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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)

#211

Post by kingcharles »

lokimedes wrote: post #46
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…

I had sysadmin rights on my school’s Windows servers after some very simple social engineering (for a 10 year old). The real irony was that I was called to the principal’s office on multiple occasions because I seemed to be able to fix things on the network that the local “admin” (e.g. music teacher) couldn’t. Fun times indeed. It completely ruined my respect for authority figures. Which in retrospect has been the mo…

When I was 11 I social engineered the son of the computing teacher to get all the admin passwords. Then I fucked around with a whole bunch of stuff and showed a friend. When they figured out it'd been hacked they weren't sure who did it, but my buddy broke down very quickly and let them know lol.

I was banned from the computer lab for the whole of my secondary school years. It didn't matter though, because when I was 12 (~1989) the headmaster dropped computing from the school curriculum as "computers are a passing fad". They just used the computers for typing up essays after that.

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

#212

Post by thefingerer »

So, Les wrote UNIX finger?!? I clearly remember writing 'kiddie scripts' with lists of every computer in the entire school:

finger @w20-575-1

finger @w20-575-2

etc.

just to see who was logged on everywhere. Even though there was nothing to do with that information.

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

#213

Post by [deleted] »

giantg2 wrote: post #151
windexh8er wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costco still has issues of resolving discounts on a return. I won't state the bug explicitly but I had a conversation with them about how they refunded me a significant amount I never paid on a large purchase and showed them the delta via receipts. Local management was appreciative but didn't seem to have an idea of how to proceed to make things right. Ultimately they said my account would be flagged as owing the dif…

"I tried to do the right thing but ultimately it ends up being their responsibility to handle it when the customer is standing right in front of them showing their loss of revenue." I bought some lions mane mushrooms from a grocery store, which cost $10-12 per lbs. The cashier rang them up as "regular" (button) mushrooms at $2 per lbs. I pointed out the mistake and she tried to correct it but chose the button mushroo…

[deleted]

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

#214

Post by pvg »

angst_ridden wrote: post #155
pvg wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but has never been able to get a copy of her FBI file This can be confusing because there are various bewildering options, some of which are slower (or outright ineffective for personal records) than others but getting FBI records is comparatively straightforward once you've navigated the maze. I did it a few years ago and they sent me a CD's worth of stuff, plus a note of things they had not sent me or had redacted…

I'm not positive, but I seem to recall she said that she requested files, but just got back a folder of redacted sheets only showing a few dates and her name scattered throughout.

Most people don't have 'FBI files' or they are essentially trivial stuff. A bunch of mine was immigration stuff.

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

#215

Post by hutzlibu »

angst_ridden wrote: post #163
angst_ridden wrote: post #115

A person I know studied in East Germany in the early 80s via a very limited exchange program. After the wall came down, she requested her Stasi file. It was fascinating what was in the file - lots of misunderstandings and misinterpretations. For example, she was upset when the Challenger exploded, and this mystified the Stasi informers who had previously identified her as a pacifist (in their minds, the Shuttle was 1…

One other funny detail is that most of the Stasi file was handwritten notes in pencil. The vast majority of it was crap. It seems that a lot of her associates were obligated to report on her to the Stasi, but either couldn't or didn't want to give any details that would be harmful to anyone. Much of it was along the lines of "[fellow student] says [subject] was disinclined to denounce rent-control as a counter-revolu…

The Stasi was, especially in the end, exponentional invasive. Meaning they approached allmost anyone in any slightly important position and put pressure on them, to work with them to report on their collegues. (In the end, there were 90 000 of them, with a population of only 16 million).

"you help us (and socialism) and we help your career - or you decline and good luck with your career, or the carrer of your partner. Your children ..."

The results were mainly those worthless reports. But if you were on the hook once - they could pressure you into more, if they really were interested in your peers and not just routine surveillance of everyone.

But could you live with knowing you send one to prison for telling a bad joke about the government?

So many still declined, to work with them and suffered the consequences.

In either case, the massive surveillance was well known, it was assumed that everything you say loudly - got recorded.

Deep chilling effect.

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

#216

Post by dekhn »

drfuchs wrote: post #183
belval wrote: post #3

This story (assuming it's true) should serve as an excellent example of why you need privacy even if you think that you don't. In peace time the NSA is only looking for "terrorist" and leaves everyone alone, but in case of war they would start creating lists for any and everything. All it takes is one "tough" agent trusting their gut feeling/algorithm based on your browsing history and shopping habits to put a target…

Yeah, he's for real, and I heard him tell this story (and a number of others) about 40 years ago, for what that's worth. In addition to his other info on the web mentioned elsewhere here, there are also quite a selection of his files from the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) system, that have been pulled off of old backup tapes, and with permission appear at https://www.saildart.org/LES (note the 3-letter account name, and 3-l…

Cool. I mean, wow, that's a great old resource. I like https://www.saildart.org/[OLD,LES]/ (always interested in what academic researchers at stanford and berkeley were doing around the time I was born, especially machine learning)

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

#217

Post by tomschlick »

seabreezy wrote: post #210
mleonhard wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met someone many years ago who bragged that they did this with sales tax. They purchased expensive items at Costco in Oregon, paying 0% sales tax, and then returned those items in Washington and received a full refund plus 10% sales tax. This was the first time I met a person who appeared normal but lacked social mores against fraud.

In grade school a class mate told me how to mail letters for free: print where the letter _should be sent_ in the return address, print anything for the apparent delivery address, apply no stamp, and drop in a public mail bin. The letter will be sent "back" to the return address because postage was not paid. When I got home later that day I excitedly shared with my parents the new hack I had learned and they told me…

I would expect that postage scam to only work in the same geographic area. If you put a return as California but dropped it in the box in NY I dont know if they would return it, would they? If so I would imagine they have anti-fraud measures against doing this in mass.

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

#218

Post by idiotsecant »

giantg2 wrote: post #151
windexh8er wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costco still has issues of resolving discounts on a return. I won't state the bug explicitly but I had a conversation with them about how they refunded me a significant amount I never paid on a large purchase and showed them the delta via receipts. Local management was appreciative but didn't seem to have an idea of how to proceed to make things right. Ultimately they said my account would be flagged as owing the dif…

"I tried to do the right thing but ultimately it ends up being their responsibility to handle it when the customer is standing right in front of them showing their loss of revenue." I bought some lions mane mushrooms from a grocery store, which cost $10-12 per lbs. The cashier rang them up as "regular" (button) mushrooms at $2 per lbs. I pointed out the mistake and she tried to correct it but chose the button mushroo…

Where in the world can you buy lions mane mushrooms in a grocery store? I have been seriously debating growing my own because i cant find them.

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

#219

Post by thefingerer »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #167

Can you imagine what will happen when measuring pupil dilation goes mainstream? Any authoritarian govt will be able to measure your true intentions. There is no way to hide your pupil dilation. For example, if you are browsing twitter and see a post of your country "liberating" its enemies. If your pupils and pulse indicate that you don't approve of your country's actions, suddenly you will lose some rights as a citi…

Yes: avoid OCULUS headsets and Facebook accounts, for precisely this reason. Trust me: HALF LIFE ALYX ain't worth Zuckerberg getting his fingernails on the inside of your scalp.

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

#220

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

belval wrote: post #3

This story (assuming it's true) should serve as an excellent example of why you need privacy even if you think that you don't. In peace time the NSA is only looking for "terrorist" and leaves everyone alone, but in case of war they would start creating lists for any and everything. All it takes is one "tough" agent trusting their gut feeling/algorithm based on your browsing history and shopping habits to put a target…

NSA is for foreign surveillance.
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