I Got a Detention for "Hacking" My School Computer

My school switched over to laptops last year, so every student has one, and they are monitored closely through several programs. When I first heard this, I instantly thought this. Within the month, I was learning to program. Just so that I could try and bypass these blocks. A couple weeks into the next month, I had finally came up with the code. It was literally 20 lines. It gets a list of all running processes, compares them against the name of the school's monitoring software, and then closes them if they are the same. Bingo, works like a charm (Well, not so much, as it was dangerously inefficient and hardly stealth).

I shared the program with a cult group of friends, and only them for a couple weeks. I made them promise not to distribute it in any way, shape, or form. It was awesome. We were the envy of our classmates as we could sit in class playing games without worrying about getting caught.

One day, though, I was giving another friend a game on my flash drive (CS:S, if you must know). While it was transferring, he decided to search through the flash drive. Aww f***. He saw the program, and called me over to tell him what it did. I couldn't lie to him, so I told him, and he wanted it. So I just gave it to him. I didn't think to tell him not to give it to anyone though. f***.

Within the month, people were coming up to me, "Did you create the *program name* hack?". "Ye... yea". "Cool". I had no idea who some of the people who came up to me were, at the time. They just saw me as that one hacker kid. Cool I guess. By this time, I didn't care about the program. I knew that it couldn't be traced back to me systematically, and I trusted everyone who I gave it to enough to know that they would not tell anybody, if they were caught.

Several months passed, and it got to be a part of my life that every couple weeks or so, somebody would come up to me saying, "Hey, did you create that hack". I just learned to accept it. I was that hacker kid. Certain kids who wanted to get into programming looked at me with awe, following me around in some cases (Of course, since I had created the program over 4 months ago, I had gotten significantly better). That was cool.

Another two months passed, and we arrive at last Monday. I had decompiled the program several weeks before, and was using this knowledge to create a new program that uses dll injection, so I could virtually take control of the monitoring software. Unblock specific programs, unblock everything, unblock websites, stop monitoring, I could even transmit my own image to the teacher. It didn't work perfectly yet, though, so I didn't risk putting it on my school laptop until it was perfect. In preparation of this, though. I removed the previous monitoring program. I don't know why I did, but I just did.

I had learned since last time, even once it was released, I wouldn't give it to everybody. I would only give it to an even closer circle of friends, and keep it off of my flash drive except for when someone specifically requests it or I know that I will be distributing it.

Wednesday came, and I was almost ready to release and distribute it, when *BAM!*, monitoring software gets updated. f***. Looks like I'll have to re-do all of that work. Just in case, though, I got the checksums of both the dlls, and sure enough, they got changed. That'll be another couple days 'till I can release it.

Other things kept on coming up, though. Since my Geometry grade was dropping (Still a B, but I've historically been an A student), I had to cram for an upcoming test, and I didn't have time to update the dll injecting program. So the weekend rolled by and the program was still not working the way I wanted it to.

The next school week started up, and I got to do some field testing. I never got blocked, monitored, or anything, however, I couldn't control it. Whenever a nosy teacher was there, she would say I wasn't "In *The Monitoring Program*", and then I wouldn't be able to get back in. Eventually, I just said my computer was broken and that I'd go down to the "Laptop Hospital" (The single most creative name ever, amirite?) later.

About the same time, I started getting reports from my friends that the original program wasn't working anymore, that they showed up "In *The Monitoring Program*". I had already moved on to the newer program, so I couldn't have cared less about it. I always just told them that "I would look into it". I never did. f***.

Two days rolled by, and then it was this last Wednesday, the 11th. I didn't put the program on my computer, because I had the class with the nosy teacher again, and I didn't want to have another problem. Thank. ****ing. God. The guy in charge of all the software on the laptops was in the class, and he was troubleshooting why the people who aren't "In *The Monitoring Program*". There were three people who got in trouble. Each because they had turned their internet off via a switch on the lower left of the computer. There were three people who had my older program in the class, thankfully, none of them got in trouble. How odd. I just assumed that they turned it off themselves, like the should've. I was proud of them for that. I later found out that they hadn't turned it off. f***.

Today was a normal day. I had planned to finish the newer program tonight, and test it on Monday, when I didn't have the nosy teacher's class. Great plan, I thought. The first block finishes, and I walk by one of the kids in my class with the nosy teacher. He tells me he just got a detention for the program. That over 20 people did. f***.

I think to myself, "Its okay, its okay, I haven't been using it in a couple weeks. They probably just now did the scans". I was right, for once. They didn't catch me. If they had caught me, they would have called me in during the first block. I was home-free, right? Nope.

My next block was religion, with the guy who followed me around from when he first got the program. He had become a lot more chill since, and we have become great friends. Like me, he had disabled the older version with news of the newer version. Lucky bastard. He kept on telling everybody whom he knew had the older program that if they get called in, don't mention my name, or I will get suspended. That jackass. I was hating him for this. As he was even telling kids that I hate and whom hate me.

Sure enough, in Religion, I got called in to see the deans. This is the conversation, to the best of my recollection.

"Hello"
"Hi" *Hands her the slip I got*
"I understand you created a script that bypasses *Monitoring Program*"
I hated that. A script that bypasses.
"Yes, I did"
"I also understand that you distributed it"
"Well, yes, but not blatantly. I never intended for it to be so wide-spread. I gave a file to my friend, and he started searching through my flash drive, and he found it."
"Well... eh... you know you have gotten over 20 students a detention"
I knew very well, that they had gotten themselves detention. I had told everyone who I had given the program that I would not be held liable if they got in trouble, and I made them swear they wouldn't rat me out. Yes, I made them swear, we're in High School, we're not going to make written contracts.
"Well you will be receiving one too. Go to room 608 on Tuesday or Thursday after school. If you create another hack, you will be suspended indefinitely, with a possibility of expulsion."
Whats racing through my mind right now is, "I really hope this doesn't go on my permanent record." Yes, I'm one of those kids. I care way too much about getting into a good college. And I'm still a ****ing freshman.
"I understand"
"Go to the laptop hospital and get your computer cleansed by Monday."
Cleansed. As if my program was a virus. To be fair, it seemed as though it spread like one.
"And shave by Monday"
"Yes Ma'am"
"Bye"

I walked back to Religion, looking at my feet. I went to tell my friend in my class (The one who used to follow me around) that I hadn't got suspended, and I was very grateful for that. My brother had gotten a detention his Junior year, and he goes to UCLA now, so it can't effect the permanent record much.

I got to thinking. They never caught me. I was ratted out. One of those "over 20" kids ratted me out. To be honest, I didn't even know who most of those people were. More than 20 people asked me if I had made the older program throughout the course of the year. I'm amazed that number wasn't higher. Anyway, I knew they ratted me out because they hadn't called me out of the first block. They had to have used the first block to interrogate one of the "over 20" kids.

At lunch, I walked down to the "Laptop Hospital" to have them "Cleanse" my laptop. I met a kid who I knew had the older program. I never really trusted him, I hated him and he hated me, he was a complete a**h*** to literally everyone. I damn near made him s*** his pants. I got up in his face, "Did you rat me out"
"N... no"
"Someone ratted me out"
"It wasn't me, I said..."
He went on to ramble about exactly what he said. I honestly didn't believe him, but I had no proof, and if I had hurt him at all. I was looking at a suspension or worse, and you know how I feel about that. So I just let it pass, and continued my walk to the "Laptop hospital"

When I got there, I greeted them. "Hello"
"How may we help you"
"I have to get my computer cleaned"
"You have a virus?"
There it is again.
"No, the dean just told me I had to go down here"
"Are you one of those monitor hack kids"
Yes. I was one of those, hacker kids.
"Yea"
"How did you get a hold of it?"
"I... I kinda made it"
Their looks changed. They were working on their computers, but now they were staring straight at me.
"I see... May I see your computer?"
I took my laptop out and booted up. I gave it to them. He looked through my laptop. Firefox? That's alright. Rainmeter? That's okay. Even Foobar 2000 was alright. They got to this program I made to screw with my friend, I called it, the BSODomizer (Can be downloaded here, if your interested. Source included), and it threw up a fake bsod. He looked at it and asked me if I had a virus. I said no. I giggled a bit, and then hit the escape sequence (Which is ctrl+s***+alt+x, if you're interested).

They continued to search for the file, this time via windows search. I had told them that I had gotten rid of it weeks ago (Which I had, might I add). Then they got to Dropbox, in which I kept all of my programs and source and stuff (Excluding anything that would seem malicious or that had anything to do with getting passed any school blocks). He ran this text editor I made that updated itself. He liked that. He ran a game I made called "Needle In The Haystack" (The board is similar to Minesweeper. Its a shitty game, to be honest. I still had it there though). He was impressed.

"How long have you been programming"
"6 or 7 months"
"What did you write all this in"
"C#"
"Why do you have to make my work so much harder? I had to re-image 20 something kids today because of you"
"Sorry"
I giggled a bit at the sorry, I'm just like that. I'm kinda awkward whenever I feel guilty.
"Why do you do this? Programming comes naturally to you, yet you do stuff like this with it"
I didn't expect that. The bell than rang, so I would have to get a slip from him to prevent myself from getting a tardy. I don't know why I said the stuff I said next, but I did. Maybe I just thought it would make me seem like a better person or something. Maybe it would make them trust me more, I don't know.
"You know, half way through the program's life span we changed the name"
"Really, right it down here"
I wrote it down.
"I can get you the source if you want"
"Sure, bring it to me on Monday"
To be honest, its shitty source. Its 20 lines of bare simplicity. A ****ing cat could write the program.

The search finished, and he gave me my computer back. I asked him if he wanted to re-image it, and he said he couldn't find any traces of it, but if there were any, that he should. I said that there was none, since I was very, very clean about the whole thing. Except, you know, giving that one kid my flash drive. He then went to get an excused tardy slip, and filled it out. I put my name on it. While I was walking through the door, he said
"You have a gift, don't waste it like this"
Or something along those lines. I remember "gift" and "don't waste" distinctly, the rest is just paraphrased. It probably wasn't this blatant, but it was clear that he was trying to steer me in the right direction.

I walked back to class, and had a good 3 hours to reflect on what had happened. I had decided to scrap the injection project. At one point I had decided to release the monitoring programs source everywhere I could. HF, 7s, literally anywhere. By the end of the day, though. I had realized that that was a stupid idea. My blind anger for whomever ratted me out has also been extinguished, although I would still like to know who ratted me out, I wouldn't stab them in the face like I would have previously.

So that's where we are now. For fear of a shitty future, I have put aside all of my projects of getting passed my school's monitoring software, getting the administrative password, and bypassing our firewall. I'm known as that hacker kid. I never considered myself to be a hacker until today. People called me a hacker, but I just ignored them since I knew that they were ignorant and knew nothing of real hackers, only what the media has drilled into their minds. Now, however, I do feel like a hacker. All it took was for me to get busted, of sorts. It wasn't even that big, I got a detention, that's nothing. I know some of you are in detention every other day, but I got busted, for hacking





I have no idea why I took the time to write all of that, or how any of you will respond to it, I just wanted to get this whole story out of my chest. I will not create a tl;dr, as I don't want half-assed responses. Either leave, or read the whole thing. All 14,372 characters, 106 lines, and 2548 words (Based on that text editor I told you about)



Yes, I wrote this, and all of this did happen. I originally wrote it for a more hacking/programming minded forum, but I thought I would share it with you guys too. No tl'drs, though. I know that it is too long.

TROLL RESPONSES INCOMING!!!!






I gotz a reputation to uphold.

I read it all. Interesting. Don't really know how to respond either though :O

I will say that school punishments are retarded though, I got suspended because some guy hit me, and I hit him back. Also, only trust your true friends, you said you have one of the things to someone you didn't really like :/

ginga-ninja wrote:I will say that school punishments are retarded though, I got suspended because some guy hit me, and I hit him back.

Its to make the loser feel better. Everyone knows self defense is no longer a human right. Why else would left wing governments try to take it away?

MegaMonkeyChunk wrote:

ginga-ninja wrote:I will say that school punishments are retarded though, I got suspended because some guy hit me, and I hit him back.

Its to make the loser feel better. Everyone knows self defense is no longer a human right. Why else would left wing governments try to take it away?

All disputes shall now be solved through mortal kombat.

Wsxdas wrote:

MegaMonkeyChunk wrote:

ginga-ninja wrote:I will say that school punishments are retarded though, I got suspended because some guy hit me, and I hit him back.

Its to make the loser feel better. Everyone knows self defense is no longer a human right. Why else would left wing governments try to take it away?

All disputes shall now be solved through mortal kombat.

This is gonna be awkward when I go buy donuts....

No it won't.

I actually read the whole thing. Pretty interesting. This reminds of a kid that goes to my school, and he did something to remove "Power School". Power School is an online way of seeing the students grades, and parents have access to it, and can see their kids grade. It ended up being back up within a day, and they found who it was, and they gave the kid who did it a suspension.

Wsxdas wrote:No it won't.

I dunno. I don't think someone would enjoy getting a spear thing thrown at them, then pulled through through a car, through the glass window of Tim Horton's and through all the people waiting in line while I scream "GET OVER HERE!!!" just to decide whether I should get the Maple covered Boston Cream or Chocolate covered Boston Cream. They might be angry if the spear through the chest hadn't killed them.

I read the whole thing because I'm not a twat. That actually was a cool story. Wheen, most people, myself included, can't do what you did. You obviously have a great deal of talent. I agree with what the guy said; don't waste it.

Well, I read it all and you seem really good at programming.


In the last few months I nearly blinded a girl with a chair leg, threw some scissors at someones mouth and cracked his tooth and a person who sits next to me in Chemistry set fire to some paper in the back of the class and I was blamed.

If only your local newspaper would have found out, you'd be making the 'next' Facebook or something.

CoDfAtHeR123 wrote:Well, I read it all and you seem really good at programming.


In the last few months I nearly blinded a girl with a chair leg, threw some scissors at someones mouth and cracked his tooth and a person who sits next to me in Chemistry set fire to some paper in the back of the class and I was blamed.

If only your local newspaper would have found out, you'd be making the 'next' Facebook or something.

My friendonce put a watermelon for a science project in the classroom microwave. It blew the door across the room.