Tenth Grade Social Engineering Project
Long before I knew anything about social engineering or hacking, I was a tenth grader with a problem. It was a minor problem - nay, a luxury problem - but in my mind, it certainly was an issue.
I was a rather competitive kid, and I wanted to be in the top 20 in my class of 350 plus. But, I also had a minor learning disability and a penchant for marijuana. Put the two together, and it is quite difficult to really learn any subject.
I had a B+ in French and, in order to get the necessary GPA to be in the top 20, I would need to either get 100s on the exams... or hack into the teacher's computer and change my grade.
I played around with the idea of cracking my teacher's password, but I had neither the technical knowledge or the kahunas to run a password-cracking program. I also feared that my IP address could be tracked. So, I hatched a plan.
One day in class, we were all working on laptops for a project. I let my teacher know that my laptop was not working, and she let me borrow her laptop. While she was at the other end of the classroom, I switched over to her grade book, upped my grade to an A+, and switched back as she walked over.
When she walked over to the other side of the classroom again, I hopped back in the grade book and switched my friends' grades to As and A+s as well. What a brave young chap.
But, I was also a bit of a braggart - usually about women. But, this time, when I told my friends about my little hacking project, there were no looks of awe. They were genuinely worried.
And two weeks later, I was called down to the principal's office. I was not entirely sure which one of them snitched, but so it goes. Fortunately, I walked out of the office with no punishment besides the removal of myself from the National Honors Society. I did not give a shit about this, and was happy not to have a suspension on my permanent record.
Well, a week or two went by, and I was walking down the hallway near my English teacher's office. I peeked in and saw a laptop, but no teacher. I walked in, switched my grade around, and never told a soul until now. I learned a valuable lesson getting snitched on. I needed to keep my bragging mouth shut.