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I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

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Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#81

Post by jacquesm »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #48
chheplo wrote: post #24

He was able to tinker with a radio at age of 10, in 1940. I had my first electronic at 19, in 2003, growing up in India. Today, almost anyone in the world can have access to the latest tech easily. Great minds were there and are everywhere in the world, they just didn't have access to resources. Think how fast the research monopoly of US is going to shrink.

Growing up in a Third-World country, I was tinkering with electronics at age 10 and built my first crystal radio at age 11 from junk parts. Dumpster-diving isn't hard as long as you don't mind the occasional dead dog.

Apart from the dead dogs my experience in a first world country was quite similar. But for some reason I'm more impressed with you, probably because here in NL electronics were relatively easy to come by because people were throwing away older generating electronics with great regularity to buy something newer.

Whereas I would expect that in the 3rd world by the time you got your fingers on it it must have been technically beyond salvage.

Crystal radios are neat!

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#82

Post by unethical_ban »

ajross wrote: post #10

So... the headline invokes an inappropriate image. The author attracted the attention of the FBI in 1942, when "cryptography" meant wartime codebreaking, and his amateur cypher got lost and then found and turned in by a genuinely concerned citizen . I mean, OK. Sure, it's bad that kids interested in math get caught up in this. But come on, it was the middle of the biggest war in history and real spies were indeed doi…

As it relates to the man's story, the most offensive part about it is the demeanor of the agents angry at the kid and being abrupt with the mother. The FBI rightfully investigated at the time what seemed to be a coded key, which is very uncommon. The boy did nothing wrong, and he wasn't punished.

But if the FBI wants to be pissy for hitting a false positive, do it at the water cooler, not toward innocent people. They should have offered the kid a job.

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#83

Post by loup-vaillant »

torpid wrote: post #27

My FBI file was for hacking into my school district's AS/400 that handled my school's attendance and grading system. Somehow using a public IP address with no access restrictions allowed a clear telnet path in from home. Compounding username and passwords that were all the same for every employee. I didn't change a thing, just LOLed and told someone. Bad mistake. This was the late 90s. Oh well, 2 week suspension and…

Seriously, they would have deserved that the school mysteriously becomes littered with printed (or typed) sheets of paper explaining how to access the system and change everyone’s grade.

If it were me, for the second time I would have considered adding a file to everyone’s FTP account (including the admins & professors themselves) explaining how they too can escalate to root.

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#84

Post by rPlayer6554 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #26
Bootvis wrote: post #2

Fun story but the fact that he totally lost touch with his childhood friend over something so silly makes me sad.

It makes me even more sad that we haven't remedied that sort of thing everywhere by giving children rights, including free association with others. In other words, parents cannot govern friends and romantic partners.

So would you be alright with your son/daughter choosing their romantic partner as a 50 yr old pedophile, drug dealer, and/or avid supporter of whichever religion or cause you find the most perverse and destructive to humanity?

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#85

Post by jacquesm »

kragen wrote: post #73
dekhn wrote: post #59

in case you're not aware, the author of this is a known (but not well-known) AI researchers from way, way back. He invented the "finger" protocol. I chose the university I went to based on the qualitty of the plan files so in some sense, he's the reason I ended up at UCSC.

Finger protocol, port 79: >dekhn[CRLF] HTTP/0.9 protocol, port 80: >GET /~dekhn/[CRLF] HTTP was a slightly enhanced finger, so in some sense he's the reason for the web.

I never made that connection before, thank you!

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#86

Post by HelloFellowDevs »

Tr3nton wrote: post #78
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like how you shared how you learned lesson to not share mischievous activities with people in the same post you then go and share more things you haven't been caught for American public schools are quite adept at teaching distrust in authority, particularly in bureaucrats. That doesn't mean distrust in everybody.

Quoted post unavailable.

I think the example is in the great grand parent comment

> Oh well, 2 week suspension and kicked off the computers for less than a year. A nice conference with FBI, police, my parents, IT and school administration. Fun times.

Something that most would believe as non-malicious and just for the lolz received a (what I personally think is) heavy punishment. So as a kid you learn to just keep that to yourself because you don't know if you'll get a "oh thanks for telling us" or a "you're expelled". Its not explicitly said to distrust but you learn from experience.

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#87

Post by twox2 »

torpid wrote: post #27

My FBI file was for hacking into my school district's AS/400 that handled my school's attendance and grading system. Somehow using a public IP address with no access restrictions allowed a clear telnet path in from home. Compounding username and passwords that were all the same for every employee. I didn't change a thing, just LOLed and told someone. Bad mistake. This was the late 90s. Oh well, 2 week suspension and…

Good times indeed. I got into similar mischief, but my school didn't really mind. I got a slap on the wrist, because they were to prestigious to court negative attention. Then I got into similar shit in college. I reported it and got lucky again. The guy in charge of their cybersecurity program invited me to take his class which was all master's students and phd candidates as a freshman. I would have bombed as it was all over my head cryptography/math, but at the time I did some extracurricular research that got me a passing grade.

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#88

Post by goodpoint »

gs17 wrote: post #21
oliv__ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree you should be able to do that without consequences but there's nothing brave about pulling down an American flag and stepping on it.

Assuming the flag wasn't your property (and that you weren't a four year old like in the story), you probably shouldn't be allowed to do it, but it should be at most a minor vandalism case for local police, not the FBI.

> you probably shouldn't be allowed to do it

Why, assuming it belongs to you?

Re: I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)

#89

Post by belval »

SamBam wrote: post #42
belval wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may know him but I did not, so I erred on the safe side and added the "if there is any truth to it" as it's a much safer default to assume that everything I read on the Internet is possibly made up.

I'd say it still sounds a bit hostile. I'd suggest "assuming it's true" as a nicer way of saying it.

Seeing the reply I'm getting, I think this is just the "English is my second language" showing on my side. I always assumed both expression were somewhat equivalent but clearly they aren't.
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