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And this is how I got expelled from high school for "hacking"

by 0x0nyandesu 5y ago

burnte 5y ago
Should have worked harder at not getting caught. ;)
- 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
  Was naive and told them everything at the first sign of trouble thinking they'd let it go cause I was only 16.... Boy was that a great life lesson.
  - handrous 5y ago
    That being honest, forthright, and taking responsibility for mistakes, is usually a terrible idea that will just get you fucked over, when you're not dealing with someone you consider a very close friend, was a truth I took a really long time to accept. I still don't like it. But there you go. I was taught, and internalized, something entirely wrong, turns out.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
3gg 5y ago
Two of us at school kind of earned the "hacker" badge. Far from being expelled, the teachers expressed admiration for our work and ability to dig into a completely unrelated area to schoolwork. We never did anything stupid or caused damage. I think the relationship was somewhat based on an implicit statement of mutual trust.
- shakna 5y ago
  When I got caught at school for this one, the approach was really split. On the one hand, the administration punished me and one of my friends with something like six months of detentions. On the other hand, the IT admin asked us to do it again, but write him up a proper report. Basically gave us the authority to do whatever we wanted, and encouraged us that it could be a career, if we did things the right way. I think that trust and encouragement went a long way to influencing my career path.
  - seanp2k2 5y ago
    Funny, I had a similar experience -- school suspended me for a week while the IT admin and my father (who also worked in tech) just laughed it off and encouraged me to do more, but in an environment that I owned to experiment on consequence-free. It's sad that so many schools in the US seem to have this attitude of "YOU DID SOMETHING WRONG AND MUST BE PUNISHED!!!" instead of actually using it as a teachable moment and encouraging someone who has demonstrated competency with tech to pursue that, given the chances of it leading to a lucrative career. Imagine if a kid broke the technical rules of the gym and made a dozen 3-point basketball shots in a row -- I'd bet the gym teacher would tell the basketball coach about it instead of writing the kid up. Why can't we do the same for tech?
cheschire 5y ago
Expulsion seems incredibly harsh for how “new” a lot of the concepts were, and no real parental ability to teach kids any form of discipline with the technology. I received in school suspension for hacking, and I feel like that taught me just the right amount of discipline. I had basically written a boot disk that created c:\autoexec.bat that executed coldboot.com, which was a dos program that immediately rebooted the computer. I then booted all the computer lab machines off that disk. Three days stuck in a boring quiet room with students I had never been around before. Very enlightening. This was back when we used to see who carried the coolest looking floppies around. Mine was unlabeled black with a black plastic dust cover. My buddy was a rebel and always took the dust covers off his blood red disks.

And this is how I got expelled from high school for "hacking"

burnte 5y ago

Should have worked harder at not getting caught. ;)

0x0nyandesu 5y ago
Was naive and told them everything at the first sign of trouble thinking they'd let it go cause I was only 16.... Boy was that a great life lesson.
- handrous 5y ago
  That being honest, forthright, and taking responsibility for mistakes, is usually a terrible idea that will just get you fucked over, when you're not dealing with someone you consider a very close friend, was a truth I took a really long time to accept. I still don't like it. But there you go. I was taught, and internalized, something entirely wrong, turns out.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

3gg 5y ago

Two of us at school kind of earned the "hacker" badge. Far from being expelled, the teachers expressed admiration for our work and ability to dig into a completely unrelated area to schoolwork. We never did anything stupid or caused damage. I think the relationship was somewhat based on an implicit statement of mutual trust.

shakna 5y ago
When I got caught at school for this one, the approach was really split. On the one hand, the administration punished me and one of my friends with something like six months of detentions. On the other hand, the IT admin asked us to do it again, but write him up a proper report. Basically gave us the authority to do whatever we wanted, and encouraged us that it could be a career, if we did things the right way. I think that trust and encouragement went a long way to influencing my career path.
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  Funny, I had a similar experience -- school suspended me for a week while the IT admin and my father (who also worked in tech) just laughed it off and encouraged me to do more, but in an environment that I owned to experiment on consequence-free. It's sad that so many schools in the US seem to have this attitude of "YOU DID SOMETHING WRONG AND MUST BE PUNISHED!!!" instead of actually using it as a teachable moment and encouraging someone who has demonstrated competency with tech to pursue that, given the chances of it leading to a lucrative career. Imagine if a kid broke the technical rules of the gym and made a dozen 3-point basketball shots in a row -- I'd bet the gym teacher would tell the basketball coach about it instead of writing the kid up. Why can't we do the same for tech?

cheschire 5y ago

Expulsion seems incredibly harsh for how “new” a lot of the concepts were, and no real parental ability to teach kids any form of discipline with the technology. I received in school suspension for hacking, and I feel like that taught me just the right amount of discipline. I had basically written a boot disk that created c:\autoexec.bat that executed coldboot.com, which was a dos program that immediately rebooted the computer. I then booted all the computer lab machines off that disk. Three days stuck in a boring quiet room with students I had never been around before. Very enlightening. This was back when we used to see who carried the coolest looking floppies around. Mine was unlabeled black with a black plastic dust cover. My buddy was a rebel and always took the dust covers off his blood red disks.