# BUSTED



## soundop (May 3, 2008)

Ok, so our auditorium has 3 internet acess points, and me and my friends connect our computers to them all the time, well yesterday, i hooked mine up and walked away, well one of my friends opend up a torrent program, and they happend to be watching the network, well our schools network guy comes in and asks if im (my pcs name here) and i said ya, then it was about an hour of sitting and talking with the network guy, a dean, and a adminstrtor, i cant touch a computer owned by the school till next year, it was really scary, any one on here whos a computer geek should know how scary that kind of thing is


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## derekleffew (May 3, 2008)

soundop said:


> ...i can't touch a computer owned by the school till next year...


Channeling Gilbert and Sullivan's _The Mikado_--they didn't say anything about touching your own laptop? (Sorry if that sounded risqué.)


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## soundop (May 3, 2008)

they said im not alod to have this machine (typing from my laptop currently) in the building again, now if i had another laptop...


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## derekleffew (May 3, 2008)

soundop said:


> They said I'm not allowed to have _this_ machine (typing from my laptop currently) in the building again. Now if i had _another_ laptop...


Perhaps some time in an English class, without a computer, _would_ prove beneficial.


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## soundop (May 3, 2008)

Lol, im not in reugular engilsh, im in an english class for learning/behavioral diorded kids, and our teacher rarely teaches us


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## bobgaggle (May 3, 2008)

You're picking on someone's grammar in an _internet_ forum? Seems like a futile attempt.


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## avkid (May 3, 2008)

Maybe you should have a had a password on your laptop.


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## Eboy87 (May 3, 2008)

While I understand that getting in trouble for what someone else did sucks, and I have experience in that department, you shouldn't have left your computer like that. I hate to sound like a hardass, but with the way the world works now, it's pretty simple for someone to walk right up to it and do something they shouldn't, as evidenced by what happened to you. I'm paranoid about leaving my laptop places running for that very reason.


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## mnfreelancer (May 3, 2008)

I had a few run-ins with the network people in my school, but nothing too serious. The summer before my freshman year I had a job setting up computers in the brand new high school and at the same time the district was implementing a new network, moving on from the strictly appletalk/ethertalk/novell network that was in use before. The actual permanent network people had no idea what was going on, the firm contracted to set the new network up was doing all of the work. I had had Net+ and MCSE already at the time so one day just shooting the breeze with the contract guy I asked some questions because I was curious how they were structuring the district's new network. He got all pissed off and told me that he didn't have to tell me and that it was none of my business. The director of IT talked to me later and warned me that if I was caught screwing with the network there would be consequences - he retired the year after and I had legitimate run of the network because I got along really well with the actual techs doing the work (they learned quickly about the new network).

When BitTorrent first became popular toward the end of my HS career myself and some friends had a computer in the television studio dedicated to running torrents. It happened to be set up in the head-end room, connected to the core switch . One day the techs came around to try and figure out where all of the district's bandwidth was going - the protocol analyzer program they were using had the torrent computer in the center of a circle with every other node on the network surrounding it and the conclusion was immediately drawn that the torrent computer was the problem - here's the kicker, they said that we couldn't run it full bore during the day, but at night and during weekends we could use it as much as we wanted! Like I said our techs were awesome!


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## derekleffew (May 3, 2008)

bobgaggle said:


> You're picking on someone's grammar in an _internet_ forum? Seems like a futile attempt.


Futility is my strong suit! I wasn't "picking on"; I was constructively correcting. 

Once again, to quote from our illustrious leader:
Also, post using proper English spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It makes posts a lot easier to comprehend, and it represents you to the world. English shortcuts (neways, 2 instead of too, etc.) and slang in every other word may work for instant messaging, but it has no place at ControlBooth.com.


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## soundop (May 3, 2008)

ya, well when they found me, they been looking for me since feburary, i surprised the tech guy and the dean with how much i knew, part off the reason i got out easier then i think i should have was because i dumbed down the network guys terms, for the dean, and even surprised the network guy with what i knew, how ever i probably have a bad mark on my premanant record, but i still 24 hours later have the adrinline from the whole thing going threw my body, also i checked the student hand book, and there was nothing on connecting your own device to it


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## Edrick (May 4, 2008)

There's always been a battle between me and the District IT Manager for our school system, I've always won however. None of the people in the school district think she's capable of her job she's actually retiring soon anyways. I once got banned from the computers in Middle School for Installing MSN (they were running Windows 95 with FoolProof Security) and they had left it unlocked. A week or two later the assistant principle called me down to his office. Can you guess what for? He needed computer help and was trying to apply for some type of veterans benifit or something so he kept giving me his social security number, good thing my memory sucks. I wouldn't do anything anyways but some people...


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## soundop (May 4, 2008)

well heres something even scarier, we all went to bennigains last night after a show, and there had been a robbery nextdoor (no one knew about at the time) but about 10 cops come in and sorrund the place, and im already having an anxity attack, one of my friends made they joke they came for me, that scared the crap out of me


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## porkchop (May 4, 2008)

Coming from someone that spends a lot of time logged onto computers in public (I'm a CS major, lab computers are often times the best place to work, do the math) all I have to say is if your on a windows computer know and love the command [windows] + [L]. It takes all of a second to lock a computer as you walk away and all of thirty seconds to reauthenticate and unlock the computer when you come back. Is that little time worth what you just went through? I doubt it. I'm pretty sure macs have a similar command. There's whole websites dedicated to messing with peoples computer when they walk away. It's a scary world out there protect your data/computer/access/online identity/etc...

EDIT: It appears the best way to lock a mac is password protect your screen saver and use either a hot corner to activate it or put the screen saver program on you dock menu.


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## bobgaggle (May 4, 2008)

derekleffew said:


> English shortcuts (neways, 2 instead of too, etc.) and slang in every other word may work for instant messaging, but it has no place at ControlBooth.com. [/FONT][/URL]



point taken


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## bobgaggle (May 4, 2008)

soundop said:


> also i checked the student hand book, and there was nothing on connecting your own device to it



of course there wasn't...high schoolers are too stupid to know what an ethernet cable plugs into...right? I mean, if they didn't teach it to us, we must not know it.

our admins are retarded. I was running sound for some assembly or something, and no one could hear the speaker's voice out of the microphone. Our assistant principal comes up to the booth and starts spouting off stuff about how I don't know how to run sound and are our mics omnidirectional and crap like that. She finally finished and i was like, "lady, the speaker is holding the mic 2 feet away from his mouth...we have crappy mics...he needs to be closer for the mic to amplify his voice without a lovely squeal of feedback."

and she just walked away in a huff.


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## porkchop (May 5, 2008)

bobgaggle said:


> of course there wasn't...high schoolers are too stupid to know what an ethernet cable plugs into...right? I mean, if they didn't teach it to us, we must not know it.
> our admins are retarded. I was running sound for some assembly or something, and no one could hear the speaker's voice out of the microphone. Our assistant principal comes up to the booth and starts spouting off stuff about how I don't know how to run sound and are our mics omnidirectional and crap like that. She finally finished and i was like, "lady, the speaker is holding the mic 2 feet away from his mouth...we have crappy mics...he needs to be closer for the mic to amplify his voice without a lovely squeal of feedback."
> and she just walked away in a huff.



I love when self proclaimed experts tell me how to do my job.

IT admins are fun everywhere. Freshman year of HS ours only knew enough about computers to make the powers at be think they did there jobs well. In reality me and my group of friends obtained the admin password and we had an unsaid agreement that if we kept the network up and running we could install Unreal Tournament on any computer we wanted. There were always games going it was awesome, especially considering the game network was school wide so you'd be playing in the library with a bunch of friends and new players would show up that were playing from classrooms. Then sophomore year they hired real IT people that knew how to do their jobs.....balls.


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## lieperjp (May 7, 2008)

soundop said:


> i checked the student hand book, and there was nothing on connecting your own device to it



You should check to see if your school has an AUP (Acceptable Use Policy.) This would be the document that has the "rules" for computer usage. This probably wouldn't be in a handbook. (Well, it wasn't in yours anyway.) By using the school's computer services you say you agree to follow the rules. The funny thing is, they never post it anywhere. Of course, you might see it your freshman year when they're "explaining" what a network is during typing class, if they even do that.


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## soundop (May 7, 2008)

while, im not allowed to touch any computer in the school till the next school year starts, thank god our soundboard isnt digital live lol. its not that bad, i only have 4 weeks to go


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## midgetgreen11 (May 7, 2008)

Our Drama Club has a wireless router that was originally labeled as NorTHeatre, so the IT's knew it was ours and told us to trash it, and so our director, switched the name to "NetGear" back to its default, and yet she, i, and one of our other technician's access it for our computers all the time. And as far as locking computers go, i don't let it leave my sight when i have it in our auditorium. you can never be too safe with personal information


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## ruinexplorer (May 10, 2008)

Eboy87 said:


> While I understand that getting in trouble for what someone else did sucks, and I have experience in that department, you shouldn't have left your computer like that. I hate to sound like a hardass, but with the way the world works now, it's pretty simple for someone to walk right up to it and do something they shouldn't, as evidenced by what happened to you. I'm paranoid about leaving my laptop places running for that very reason.


All too well said. I had the misfortune of finding that people had been using my computer to download very questionable items. The way the IT people had set up our network, my computer was the print server, so I couldn't lock it out while I stepped away. It seems that there were technicians who found this out and took advantage of it while I was away working.

I never got to clear up that mess because I was "allowed to pursue other employment" because of a "difference of opinions". Yeah, they wouldn't fix certain safety issues, so I reported them and I was let go a couple weeks later.


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## avkid (May 10, 2008)

ruinexplorer said:


> I never got to clear up that mess because I was "allowed to pursue other employment" because of a "difference of opinions". Yeah, they wouldn't fix certain safety issues, so I reported them and I was let go a couple weeks later.


Ever heard of whistle blower protection?


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## silvrwolf (May 12, 2008)

avkid said:


> Ever heard of whistle blower protection?


Go on. . . . .


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## avkid (May 12, 2008)

This explains it better than I can:
http://jobsearchtech.about.com/cs/labor_laws/a/whistle_blower.htm


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## LightingPenguin (Jan 25, 2009)

I had a similar incident. I used my entire school bandwidth in about 5 hours, and they banned me from the network for a week. FUUUN. The tech people were cool with it, cause they also torrent at school, but they just told me to cap my D/L speed


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## dvsDave (Jan 25, 2009)

This is a great conversation. There are a couple suggestions that I presented to my IT department back at school that they helped us implement because they were happy with the security arrangements that we proposed.

*Note* You will need a competent IT department to pull this off.


We identified the best port for a wireless router (in terms of location to cover the whole theatre) and asked the IT department to put that port in a DMZ which allowed us internet access, but not access to the school's network (which was controlled through Active Directory) 

The IT department balked at that till we presented the second part of our plan. The IT department was given the password to the router's controls and we set up a rule for capping the bandwidth per user to 80 kbps for internet access during school hours and 400 kbps for after school hours. (it was a big school with a nice fat OC-1 pipe because we were located very, very close to our upstream provider)

We also had to enable the content filtering that was built into the router for basic categories like pr0n, hate, and stuff like that. One thing to note here is to check that any sites you go to for theatre help and advice like controlbooth.com or a manufacturers site isn't being blocked, and _check them while the IT guy is there setting things up._

We also had to justify this arrangement with the administration before they would sign off on it. We had performances come in and guest designers who needed to retrieve emails with design notes from the internet and couldn't, we needed access to sites that were normally blocked on the network like DIY sites that explained a project (but other content on the site could be considered hacking, we had to show examples) The other justification was to bypass the QoS (Quality of Service) settings that the school network had imposed on the computers talking to each other on the network. (to prevent some enterprising students from setting up a game like unreal tournament or Tribes and using one of the computers as the server) We claimed we needed it for media streaming, but we just wanted it for LAN parties after hours


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## LightingPenguin (Jan 25, 2009)

QoS will be the end of me, I swear it.

Those are great idea Dave, and actually something I would consider bringing up to my IT department. Thanks for those. Especially the router in the theatre. While our entire school does have wifi, its fairly week in the theatre and dies occasionally.

Thanks


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## renegadeblack (Jan 26, 2009)

porkchop said:


> command [windows] + [L]



For some stupid reason, our school disabled that for students. I have no clue why, the security policy at the middle school allowed us to, but at the high school we can't. We also can't right click. Anything. 

Me and the IT folk at the middle school had a nasty issue in middle school. I figured out how to change the local administrator password (they didn't disable net users) and I would log in as the administrator, change the screen resolution to something tolerable, and log back in as myself. Well, a friend of mine tried to send a message to the entire school using net msg and it only made it to a few of their servers, they thought it was me, and then found a couple of tools I was playing with on a computer that we had for a slide show we had on our school TV station. I tried to tell them that the only thing that I did was change the local admin password and that I didn't know the global admin password. In the logs, all they had was the user that logged in, not the domain they logged into. They didn't believe me, I told them I'd show them what I did, they just stuck with accusing me of knowing the password. 

The guy who ratted me was friends with me and he was sorry that he had to rat me out. Later he told me that he was suspended from school for sending out a message to all of the computers  We were all sitting in the lab after a show and he was sending us messages and remote controlling our computers with some similar tools as I had.

In the end, my account was suspended for the majority of the year and as punishment (the other was to prevent me from doing more spiteful damage) the booted me from the tech crew! I later learned that the head IT person at the HS wanted me to not have my account for the remainder of my school career but they told her that was unethical. When I got to high school, she always gave me an attitude but I've since heard that the reason she's been so nice to me lately was because she was given a talking to. I will never forget one time going down there because there was a problem with the route to my personal folder and the woman told the person who was helping me "Don't tell him anything, he's a hacker!). As I said she's since become much nicer, mainly because she's realized that I'm willing to help her. Might I also add that I've since been told the Administrator password officially? 

As for the router thing, we installed one in our auditorium in a long forgotten port in one of the coves for an access point that was long gone. My sound guy was talking to the IT guys and they were talking about how they were trying to find this unknown access point. It got quickly removed and it is now sitting in my room. Our TD said to go ahead and install it because they'd take forever to find it, lasted a good 3 months  I'm thinking about asking them to install one in the there again as it would be nice to have reliable wireless as opposed to the wireless that we get now which depends on the day of the week as well as the moon cycle...


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## lightman02 (Jan 26, 2009)

Well if the network guy was doing his job correctly you wouldn't even be able to get on the network with a stray computer, or at least get to the torrent sites through it. I've always told it how it is, if I was approched like that I would have said just that to the network admin. Probably might have got suspended but it would have been worth it, people love to tinker with things so if u have a network, better lock it down good, it's a big part of being a network admin. Basically the network guy is blaming you for not doing his job right in the first place.


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## len (Jan 26, 2009)

soundop said:


> Ok, i hooked mine up and walked away,



I'm surprised someone didn't steal it.


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## PeytonJr (Feb 2, 2009)

Thankfully my brother goes to college with and is friends with the IT guy at my school, and we know each other somewhat.
its nice having contacts.


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