Best ways to attack/do a practical joke on another's computer?

[Jody Holeton]

Dear all,

I just had one of my fellow profs screw up my computer system. I lost EVERYTHING!

What is the best practical joke/way to screw up their system?

Thanks--Jo

[Tripitaka of AA]

I detest practical jokes. It upsets me to watch people getting frustrated,angry and emotional whatever the cause. Just because a clown comes along and says "gotcha" doesn't make it Okay.

But I'm also a hypocrite and there have been occasions when I've laughed at a practical joke.

Messing with a computer is about as low as you can get (as you have just discovered), it can represent a loss of many hours work... it just isn't funny.

So when I relate the following story, please bear in mind how relatively minor the potential danger is;

When I worked at BT, one of my colleagues tricked another by prising the covers off a couple of the letter keys on the keyboard, then swapping them around. As the victim was a two-finger typist who used the PC a lot, but not for typing a lot of text, he was completely oblivious to the correct position of the keys (I think it was the F and the K that got switched).

The Perpetrator got called away. The victim panicked (he'd been surfing the net in work hours and feared he had picked up a virus), he started deleting files. He reformatted the disk. He basically destroyed everything useful that he'd done for the last two months (it was a fairly new PC). It could have been worse if he'd been on the LAN,

The only laughter was from people who worked elsewhere. That office was like a morgue for weeks afterwards.

[PwarYuex]

The best way is to "make their joke backfire"
- "I lost my thesis"
- "My memoirs all gone"
- "The last picture of my family who died all together in some terrible incident"

You get the idea.

Just get them back by copying everything on their PCs onto disks, and delete the lot- totally dangerous, but considering what they did to you...

[Ewok]

2 things i can think of that are fairly harmless. First like David said, changing keys on the keyboard. At work the head techie changed the n and m key over on the machines in the workshop. We all touch type except for the boss, so it was very very funny watching him try to workout what was going on :D

The other thing I used to have was a program that would make the cursor 'twitch'. You would put it in the startup folder and set it to start hidden and it would do nothing more than make your cursor constantly and randomly wobble about :D I forget what it is, i'll have a look about.

[william northcote]

Do what I would do...

Open up MS Dos and in c: type del*.* then press return or Y key

Then walk off. ;)

[BrianC]

Out where I work, Im a part of the crew that goes around site and fixes the end users computers at NASA. We're a team of about 20 or so, all stationed in various buildings on site to be closer to our user base. But every once in a while, we take a ticket and someone elses building, so we like to stop by and pull little gotcha's. Bearing in mind that we are all techs and wont instantly start wiping the hard drive, we've done some pretty nasty ones.


Case 1: Tape under the mouse ball, or inside the mouse traction area. Very simple, non destructive and can usually get someone for a few seconds to possibly hours. This is the one we do when we're short on time.

Case 2: Rearranging keys. We're all touch typists, so its not much good to switch one or two letters around. So what we usually do is spell something out, using the keys from a spare keyboard. I think the last one someone got me with is "briansadork" across the home keys. Usually good for a laugh and is not destructive, just annoying.
Variation: If you really wanna get someone, edit their key configuration, set it up to be a kwerty instead of a qwerty. Or set it up for someother countries set up. This requires a bit more doing and can definately confuse someone.

Case 3: I did this one to the guy who pulled case 2 on me. Put a disk in his cd rom, I opened up his case, pulled his cdrom out and flipped it upside down. No damage, just requires some basic h/w knowledge. The look on the face is priceless.

I know several others. If he's not to computer savvy, you put a text file in his start up folder and have a nice little pop up text message. A bit easy to get rid of tho. Reset home page, disconnect the hard drive from the power supply. I got a million. These should give you an idea.

[TimothyScott]

Here's a couple I consider to be Mostly Harmless. Assumption here is that the person is running a version of Windows:

1) Get access to the person's normal desktop. Take a screenshot. Make that their background. Remove all of their icons. They won't understand why nothing runs when it is double-clicked.

2) If they have a photo for a background, load it into a graphic editor and flip it on its vertical axis. One guy at work had a shot of his softball team with a distinct landmark to one side in the background. He said that when he sat down (after I had made the change) his eyes kept crossing. I think his brain was trying to arrange the image to the way it remembered it or something. Pretty funny anyway.

[william northcote]

Or... (we seem to be likeing this thread for the devils inside usa are happy), get womeone to write a small program to send pings over the network.

So first off, find the IP addie then place it into a loop of pings over the network. This should, in theory, slow down the computer. It may work, and maybe Brian could say more on this.

[joe yang]

Before I retired, I worked nights, at the booking desk. I got stuck doing a lot of data entry for everyone, secretaries, officers, like I was a personal slave.

I would go into paint and make simple flyers, just the first name of who ever, all kinds of color, type, etc. Then I'd name and save them at random. They are still popping up a year latter.

But my favorite gag was on a day shift guy, a real pain. I made his nickname into a big watermark, in his personal settings. Everything he ran off said "Wilbur", in the background. You had to hold it up to the light to see it.

[BrianC]

Originally posted by Will Northcote
Or... (we seem to be likeing this thread for the devils inside usa are happy), get womeone to write a small program to send pings over the network.

So first off, find the IP addie then place it into a loop of pings over the network. This should, in theory, slow down the computer. It may work, and maybe Brian could say more on this.

LOL.. but then I'd have to be in cohoots with the dreaded network group.

Not to change the subject, but NASA's network is slow enough already, I'm afraid of what would happen if we bogged it down even more. :p

I like the one about the screenshot of the desktop. I did something similar once by creating a website that showed the persons desktop and would send the link to some of my non computer smart friends and told them I was spying on them. It was just a very simple html. Lemme see if i can find it.

[william northcote]

Originally posted by BrianC

Not to change the subject, but NASA's network is slow enough already, I'm afraid of what would happen if we bogged it down even more. :p


Yes why not. Lets smash the system and bring about anarchy. But let us do it on the quiet as the neighbors kids are in bed.

[dirtyvicar]

Funny thread.

We have a guy in the office who likes to prank people. The low tech ones seem to have the best impact - unplug the mouse or the keyboard or monitor. Take the ball out of the mouse, though a lot of the new ones are optical, so no ball... :mad: Turn up the speakers to the max. Tape the switch hook down on the phone, so when they lift the receiver it keeps ringing.

If they don't lock the machine when they walk away from it, send an e-mail from their account to the boss saying something disturbing...

I like the desktop snapshot idea - simple yet fiendish!

[Soulend]

I've done the desktop screenshot one before. Also, going into the display settings and making all of them(text, background, etc.) the same color. Of course, there's a lot of things you can do..just depends on how mean you want to get. I used to like changing the 'normal' mouse pointer to the 'busy' one in 'Settings'..they sit there staring at their pointer waiting for it to get done..which of course never happens.

Download Superfast Shutdown (http://www.nonags.com/nonags/shutd.html) and install it on their PC. Then go to an icon they use a lot and change it to point to the Shutdown program.

Another is to change their keyboard settings ("Input Locales") from English to Swahili, or traditional Chinese.

One of my favorites works with Word or Excel's 'Autocorrect' function. Go into it and specify words and what they should be corrected to..you can get really creative, given enough time.

Or, of course, you could simply delete random registry keys or pour iron filings into his HD. :)

[Cameron Wheeler]

one of the best ones I have seen is an e-mail that had a script in it that would turn the computers volume to max and than play a wav file saying "STOP LOOKING AT PORN" as soon as you looked at the e-mail

It works best in a crowded office.

[P.A.L]

I just can’t believe you people, is this a practical joke?!, how could you even think like this, is this all MA about , can’t you just ignore a practical joke, shame on you all.
Here is my suggestions :
1- back of the computer change the Voltage selector to opposite of where it is now
110/220 just change it.
2- back of the computer chew a gum then fill half of the female pins in printer cable with gum and put it back.
3- Active their bios password and change it.
4- Control panel>users>Active their windows user password and change it.
5- In their printer set up change the print to LPT or USB to Print to File.
6- control panel >keyboard setting> put repeat delay on longest and put repeat rate on it’s slowest.
7- In c:\Windows\fonts delete all the fonts.
Do all of these together.
Shame on us.

Ali

[Jody Holeton]

Soulend...

And I thought you were just good with swords and rifles!

Dear PAL,

This guy wiped out my RESEARCH paper I was going to have published, my SYLLABI, my resume and a ton of other IMPORTANT FILES...

He also bad mouths me, sabotages our workplace, and is a belligerent A$$HOLE.

--Jody

[william northcote]

One to do is to write a great looking virus that does nothing and in places fill it with words like Smash Microsoft, I am gud, Mazza the master programmer ETC. Place a few text smilies in and then save it as a .txt file with a name that will make people think it is a virus.

Then place it into the boot up sector and let it come up as a virus warning with a secondary program saying you have a virus.

That will keep them on their toes for a few hours.

[Ewok]

Jody, if he did that go stick fridge magnets all around his HDD. Slow and painful death ensures.

[william northcote]

Originally posted by Ewok
Jody, if he did that go stick fridge magnets all around his HDD. Slow and painful death ensures.

Ooooh yeah... do that :D

[Jody Holeton]

ordinary magnets?

just put them on their computer?

NS?

[cguzik]

One guy I work with took a bootable Linux CD and put it in this other guy's CD ROM drive. He then made sure the BIOS was configured to attempt to boot of the CD drive first.

The next time he rebooted, the machine came up in a different OS! He had never seen Linux, so he thought he had some kind of a virus.

Years ago, when I was in high school, I got into my computer programming teacher's machine (which was an IBM XT running DOS) and created a batch file that printed the same text on the screen as you would see when running "format C:", including the are you sure prompt, and made it loop with a blinking cursor so that the hard drive light would blink. Then I went home.

[Kaoru]

Originally posted by Jody Holeton
Soulend...

And I thought you were just good with swords and rifles!

Dear PAL,

This guy wiped out my RESEARCH paper I was going to have published, my SYLLABI, my resume and a ton of other IMPORTANT FILES...

He also bad mouths me, sabotages our workplace, and is a belligerent A$$HOLE.
--Jody

Hi Jody,

I know you're terribly angry with him, but being mean back isn't the answer. He should not be touching your work area. So, I think you should talk to your supervisor about this. That is the best way to solve it. Or, take him aside if possible and talk to him about it. Since it happened already, anything you do back, will only make it worse. Let him look like the bad one, and you be the kind one. I think to stoop low and mess with his computer in return is not a nice thing do, regardless of what he did. You can't change what happened. Two wrongs don't make a right, unfortunately.

Sorry I am so serious...I just don't believe in being unkind in return just because someone was unkind first. I'm really sorry though, that all your hard work and etc, is gone. :( Just quietly report what happened to you to the proper people. And, tell them of anything else he does, if it is something you can't fix, like him not being polite and keeps messing with your and other's work areas.
Start keeping a log of what he does. Really, this is the best way to solve this so it never happens again.

Again, I'm sorry he did that to you.

[Shitoryu Dude]

You could sue him. Seriously, he has COST you through his own negligance and he owes you big time.

:beer:

[Soulend]

Surely finding an assassin in Korea would not be too difficult. Ask around among the Russian prostitutes :D

[william northcote]

Send me your email addie and I will send you some applications.

these move around on your desktop and are harmless but fun to watch. I have the sheep that just walks around the desktop, has a pee, eats a flower, gets abducted by an alien. Others are a walking orange, a cat, a skater and a few others.

You can place them on the desktop and set it up if you write a small program for it to appear at a certian time. Let them see if the PC has a virus thing to get rid of a sheep on fire falling into a shower/bath. :D

[Tripitaka of AA]

Jody, you mentioned the kind of damage he's caused. It sounds a bit extreme (catastrohic even). Are you sure he'sm not the one being a prankster? He hasn't put it somewhere else on the drive, etc.has he?