Printers
A few years ago back in college; the network server administrator password was leaked. It took the administrator a few days to notice this, just enough time for me to take advantage of it.

I spent a lot of time back then tinkering with visual C++, and I discovered how to send documents through the network to the printers, I discovered that I could print several documents at the same time, to the many networked printers in the college; with at least one laser printer in each room, and some rooms full of dot-matrix printers for the people working with program code listings, they were not quiet! Every now and then, during our lectures, you could hear the printers starting.

I created a small software application that could send documents to multiple printers at the same time, then later added a timer to it, so that it could print documents at certain dates and times. Using my new network "privileges" I downloaded a list of all the printers on the network, and then added it to my program.

I then logged into the network server, and uploaded my program; it was set to start at 11:07am the next day.

The next day, I went to college as normal, quietly anticipating 11:07, and my master plan, which I suppose, now that I think back to it, was quite immature.

At 11:07, almost on the dot, every printer in the college burst into life, and started printing page after page of "I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a fish." Imagine the noise of so many printers starting at the same time! Luckily, they never found out who did it, but the administrator mysteriously changed his password the same day. Hmmmm.

The college was quite cheap, and had a policy of not wasting paper, and my prank had printed hundreds of pages, so the paper was put back into the printers for re-use. For weeks after that, whenever we printed something, it would have " I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a fish." written on the back!
( Squiggy Alloria makes theme parks., Thu 5 May 2005, 20:52, Reply)