Meme

[eye_of_a_cat]

1. Please respond, in as strong terms as you feel, to the oft-heard allegation that studying relatively obscure academic topics is totally useless and parasitic on the rest of society.

It's an immoral belief, and any resulting actions are immoral as well.

No, seriously. There's nothing immoral in dedicating your life and mind to things with a strictly practical use; improving the economy benefits society in many inarguable ways. But improving the economy isn't a benefit in itself. Anything we do in that respect, whether it's curing cancer or making cars go faster or importing exotic food or designing bicycles or working as a minion for huge corporations, is done to make our lives better in some sense, whether that's collectively or individually. We don't improve the economy to improve the economy, but because we like living in it when it's in a good state. These things are means to an end.

The consequence of getting the end and the means mixed up is devaluing things like education. If improving the economy is the end, and living a decent/safe/healthy/complete/fulfilled life is either a sideline to that or a means for achieving it, then anything which serves us as people, rather than as participants towards the end we're aiming for, becomes less important. Or, if it is important, it's only in strictly practical terms - education as job-training, a means to an end. The idea of education being valuable in itself is ignored.

By that logic, we live a safer, healthier, richer and more varied life, but that's a by-product of what we're doing and not the end we were aiming for. We don't improve our surroundings to improve ourselves, but to improve our surroundings.

It's immoral to treat people as anything less than people. We're the ends, not the means.

So, immoral.

2. What is the most beautiful single thing you have learned?

Probably that most of the elements making up our bodies were made in the hearts of stars.

3. Do you ever voluntarily write original fiction / poetry / etc? If so, what?

Um, not really. I used to write lots of poetry, and there's about 150 handwritten pages of a fantasy novel I started when I was 14 lying in a box somewhere (there was a missing king, and a quest to find him, and then by the time they managed it I'd changed my ideas about fantasy and he didn't want to go home anyway, and some kind of crown, and then I got so caught up in the worldbuilding political systems stuff I gave up on actually writing any of it). There's a sample of some of my earlier, uh, creative efforts here.

If I wrote anything now, it would be a short story called 'Missy 2000-2003'. It was written in very small letters on a corridor wall in one of the university buildings, and I always thought it'd make a great title for a story. No idea what the story would be, though.

4. Where is Lennier in your psyche these days? Is he rangering around the outskirts? Quietly attending normal thought? Completely gone on leave of absence?

Making me feel guilty for not keeping up with the piles of work I'm ignoring. Occasionally quietly reminding me that there's a recurring story idea featuring him that I really should get around to writing one day, even though it's narrated by an OFC and therefore probably a very bad idea.

5. Because you are so intelligent and, for lack of a less dorky word for me to use, refined, I'm curious - what's the most classically badass thing you've ever done?

Oh, I'm really not! It's, um, probably this.

My secondary school got new computers when I was 17, and told us all repeatedly and loudly how important it was that we changed our passwords from the default 'Password' (because Anyone Could Break Into Your Account If You Don't). We thought this was a bit of an overreaction (the computers had no internet connections, people didn't really keep anything on them), but also thought it was unlikely anyone would leave theirs as 'Password' after the third week of warnings. One of my friends bet me he could find ten people who had. Because of the way the account usernames worked, it was very easy to try the default password with random accounts, and indeed, at least ten people had left theirs unchanged.

We thought it would be, um, performing a public service to remind them to change their passwords. And that this reminder could take the form of a saved Word document titled 'READ ME NOW LITTLE PERSON' that was typed in 72-point font. And that it would be kind of boring to sign off as 'Another pupil'. So we invented a group of noncorporeal entities from another dimension that were caught up in the school's system by an evil spell cast by an intergalactic bandit masquerading as the music teacher, gave ourselves names, and left messages explaining who we were.

This was addictive.

A couple of days later, we'd found dozens of accounts with the default password, and some more with very easily-guessable ones (there was about a 1 in 5 chance of the 13/14-year-old girls picking 'Leonardo' back then). We'd set up a central messageboard on an abandoned account, and left messages on other accounts directing people there. We'd decided that we were actually noncorporeal entities in fierce competition with each other for, uh, something or other, and started trying to get people supporting us over the others. And people started noticing. After about two weeks, we had loads of messages on the abandoned account, with people forming small fan clubs and asking questions about how many of the teachers were really time-travelling noncorporeal demons in disguise (all of which were answered in detail), and people actually changing their passwords back to 'Password' so they could get messages of their own.

A few weeks into this, something went wrong with the school computers. It wasn't serious, and it wasn't anything to do with us, but somehow we got to the staff's attention. The first we knew about this was our Sith Lord of a headmaster calling the entire school together for an assembly to give us a long, blistering rant about 'the hackers', with affirmations that the people responsible would be suspended or expelled for what they'd done, because That Is How Seriously We Take Your Privacy And That Is How Seriously We View This Kind Of Malicious Activity, and a request for the guilty people to give themselves up voluntarily. Yeah, right.

After an emergency meeting to decide what to do, I wrote a long public explanation of our activities for the attention of staff and pupils, and left it on the abandoned account. It stayed in character, explained that we were benevolent noncorporeal entities that hadn't damaged anything, suggested that perhaps 'this educational establishment in which your people imprison their children' valued its pupils' privacy less than it claimed if it would really comb through their accounts to find evidence, and suggested that The True Explanation lay in supernatural forces working within the staff. I don't think we meant to, really - we got sort of carried away, and our audience were expecting certain things by then. Anyway, we changed the date/time setting (the admin password was 'admin') so it was last revised at a time when everyone had alibis, and waited.

They never found us out. I think they suspected us - we got grilled, good cop/bad cop style, by the IT teacher who was heading what he referred to as 'the investigation' (I mean, come on), and they made us look them in the eye and swear blind we hadn't done it. But they never caught us. We went away on exam leave a week or so after that, and although my younger brother told me the headmaster continued to mention 'the hackers' in assemblies, they must have decided to give up looking after a while. Although I did spend a few very long months waiting for the phone call.

eta: And I forgot the second part of the meme. If anyone wants me to ask them five questions, leave a comment below.

Comments

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

Darling, you are wonderful, and I think you should get a medal for the hacking. You might also get metaquoted.

Anyway, I'm deploying this icon with a purpose. I went to the Women's Interfaith Meeting tonight, and we need Catholics. We haven't got any. We've got heaps of Methodists (we meet in the cafe of a very pretty Methodist church), and the odd Protestant of another denomination such as Church of Scotland, and a few Muslims, and a couple of Brahma Kumaris who usually wear white, and me plus another Jew, and a Baha'i or two, and usually a Quaker, but no Catholics. I sort of volunteered your services in your absence. Well, you seem to come over to use the Nat on Wednesdays, which is when we meet, and it's only once a month, and it doesn't run that late, and I could feed you supper and we could terrify the science postgrads by talking shop?

We should sort out dracula1897, the novel starts on, what, 3 May? As well as the icons, though as long as we have Jonathan we're OK for a stretch, we need to work out which letters were written on which days. I'm actually planning a fic based on it (which I want to pick your brains about, you genuine Victorianist, you), so I've been flicking through noting dates for what I want to do, and it's pretty random, far more muddled up than, say, Clarissa or Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Do you want me to make a start on noting down the letter/journal dates? I made a plot summary and a narration chart when I was studying it the other year, which will help. I think it'll be easiest for me to flick through a paper copy. I'm using the 1993 Penguin, which I have just discovered, to my distaste, is dedicated, "To a princess, with my undying love." Don't tell me the Stoker-Irving relationship was that fucked-up? Anyway, do you have that copy, or should I be a good girl and copy down phrases from the start of each document so that you can find it in an e-text?

[brouhaha.livejournal.com]

I'm here from metaquotes, and I just wanted to say that I adore your icon and yet am slightly confused by it, ahahaha.

[arib.livejournal.com]

That Dracula idea sounds brilliant. Mind if I follow along?

(here from MQ)

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Who edits that copy? Just out of curiosity - I don't think it'll make much difference to Stoker's text.

I'd love to come to the group when I'm around (although I don't make it over more than about once a month anyway at the moment, and not even that for a while past - I'm buried under work), but I'm really not enough of a Catholic to help make up your balance (in terms of a foundation in the Church and the doctrine, really). I know people who'll know people, though, if you don't mind the central Scotland interfaith community being described in vaguely Mafia-like terms. I'll ask.

[uncertaincolumn.livejournal.com]

I'm also super intrigued by the Dracula idea. As well as entertained by the hacking story :)

[chicafrom3.livejournal.com]

I am here from metaquotes, and for that story, I would like to propose marriage to you.

Except I'm against any marriage involving me.

Would you accept eternal but nonbinding love instead?

[katarik.livejournal.com]

Icon love!

Also story love. You, eye_of_a_cat, sound like an awesome person.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

I'd settle for a firstborn child, but that'll do :)

[thesecondevil]

That is one of the best stories I've ever heard. I'd say it's the IT department's fault for being lazy with the passwords, they were just begging for something like that to happen. Though I can't think of many people who would be so creative in exploiting the system, bravo!

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it wasn't exactly high-security. The IT teacher at the time was actually a PE teacher who'd been drafted in after the original IT teacher was, um, encouraged to take early retirement. My school just didn't have good experiences with computer stuff.

[minkhollow]

Yet Another Metaquotes Person - That was one amazing story. (And seriously, announcing everyone's password was 'Password'? Then again, if the admin account was 'admin,' they prolly weren't thinking the privacy bit through very well.)
Bonus points for creative hacking.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And this is how well my school thought through the security issues:

The screensavers were all set to that basic scrolling text idea, which just said the name of the school. Most of us assumed we wouldn't be able to change it (because, really, who'd be stupid enough to give us any system priveleges at all?) and left it alone, but one kid in my brother's year had a go anyway. It turned out that you could, indeed, change the text in the screensaver.

Given a choice between:
a) Threatening the kid in question with dire consequences and hope he doesn't tell anyone else
b) Making sure the student accounts didn't have access to the control panels
c) Both of the above
or d) Altering nothing, but putting signs next to each computer saying 'Do not change the text in the screensaver!"

...which do you think they went for?

[tikvah.livejournal.com]

Also here from metaquotes.

Your story reminded me of a happy high school memory I had forgotten. Thanks for that.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I hope yours had fewer teacherly threats to ruin the fun.

[redushab.livejournal.com]

Also from metaquotes. And that? Best story ever. It sounds like something I would have done in high school. For some reason, they wouldn't let us access email on school computers, evne though we had to get our parents sign forms that said we COULD access our email. I had web space, so I would upload anything I was working on via FTP through telnet to be able to access it at home.
Until the IT people saw me and thought I was hacking. o_O They were very, very mean about it too.
The last day of school I was so tempted to go in and open up telnet and pretend to be hacking. I so should have.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Weird. Our IT teacher viewed anyone who showed any vague ability for using computers with serious suspicion. Maybe yours thought the same way? I wouldn't have blamed you if you had after that, though...

[apey1013.livejournal.com]

Here from metaquotes.

I would say something right now but I'm too busy regaining my breath after cracking up over the "investigation" debacle. Oh man, that is just all kinds of genius!

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

The IT teacher got very carried away with the investigation idea, I think. Like Andy Sipowicz with a Yorkshire accent.

[ladymetaka.livejournal.com]

That's quite possibly one of the best school computer stories I've ever heard. You're awesome.

(linked from metaquotes)

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

I was one of the punier noncorporeal entities, really. Thanks!

[photosinensis.livejournal.com]

Here via metaquotes

Ah, the IT staff at my high school knew I was hacking their systems. They just let me at it, sometimes actually standing there and watching while I did it--knowing full well what I was doing. The fact was that they knew I was only doing it to access the local network printer so that I could print out my assignments. I also promised them that I wouldn't hack other users' accounts, which I didn't care about anyway.

Heck, on a few cases, I was even poping open boxen with them there--under their orders. Yeah, they trusted me.

[azurelunatic]

Heh, sounds like you were an unofficial apprentice! Good one!

(also here via metaquotes, also vastly amused)

[johngorentz.livejournal.com]

I used to encourage the scientists I work with (basic research, not applied) to flaunt the fact that they're doing useless work. Instead of writing weasel words in their proposals about how their findings might be of some use, explain that they're doing it because it's interesting and they have no idea what use it might be. But they were scared to death of getting one of Sen. William Proxmire's Golden Fleece awards. (You'd have to look it up. It was a long time ago.) Too bad.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good tactic. Like NASA listing all the cool spin-off stuff they've produced, but reminding you loudly the whole time that this isn't the point of investigating space - seriously, how limited a worldview do you have to have in order for Teflon pans to be the only good part of putting humans on the moon?

[caeliluminar.livejournal.com]

Also from metaquotes, that story is amazing and it's so going to my memories.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks!

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Anyway, we changed the date/time setting (the admin password was 'admin')

Somehow this is just the icing on the cake... what a great story.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Excellent icon.

And yeah, we couldn't believe the admin password when we tried it - half-convinced it was actually a trap and we'd triggered some sort of 'Run down to the library NOW, THEY'RE THERE!' alarm. But, no, they'd just decided that was a good password for the admin account.

[docjeed.livejournal.com]

Tremendous. All of it.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (And ooh, Garibaldi icon!)

[hiyami.livejournal.com]

(the admin password was 'admin')

... I work in computer engineering. It happens so often. So very often.

And that's why some $#& softwares are designed to 1) not function unless you change your password each month 2) only accept pw over 8 characters with at least letters and digits 3) test that your new pw varies from x your previous ones by several characters.

Aaaaargh.

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's what they do at my office. And at school. I do the numbers/characters thing anyway, but it's good to be reminded to switch.

Also, that story wins at life. And makes me thankful I always had weird passwords for my high school account. :)

-blue

[lots42.livejournal.com]

You are the coolest people alive.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

*bows*

[puredeadthingy.livejournal.com]

*favourites* The occasional gems you find on metaquotes...
I wish my school was stupid enough to let us have privileges. The best they've done is give us games and then told us never to play games on the school computers.

[jd]

I so ♥ your #5 story.

(here via azurelunatic, who went through metaquotes)