HP3000-L Archives

April 2001, Week 3

HP3000-L@RAVEN.UTC.EDU

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From:
Ted Ashton <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Ted Ashton <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 16 Apr 2001 10:08:34 -0400
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The following are from the computer lore here . . .
  For a time back in the Classic days, our CS department would have a periodic
time when they would remove the production disc pack, load up the student
disc and let the students at the system with explicit permission to do all the
hacking they desired.  Initially, there would be no password on MANAGER.SYS
and the game was see if you could completely take over the system.
  Also during that time, we had a couple of students who were among our finest
hackers (and I use the term with its older meaning, not as a synonym for
"cracker").  One of these had a deal with the director of Computer Service
(or whatever name we used back then).  He was allowed to hack the system all he
wished with impunity on the condition that he would report each successful
break-in.  The director would then patch that hole.  By the time I finally came
on the scene, the system was about as secure as a 3000 could be :-).
  The other student, I am told, joined the military.  A year after his
departure, the director walked into his office one morning to find the current
system passwords displayed on his screen.

As the above is stuff of which urban legends are made, I've cc'd our previous
director and he can put the story straight . . . :-).

Ted
--
Ted Ashton ([log in to unmask]), Info Sys, Southern Adventist University
          ==========================================================
Mathematics is a logical method ... Mathematical propositions express no
thoughts. In life it is never a mathematical proposition which we need, but
we use mathematical propositions only in order to infer from propositions
which do not belong to mathematics to others which equally do not belong to
mathematics.
                         -- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889-1951)
          ==========================================================
         Deep thoughts to be found at http://www.southern.edu/~ashted

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