A bunch of useless crap
Published on August 4, 2006 By MasonM In Misc
I volunteer some time at a large and well known Linux help forum to assist people with Linux related technical issues and answering questions related to Linux. They are often newbies who are just learning the OS and need a bit of help, often with some pretty basic things, as they learn the different ways of getting things done in Linux as opposed to Windows.

One thread today was a person asking about installing a new version of Firefox. His questions were extremely basic and it was obvious he was clueless. A few of us were giving him some information about how to go about it. Now, Linux being Linux, one must know the root (administrator) password on the system in order to install any software and here's where he hit a wall.

At this point it came out that this was a school owned laptop that he was trying to install this software on, which of course he never said from the beginning or the whole thread would have been far shorter. I'm sure he knows perfectly well that he shouldn't be trying to install anything on this machine, but figured the folks on a Linux forum would show him how to crack the root password to the machine. We don't do that.

Damn sneaky kids.

Comments
on Aug 04, 2006
Good thing ya don't do that! That's nice of you to do that Mason.
on Aug 05, 2006
The smarter kids would have hacked it.  OUr students did.
on Aug 05, 2006
#1 by Adventure-Dude
Fri, August 04, 2006 9:23 PM




Good thing ya don't do that! That's nice of you to do that Mason.


Thanks, it's against the site's TOS to provide any sort of cracking info. Linux is as much a hobby for me as my OS.
on Aug 05, 2006
#2 by Dr. Guy
Sat, August 05, 2006 08:39 AM



[Dr. Guy]
The smarter kids would have hacked it. OUr students did.


Yeah, there are ways to crack a Linux system. Not quite as easy as a Windows one, but it can be done if you know what you're doing. This kid was obviously not that skilled.
on Aug 05, 2006
Pretty dang cool you're mentoring or helping kids that way I can't help but wonder since that kid wasn't skilled enough to do what he wanted, maybe he didn't even realize that it was wrong??.....
on Aug 05, 2006
#5 by Trudygolightly
Sat, August 05, 2006 11:43 AM



[Trudygolightly]
Pretty dang cool you're mentoring or helping kids that way I can't help but wonder since that kid wasn't skilled enough to do what he wanted, maybe he didn't even realize that it was wrong??.....


Thanks. Nah, he had made a point of making it appear that this was his machine. It was only when he discovered that the root password was required that he finally owned up to the fact that it was actually the school's machine. He wasn't skilled, but he knew he wasn't supposed to be doing what he was trying to do.
on Aug 05, 2006
Yeah, there are ways to crack a Linux system. Not quite as easy as a Windows one, but it can be done if you know what you're doing. This kid was obviously not that skilled.


I have always said that if you have physical access to a system, you can hack it. Period.
on Aug 05, 2006
yup