Heads Of IT - The grey versions
At my old college, the head of IT was a blustering old fool who'd seemingly shown some semblance of computer knowledge - by the looks of him, he probably worked on the Engima machine with Turing, but done very little else since - and somehow, despite clearly being a bit thick, got the job.

Now, as computing students, we had a predilection to try and see what we could get away with on the network - we'd already figured out internet access (yep, computer students weren't allow to use the internet, how progressive), and via newsgroups we were downloading music long before anyone had ever heard of iPods.

So, when my lecturer tells me, in the middle of a tutorial session, that's she's just had a phone call, saying that myself and 3 others had been trafficking hardcore pornography through the college network, and that we were up infront of the head of the college on Monday, we were a little scared, after all, we'd not done anything THAT bad, even though we had obviously broken college rules with the newsgroups thing.

Letters went home to the 'rents, and a few days and some severe bollockings later, we were pleading our case.

In the meeting, the head Of IT pops up:

Him: "I've got a list of times when the accounts were accessed, along with file names, and as you can see, they're clear evidence of what's gone on".

Us: "Hang on, at that time, we'd have been in a modular exam in Physics".

Him: "Well how else do you explain it then?"

Us: "Hackers?"

Him: "What?"

Us: "Hackers, you know, people who break into computer systems illegally?"

Him: "Never heard of that term before."

Yes, the Head of IT at one of the biggest tertiary colleges in the UK had never heard of hacking. He had very little network knowledge (which we, as first year A Level computing students had to explain to him), and apparently delegated all the work to his lackies whilst looking good in front of the boss.

It turns out that a lad who'd been kicked off our course (for hacking, funnily enough) had managed to break into the accounts setup, set up accounts in my and my friends names - just slightly different from our actual ones - and used the college's high-speed connection to download his favourite 'specialist' entertainment.

The Head Of College formally apologised to our parents (one lad's dad considered legal action) and the Head Of IT was never seen since.

What did we do after that? Well, carried on breaking the rules. What else do computer geeks in academic establishments do, after all?

Length? You betcha.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Tue 26 Sep 2006, 9:27, Reply)