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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)

#361

Post by efreak »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #290
riversflow wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar time period, I used portable Firefox and then Chrome on a thumb drive to bypass our content filter. I actually find this surprising in retrospect, but I'd guess they were using Content Advisor on Internet Explorer[1]. I carefully guarded my secret. [1] this pdf appears to lend credence to that idea(no affiliation). https://www.kvcc.edu/pdfs/MyItLab/myitlab_BestPractices_Home...

If I were smarter, I probably would have learned about proxy servers. I was tantalizingly close as is. I had set up port forwarding on our home router and a dyndns account to access my (Linux) desktop via ssh. I'm almost surprised it took me another few years to bump into SOCKS proxies. I already had 99% of the setup, just not the final step. Oh well I guess. Our school was Windows land as well. They blocked executio…

No need for Firefox/chrome to "download" software, you could get a java-based file manager; this allowed browsing the filesystem and running software on the public library computers, which were far more locked down than any school computer I've ever seen (they had software to enforce 15/60 minute session limits, session reservations, etc, and group policies that disabled external storage, explorer, and the start menu; most browser functions were disabled). If you've got a Citrix-based application available, there's usually some way to trick your way into that system; in my case it was by going to file->open in the weird processor, and right-clicking it to open it in (the remote session) explorer, which had my local media mounted (flash drive), and allowed access to the remote browser. If you can get a cmd prompt, you can also sometimes get around restrictions with that, possibly by using it to open task manager. In college, these weren't locked down so much as intended to be single-purpose (for running Photoshop, etc from home), and I used similar tricks to gain access to a command prompt so I could register fonts for my projects using FontLoader[1].

Of course, despite every PC being on a domain, there was still the local administrator account, which was easily obtained by leaving an unused computer running ophcrack overnight. Eventually I found out that the roaming network administrator account password was simply ford, as the admin left a local account on a computer that wasn't networked; this pretty much lasted me through high school. For bypassing the firewalls? That was simple; I got a free shell account, and later my own server, an early openvz vps.

Once I got my own server, I spent long amounts of time trying to increase the amount of RAM available to me (since it was fair-share CPU on a decent server, building and similar jobs ran far faster than my current digital ocean VPS). At this point, I found out about sshfs on my own computer, and spent ages trying to find a decently cheap Xen VPS so I could use kernel modules for sshfs and swap. Eventually, I gave up. One period of my last semester I was a TA, rarely with any work to do, so I spent most of my time on IRC and setting the wallpaper to be Cyanide & Happiness comics.

/me trouts Piper around a bit with a large slap

1: this used to be available at https://bitbucket.org/cryptw/fontloader but not anymore. This might be the source, not sure. https://github.com/stevenstrike/FontLoader

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

#362

Post by efreak »

worker767424 wrote: post #228
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.

I love how student government teaches you how government really works. The election is a popularity contest for a puppet regime with no real power, but you can pat yourself on the back and take price in the democratic process.

Depending on where you go to school, I think student government actually does have responsibilities with planning events and such, and this gets far more important in college than in k12.

In k12, while it's not really meaningful, It's still an extracurricular activity, and at the same time it shows that you can work with others (theoretically) and that people like you enough to put you there.

Unless you're in an anime. The student council in anime not only has power in the school, but outside political and military power besides.

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

#363

Post by waiseristy »

dang wrote: post #360
waiseristy wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a very odd reading of my comment Dang, how is criticizing the FBI's abuse of power nationalistic?

It isn't. But doing it with a snarky one-liner containing nationalistic flamebait is. It's not hard to criticize something like "the FBI's abuse of power" in thoughtful, substantive ways. Plenty of HN users do that while staying within the site guidelines. From a moderation perspective, the issue here isn't the FBI or any other divisive topic—it's simply comment quality. " Comments should get more thoughtful and subs…

I still don't see how you are parsing anything nationalistic from this (the comment being a snarky one-liner is what made it nationalistic?). But you are more than welcome to censure any snarky one-liners that you feel go against HN's posting guidelines, regardless of interpretation. Thanks Dang

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

#364

Post by dang »

waiseristy wrote: post #363
dang wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't. But doing it with a snarky one-liner containing nationalistic flamebait is. It's not hard to criticize something like "the FBI's abuse of power" in thoughtful, substantive ways. Plenty of HN users do that while staying within the site guidelines. From a moderation perspective, the issue here isn't the FBI or any other divisive topic—it's simply comment quality. " Comments should get more thoughtful and subs…

I still don't see how you are parsing anything nationalistic from this (the comment being a snarky one-liner is what made it nationalistic?). But you are more than welcome to censure any snarky one-liners that you feel go against HN's posting guidelines, regardless of interpretation. Thanks Dang

The snarky one liner was quoting a national anthem.

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

#365

Post by kortilla »

harshreality wrote: post #313
kortilla wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP knowingly walked out without being charged. At this point it’s not any different than if he/she had just pocketed it and walked out. The different between this and the contrived shit you posted is knowing you didn’t pay and walking out of the store in the first place. There isn’t really any subtly here.

It is different. In the checkout case, the cashier's intervening negligent act led to you getting the item for free. It might still be theft (or fraud or some related charge), but only if those laws create a strict liability crime out of keeping something that you know was given to you by mistake. I'm not sure but I think there might be specific laws to that effect if you knowingly take advantage of a bank's mistake.…

> In the pure theft case, there's no intervening act by a store employee. It requires criminal intent

Yes there is, they have cameras and people who can frisk at the doors. I don’t think you want to go down the path of “if there was some action an employee could have taken to stop it, it’s not theft”.

> No, they don't have access to admissions on HN years later.

“They can’t prove it” is not an argument that something isn’t theft. You can go through whatever mental gymnastics you want to go over how difficult it will be to legally prove theft for prosecution, but it doesn’t change what it morally is at all.

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

#366

Post by i67vw3 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #259
hutzlibu wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For an amazing movie (not documentary) about the Stasi, watch "The Lives of Others". It is chilling because you see this institution and how it effects people through the eyes of one of the people responsible for doing the spying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others

I watched the movie few months/years back. Pretty good and interesting film.

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

#367

Post by waiseristy »

dang wrote: post #364
waiseristy wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't see how you are parsing anything nationalistic from this (the comment being a snarky one-liner is what made it nationalistic?). But you are more than welcome to censure any snarky one-liners that you feel go against HN's posting guidelines, regardless of interpretation. Thanks Dang

The snarky one liner was quoting a national anthem.

That is the most ridiculous reason to label something as nationalistic that I think I have ever heard. Thanks Dang, I have a much better idea of what is and isn't acceptable after this conversation. I'll be sure to avoid posting snarky one liners about other nationalist topics in the future, like Apple Pie.

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

#368

Post by dang »

waiseristy wrote: post #367
dang wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The snarky one liner was quoting a national anthem.

That is the most ridiculous reason to label something as nationalistic that I think I have ever heard. Thanks Dang, I have a much better idea of what is and isn't acceptable after this conversation. I'll be sure to avoid posting snarky one liners about other nationalist topics in the future, like Apple Pie.

Sorry but I really don't think that was a borderline call!

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

#369

Post by kingcharles »

cbozeman wrote: post #329
kingcharles wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's hard not to be critical of this headmaster, but I do have to question both the intelligence and the wisdom of someone who, in 1989, could not clearly see computers had no chance of becoming a "passing fad". Picking up a copy of The Wall Street Journal at any point in the previous ten years could have clearly indicated that... and any school at which there's a "headmaster"... I would expect the WSJ is not a forei…

The fact the parents allowed it to go through, in hindsight, is absurd. The computing teacher did try to teach us outside of school hours some times, but I failed the Computing GCSE (F grade), which is hilarious as at the exact same time I was being offered a job at Argonaut Games after Jez San tried out my 3D engine.

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

#370

Post by torpid »

jll29 wrote: post #176
stank345 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they didn't shadow protect their password files Could you please explain what this means? Googling didn't reveal much.

The UNIX family of operating system (Unices) historically stored passwords in /etc/passwd, which was readable (but passwords were soon hashed, i.e. passed through a one-way function to obfuscate them). Eventually, shadow passwords were introduced to have the passwords themselves stored in another place with stricter access rights (readable only by the sysadmin or their group), so even the hashed versions were inacces…

Debian even back then did protect the passwd files appropriately out of the box, but in this server's case, they did an import from an older system where it wasn't protected, and they couldn't figure out how/bothered to convert it to shadow.
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