. The IT guy even was like "yeah Rainmeter's pretty cool, I read about it in a magazine". But it was auto-detected and school policy, apparently.

If they were that nazi-like with their IT policy, why wasn't AppLocker turned on?

Why report when you can simply administratively deny?

Re: IoT hacking and rickrolling my high school district

#380

Post by Calamitous » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

worldsayshi wrote: post #273

jimt1234 wrote: post #206

Working in IT/tech for school district is the worst. My experience from many years ago - around 2002, I think: 1. First day on the job, email to boss: "Hey, the computer lab at Springfield High has a ton of known security flaws that are begging to be exploited." 2. Reply, 1 week later: "Sorry, we don't have any money for that. Just keep everything up-and-running." 3. 3 weeks later the computer lab at Springfield High…

> First day on the job, email to boss That email chain could be used to prove that you did what you could before the incident. If you were so inclined.

That’s only if being right matters.