fandomhigh | Jack of All Trades, Wednesday, Per 1

Entry tags:

jack of all trades

Jack of All Trades, Wednesday, Per 1

Today's class wasn't in the Danger Shop, sadly enough. It was in the second best classroom in the school: the computer lab. Honestly, it might have just been easier to program the sim into the Danger Shop than set up each electronic safe manually in the classroom, but Hardison never begrudged time spent with tech. If he hadn't been worried about accidentally interfering with Kitty's class, he probably would have spent the rest of the morning making sure the computers were upgraded to a degree that bordered on ridiculous.

"Hey, y'all," he said. "Today we're learnin' how to hack. Just a little bit," he added, before anyone could get their hopes up. "An', obviously, I'm trustin' you not to use this stuff against your fellow students. Or teachers." And then, obviously as an afterthought, he added, "Or do anythin' illegal with it. While you're on the island."

He couldn't in good conscience try to tell them not to do anything illegal with it ever; that would be the purest kind of hypocrisy. But putting some limits on where and who they could use this information against was the best he could do.

"These hacks are pretty much brute force hacks: they're useful an' they're efficient, but there's no subtlety or artistry to 'em. The very best hacks have both. A good hacker can get into a system an' get out, leaving no trace that anyone was ever even there. These hacks ain't that. They'll not only leave signs of what you did, but a skilled enough hacker'll be able to follow those signs back to the computer you did the hackin' on. Dependin' how good they are an' what's around you, that could be enough to lead 'em to you, directly. Once they got your IP, they'll know where the hack issued from an' gettin' access to other electronics nearby--like CCTV cameras--is pretty much childplay. So don't be stupid is what I'm sayin'."

And Hardison hoped that would be enough of a warning for his class. They were bright enough students. "So, we're learnin' two of the most basic kinda hacks today. If you're ever in a situation where you need to hack somethin', these will most likely get you through, so long as you ain't up against nothin' incredibly sophisticated. Now, of the two hacks, the one you'd use in a situation is the one that best fits what you're tryna do. The first hack ain't really for personal computers. This is the kinda hack you'd use at a terminal when you're lookin' to gain control of outside systems: electronic locks, gun turrets, security systems, automated vendin' machines, that kinda stuff. If you're lookin' to hack into someone's personal computer an' gain access to their files, you'd use the second. Everybody follow? A'ight, let's get hackin'."

[OCD up, thanks for everyone's patience.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Like a hacker

Rey

Maria DeLuca

Cosette Fauchelevent

Raven Darkholme

Ada Miller

Edward Kenway

Hanna Heller

Jalian d'Arsennette y ken Selvren

Garik Loran

Mara Jade

Kaylin Neya

There actually is one this week! And it's oddly serious.

Because if there's one thing Hardison respects, it's hacking. (Also, he's feeling a little guilty teaching the class how to hack the same week Kitty had her kids take a computer ethics test.)

Well. Rey wasn't sure when she'd ever have to use this, but there was always the chance she might have to use this.

Hanna was pretty happy to be learning something this useful, so was paying very close attention.

The first thing Hardison did was walk the class through the process of getting to the right screen in a computer terminal where they could start the hack.

"Okay, so once you booted the system up an' got to this screen, you'll see it's askin' for a password. That ain't like the password for your email or whatever; it's a randomly-generated code created by the system for protection. You also only got a few tries to guess the correct password before it boots you out. If you input too many wrong codes, the system will shut down an' lock you out. When you only got one try left, if you ain't sure you know the right code, you should probably reboot the system again. Yeah, you'll have to start back over, but at least you'll have another chance. For most computers, once you're locked out, that's it. For class, if you lock yourself out, you'll have to wait a minute until it unlocks an' you can try again."

"To start the hack, you're gonna wanna hover your mouse over a word until it lights up, and then click on it. That's your first guess. If you're super lucky, that's all it'll take, but odds are against you pickin' the right password the first time. What it will tell you is how many correct characters the word that you've chosen has. You won't know which ones, but you'll know how many you got right--that is, which characters are in the same position in both that word an' the passcode. After that, it's just a logic puzzle to figure out which words share the same characters in common. It may take another guess or two, but you should be able to figure out which word is the correct password."

Hardison's first word was FULCRUM. That guess has zero correct characters, so he searched for the options that shared no characters in common. His next guess was GRIZZLY, which was also incorrect, but had three correct characters. But that was enough of a clue to get him to the correct password, WHIZZED.

"See? That by itself ain't too bad, but there are ways of makin' it easier," he explained. "When you're lookin' at the screen, you might seen strings of random characters inside brackets or braces." Once a new attempt was up, Hardison used the mouse to casually scroll through the jumble of characters, stopping when an entire string was highlighted, [?"_%#@++%#_]. When he clicked on it, the string disappeared and so did one of the offered passcodes. On the lower right hand side of the screen, the phrase 'Dud Removed' appeared. "They can be any length," he said, "and you'll know you found on when the whole series lights up. They can remove false options or even reset your guess allowance. I packed a lot of 'em in there, so if you find 'em all, you might only have two or three passwords to try at all. You should scroll through the entire screen carefully if you want to use those, just to make sure you don't overlook them."

Gesturing now to small safes he had placed around the room, he said, "Each of these terminals controls one of these safes. Pick the right password on three different attempts without gettin' locked out, an' it'll open an' you can get what's inside." Which would be candy, of course. Every good hacker ate candy. Just ask Hardison! The bag of candy in the safe rested on a piece of paper, but Hardison would explain the relevance of that in the next lecture.

[Link goes to a Fallout computer terminal hack sim it beeps and makes assorted keyboard clacking noises, but that's it.]

Edward had a decent enough grasp of letters now, with thanks to Rapunzel, but he was rapidly finding this beyond him. It irritated him; after ten minutes had passed, he had acquired a piece of paper and was resorting to just writing all of these letters out in an attempt to pound them into something of logical sense.

"Hey," Hardison said quietly. "You look like you're havin' some trouble. Sup? Can I help with somethin'?"

"I'm just workin' out the letters, that's all," Edward said, a hint of stubbornness to his voice.

His handwriting was the kind of chicken scratch a five-year-old might produce.

Hey, Hardison understood all about that kind of pride. He'd seen Eliot and the internet, after all.

"That's cool," Hardison said easily. "Would you mind walkin' me through what you're doin'? I might be able to show you an easier way. I am all about shortcuts, yo."

"You click one of these words and it gives you the amount of letters that work, does it not?"

Edward tapped the top word he'd written down. "And then the next does the same, and so forth. I'm just writin' them below each other so I can see if there's a common thread."

"Yup, exactly," Hardison said. "You're doin' it perfectly right. At this point, you ain't even gotta think of them as words an' letters. Just ask yourself 'does this symbol match this one?' That's exactly the way the computer looks at it."

Edward had only gotten the symbols to stop dancing in front of him a year ago, Hardison. It wasn't as easy as it seemed. "They're strange devices, these computers," he muttered.

But he was still doing it correctly! It didn't have to be easy or fast, so long as it was right.

"Maybe so, but they're damn useful." You know, for as long as you were in the 21st century and all. "Most people don't know more'n just the basics to get their computers to do what they want. You learn even just a little more an' suddenly you got a lot more to work with. I was about your age when I used my computer to make the National Bank of Iceland pay for all my Nana's medical bills."

Which was why he was wanted in Iceland, but details.

Edward shook his head. "Iceland's quite a few days' sailing from where I come from," he said, "so I suppose knowing 'the basics' alone sets me apart back home."

It would also be utterly useless, but still.

If Hardison had his way, even pirate ships from the 17th and 18th centuries would have had wifi.

"Where's home?" he asked. "When's home?"

The questions one had to ask at this school...

"Bristol, 1710, more or less," Edward said.

He didn't quite remember what year it was exactly.

Hardison blinked a few times at that. "Well, a'ight then," he said.

Look, it wasn't every day he met someone from before the time his country had become a country.

"I can see where this ain't about to be useful in your everyday back home," Hardison said with a small laugh. "Still, might do you some good while you're here. An' hopefully future classes'll have somethin' a little more...universal."

Someone whose grandson (and son, in a way) would be instrumental in ensuring your country became a country, even, Hardison. Not that Edward had any notion of this.

"It'll be something to lord over them all back home, I reckon," Edward said, but he was joking about that.

It was much appreciated anyway, Edward. Hardison liked having a country.

"You could always go home an' invent the Analytical Engine about a hundred years early," Hardison teased. "Bet everyone'd be impressed by that."

No they wouldn't. No one was impressed with computer geeks now.

"Ah, I'm not much of an inventor, mate," Edward said wryly. "But thank you for the vote of confidence."

"Well, that's the benefit of bein' in the future," Hardison pointed out. "You could look it up on the computer to see how it was done." With a soft chuckle, he gave Edward a nod. "A'ight, though, you got the basics of what you need to do. I'mma let you keep workin' at it. Don't forget to use the bits of code to get rid of as many of the bum options as you can."

He was going to do a bit of hacking himself to make sure that Edward's next two screens had fewer potential character overlaps. He wasn't going to insult Edward by suddenly making it too easy, but using five-letter words instead of seven and having more variety in the word choice would probably help.

Kaylin mostly just stared at the computer. Yes, she could sign on and look at things, but beyond that? Not so much. And her grasp on reading wasn't the best either.

"This next hack is more complex," Hardison said. "This is the kind of hack that'll get you access to a personal computer, where you can make changes to the system itself. You can read files, change the background, delete icons, install or uninstall programs, all that good stuff." He showed the class how to exit out of the terminal interface and to pull up DOS command prompt. "I included a small trainin' program to make it fun," he said, "but let's go over some of this together, too. If you wanna pull up the sim an' follow along as I explain, go ahead. Just type 'yes' an' then hit enter when the sim asks if you're ready."

"So, first off, you're gonna need the name of the security system to command. It's real easy to get; it's just the number combination of the access nodes, followed by a .0. That .0 is the computer you're trying to access. So a computer with a tiny setup like you will see in the training sim will be 1.0. A system with multiple security nodes might be somethin' like 1.2.1.1.4.2.0. It's easy to figure out, just look at the security configuration. When you're ready to start, type 'connect' followed by the security configuration, then hit enter. Once you're connected to the system, type 'get IP.' This'll get you the computer's IP address, which you'll need for the hack." He briefly went over what an IP address was, then continued to explain. "Once you have the IP address, you can send over a virus that'll dig up the list of possible passcodes the system is usin', just like with the terminals, before. Now, real hackers will code their own viruses, but I got a small one here for y'all to use. If you want to, you can save it to a USB stick after class, but, again, this is just somethin' to be used if it's important, not on the folks of this island, a'ight? Anyway, once the virus has sent back the possible passcodes, you just type 'em in an' see which one opens the system for you."

"So, again, the commands are: connect along with the numbers in the security information, get IP, then upload virus followed by the IP address. Once you've figured out the correct password type in enter, followed by the IP address again, an' you'll have access to the computer system. There's another kind of security node, but I'll let the sim explain how to hack that. Practice with the sim till you feel comfortable."

[This is a different kind hacking sim. It has noise and can take awhile to load in the beginning, don't be surprised if you see the adds flash by a few times.]

"Y'all can stay here an' practice as much as you want," Hardison said. "You can leave early, too, if you want. To leave before the bell, all you gotta do is hack my system an' change your grade for the day to an A. Once you get your personal safe open, you'll find a piece of paper in there. That's my security configuration. Once you have that, you should be able to access my system, find the file that's called 'Grades' an' change your score. Then you're free till next week."

He'd partitioned off the computer he was using for this into twelve independent sections, so each student would have a different security configuration and a different file to access and change the grade in. But every file listed all twelve students; Hardison was interested in seeing if any of them made additional changes beyond his instructions. He was curious about how his students thought.

Hey, she wanted to learn!

(Ahahaha, like Hardison was NOT going to start off by teaching his students basic hacking.)

Raven was very pleased her request was day one. Well, day two. And yeah, she wouldn't have been surprised even if she hadn't requested it.

But still! Her request!

Especially if you have any questions or concerns!

Today is a Remicaid day, so I'm going to be around sporadically.

I included the explanation of how the sim worked just so everyone could have a record of the commands somewhere that wasn't taking up half the screen if you type 'get help'. Like I had to. SEVERAL TIMES. My memory is Swiss cheese today. However, no worries if it doesn't make sense? The sim does a really good job of explaining everything. Hope everyone has fun!

Saw your tweet on that topic. *hugs*

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jack of All Trades, Wednesday, Per 1

Sign In Week 2

RE: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Re: Sign In Week 2

Listen to the Lecture

RE: Listen to the Lecture

Re: Listen to the Lecture

Hack 1

Re: Hack 1

RE: Re: Hack 1

Re: Hack 1

RE: Re: Hack 1

Re: Hack 1

RE: Re: Hack 1

Re: Hack 1

RE: Re: Hack 1

Re: Hack 1

RE: Re: Hack 1

Re: Hack 1

RE: Re: Hack 1

Re: Hack 1

RE: Re: Hack 1

Re: Hack 1

RE: Re: Hack 1

Re: Hack 1

Hack 2

Hack Practice

Talk to the TA

Re: Talk to the TA

Talk to Hardison

OOC

Re: OOC