High-Tech High Jinks at High School

[Kadie]

High-tech high jinks at high school
Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, May 30, 2009


A senior class prank at Menlo-Atherton High School delayed school for two hours Friday after students arranged to auto-dial 1,700 families at 6:40 a.m. to tell them not to come in until 9:50 a.m. because of a power failure.

One of the prank organizers, who didn't want to be named for obvious reasons, called it the perfect prank: It didn't hurt anyone or anything and it was funny.

School officials weren't laughing.

The initial concern apparently was that students had hacked into the computer system to use the school's auto-dial system - a serious behavior code offense if not an illegal one.

But it was much easier than that. In short, the students typed "auto dialer" into Google.
Voila. There are companies, they learned, that did that kind of thing.

The students spent some time keying in the phone numbers off the school directory - made available to all students - into an electronic file, gave it to the company, collected $150 from classmates to pay for it and waited.


more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/30/BAA617TLAO.DTL&tsp=1

[The Straight Story]

1. Your title made me high

:evilgrin:

[MADem]

2. WTF is up with the PARENTS of those kids?

The 45 or so students who participated in the planning and execution did, to be fair, run it by a couple of parents who gave them the green light, according to the graduating senior.



And who else noticed the little logo right next to the article toolbar?

[zbdent]

6. must be related to the father of the Eagle Scout in the Akron Ohio area

the Eagle Scout, whose motto included the words "On my honor", stole over a hundred Obama signs during the election cycle in 2008 ...

Father said of his "trustworthy" son, "Gee, I hope that he is not branded for this one minor prank ..." ... the son was 18 years of age ... an adult ...

I thought that scouts were supposed to be pillars of society ... maybe in a dictatorship, this one would qualify ...

[Buzz Clik]

7. What's wrong with the kids? Why pass it by their parents?

It's funny as hell. It hurt no one. The school clearly needs to update their computer security before someone does some real damage.

[Fumesucker]

8. The computer at the school had nothing at all to do with this..

The numbers were taken from the published phone directory and dialed by an independent company.

[Buzz Clik]

Whoops. You're correct.

So, the school has no complaint.

I give these kids an unconditional thumbs up.

[tammywammy]

3. Smart prank

:thumbsup:

[cloudbase]

4. A good start.

Next, they should go to Caltech and really refine their pranking abilities.

[The Straight Story]

5. gives me an idea for work next week

:)

[lonestarnot]

9. Tee Hee snort

:evilgrin:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. I was asked by my daughter's high school to help locate a website that was very critical

of the school and some of its staff. They believed it was student run and wanted to punish them. Little did they know I was hosting in on one of my servers. By the time someone at the district figured that out the principal and his contingent of arrogant idiot teachers had moved on.