What is Digg?154 Comments
- coolian, on 10/12/2007, -5/+157Hahahaha...the moron actually took photos of squirrels. What a shmuck.
- orbanj, on 10/12/2007, -3/+129This is probably why he had a low GPA in the first place.
- NaughtyRobot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+86Fake or not, it's a funny read. If it was a real exchange, I bet the guy on the other end was changing his undies after the last email!
- arnar, on 10/12/2007, -9/+81rofl: "...some good news: my grades weren't as bad as I
thought, so this should make things move a little
faster on your end. (I mean less adjustments are
needed)..."
Changing 2 to 3 is easier than changing a 1 to 3? - orbanj, on 10/12/2007, -13/+83dugg up for the word schmuck
- Tiak, on 10/12/2007, -6/+68Apparently this guy is Todd Shriber, a 28 year old congressional aide working for Denny Rehberg (a Montana republican in the house). Yay for American politics!
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/9999 - ronnknee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+59Lmfao! A good read definitely! The squirrels are nice here... xD
- BobbyOnions, on 10/12/2007, -0/+58They must be really proud of you.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+57Maybe so.. but let's weigh the possible outcomes:
- Success. Can get into any college with the brand spanking new perfect GPA.
- Failure. Go to prison for a felony and never be able to get a decent job for the rest of your life.
I think I'll stick with going the honest route. - JimXugle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+53There is an actual specification for Internet Protocol over Carrier Pigeon. The "Hacker" was suggesting that since there weren't any pigeons on his campus, squirrels might be a suitable substitute.
Little does the n00blet know... colleges don't usually support IPoCP for security purposes. - eolite, on 10/12/2007, -8/+57@ coolian
I don't think it is fake....
Chk this
http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Idiot_who_tries_hiring_hacker_to_change_GPA_is_Congressional_Aide - Initialpassion, on 10/12/2007, -1/+45"Think of all the stuff you see in
the movies, but better."
very funny... - JimXugle, on 10/12/2007, -3/+41There's also some good money to be made by selling drugs, your organs, or becoming a prostitute...
however I might want to say that I have a higher respect for Hackers and Prostitutes than most drug dealers. - Exvin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31ROT stands for "Rotate by # places," where the # would be the desired number of rotations. The concept of ROT boils down to a very ancient (and simple) symmetric encryption scheme, which is widely believed to have been used by Julius Caesar in an attempt at encrypting messages. Julius Caesar and the recipient would have possessed a ring which consisted of two independently rotating entities. Both entities of the ring would have had the alphabet written on them, and the two could be offset by a certain number of rotations. So, ROT-1 would make an "A" into a "B," a "B" into a "C," and so on...
In essence, ROT is a simple shift cipher that is most often used to obscure text by replacing each letter of the message with a letter that is a certain number of places down the alphabet. One popular example for a rather recent ROT implementation is ROT-13, which appeared on Usenet in the 1980s on a variety of forums in an effort to hide jokes and other material that some users might find offensive.
In terms of modern encryption, ROT is pretty pointless and can be broken very rapidly by analyzing the probability of a certain offset to equal an existing word. For example, the ciphertext "MPQY" could, plausibly, decrypt to either "aden" or "know."
So, how does this try into the prank that Jericho and Lyger played on Todd? If you haven't noticed by now, it's really very simple and quite funny. Since there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, any "encryption" that uses ROT-26 would be completely pointless. If you started out with an "A" and moved it along 26 places in the alphabet you would still end up with an "A."
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROT13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_cipher
EDIT: Prototek & Tiak beat me to it... - Prototek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28Each letter is rotated 26 letters, or equivalent to no encryption whatsoever.
- xobecide, on 10/12/2007, -6/+32Since my parents can't see my grades without me seeing them first, I just saved the HTML page and modified it.. boom a 3.85. They won't see a difference on my degree as long as it's believable.
- betterth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+26@spisska
The point is, it's still horribly insecure.
"At FBI Headquarters -
Agent 1- The tool wants a picture of a squirrel. Send Johnson out to chase squirrels.
Agent 2- Johnson, go chase squirrels.
Johnson- Wtf?
Agent 1- And take pictures. Hawt pics of you and squirrels"
The point is, anyone can take pictures of squirrels, it proves nothing : - vvargoal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers
- taotehue, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26yeah but your GPA will still suck donkey ass to the rest of the world. So when you try to put that ***** on your resume and then they call the school and find out your a liar and a retard who graduated out of a sympathy pass then you'll find yourself manning the lower end of the spectrum of jobs. That would be greeeaaat.
- Tiak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19... Yeah, it was a joke to begin with, rot-26 is a pretty slick joke really, you see rot-13 is an "encryption" for typed messages to make it take a slight ammount of effort to read, but be easy to decrypt. It means cycling 13 characters forward through the alphabet for every character (and looping around). As the alphabet is 26 characters, rot-13ing something again decrypted it. rot-26 would be rot-13ing something twice, or not encrypting at all.
- Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19IP over Squirrel only works with Linux.
- FacesMan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19I'm not sure, he didn't seem too jarred from the first 'we got caught' email (that's to say it didn't have the same urgency in the text as the attrition email), so I'm not sure if he fell for the second one or not. Who knows/cares? I have to agree it was a funny read nonetheless.
- Tiak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16No, you see, they have ethics, they decided to sell his dignity instead.
- ophilye, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17For those of you that don't know why he wanted a picture of a pigeon...
pi·geon 1 (pĭj'ən) Pronunciation Key
n.
1. Any of various birds of the widely distributed family Columbidae, characteristically having plump bodies, small heads, and short legs, especially the rock dove or any of its domesticated varieties.
2. Slang One who is easily swindled; a dupe. - JGuest, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15here you really go... http://attrition.org.nyud.net:8080/postal/z/033/0871.html this works
- MSTK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I was expecting the hired hand to sell out the guy's ID's and intentions to the school.
- denhamcoote, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Dugg for all the uber-cool hax0r talk. And the squirrel :)
- appetite, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17there's a lot of money to be made in selling stocks, too, but you won't see me doing that scummy *****.
- JohnnyHuh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Also, don't forget to read the final email exchange where they try to really mess with him.
http://attrition.org/postal/z/033/0887.html
Though its less funny and more forced than the original thread. - JohnnyHuh, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Yep, so fake he's admitted doing it.
- freff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13IdiotAide28: Hey, anyone know a 1337 haxXor that I can hire? Pay is good, and someday, I'm going to be rich and important.
Sooperjedihacker: I'm in jor box; deleting all your grades...
IdiotAide28: GREAT! Do you have a PayPal account, or do you want me to give you my credit card information? - EyeDoc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13This is FANTASTIC! They should have played with him a little more, especially on the squirrel front!
- clos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Best line of the whole thing - "Think of all the stuff you see in
the movies, but better." - Slovenian6474, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Good job! That'll get you out of being grounded and sent to your room.
- Vizin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Morons at my school ask me to do this all the time. I think they figure every techie has "l337 h4x0r skillz". Maybe I should try something like this...
- Pigeon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I refused to let him use my picture. Thats why he had to use the squirrel.
- SixSence, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Anyone up for an intelligent and more thought-out conversation on the subject at hand for a change?
This guy isn't as much of an idiot as everyone is making him out to be. Given that he is most definitely ignorant when it comes to computers and the internet, his desperation and apparent lack of technology inclined acquaintances led to somewhat reasonable actions. If you're desperate, know nothing about the industry of your endeavor, and know no one who knows anyone who does, sometimes you're forced to take a risk in trusting people you don't know by hoping an excessive amount of money will be sufficient. For example if you go pickup a prostitute for the first time, you likely don't know what your doing or how they do business, and therefore are putting yourself in danger and trusting someone you don't know.
Other than his name, which may have been sent unknowingly in the header of his emails given his internet ignorance, he didn't divulge any personal information until his 17th email. IMO, he did the best he could given the circumstances and the fact that none of us know for sure what the real reasons for the grade changes were or how important it was to him.
There wasn't anyway he could of known they were playing a joke on him. The attrition.org guys played it smooth, sounded authentic, didn't say anything completely ridiculous (squirrel thing up for debate), and didn't rush him to give away his personal information or payment. Of course it's easy to sit here after the fact and from an abstract view on the situation and say he's an idiot for falling for the squirrel/pigeon thing. I think it was a clever joke to be honest. It basically forced him to unknowingly take part in one of their sadistic jokes that would end up humiliating him and sounding so ridiculous after the fact, while also having some correlation at the time. When you think of it from his point of view, he knew the request was a little strange, but he didn't know these guys or how they operated and the pictures sounded like a fair way to give them his location and establish trust as far as he was concerned. Why would he blow his chances with the whole thing, when he was serious about it, by questioning their methods or saying no because of how ridiculous it sounded.
On a different note, I don't see why people are saying things like "I don't want a guy like this in office" because of his corrupt behavior. I find it highly ironic that everyone "knows" politicians are the most corrupt people on earth but exhibit such surprise and harsh opinions when someone is actually caught in one of these actions. You all of the sudden give up your so fitting stereotype as if to say most of the alternatives and current people in office are nothing like this guy.
The story is definitely funny, as are many of its kind, and I also like to look at it the same way as everyone else for my enjoyment. But when taken seriously and really looking at it from his his pov in his current state of mind, he was pretty smart about it. - sheerz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"Now, one last thing. I just need you to get a picture of Tom Selleck holding the squirrel."
- Serenikill, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15http://www.duggmirror.com
- glock22ownr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@Tiak :
The sad part is that the Congress person who obviously had no part in this whole debacle will feel the heat, because of folks much like yourself. Tell me, if you on your own time, did something like this... should your boss be blamed? Not that I'm defending what the guy did or any politician for that matter, but for all you know the Congress person that dude worked for was a standup guy that never did anything wrong. - Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Don't laugh. Twenty or so years ago, I knew a guy who had his girlfriend at the local colege records department scam an ENTIRE DEGREE for him.
Course, then there was my roommate who screwed her professor boyfriend for free grades, but that sort of thing is ancient.
I know the article is a put-on, but nothing is entirely security-safe. - nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Bravo. Are you a defense attorney? If not, you missed your calling.
But seriously, the guy is every bit the idiot. Think about the squirrel thing. Six days passed between when he was given the ridiculous story about the purpose of the squirrel pictures and when he sent them. In all that time, with a matter as weighty as committing a felony, he never stopped and said: Wait a minute - this makes no sense! I can grab a squirrel picture off google, and he'd never know the difference. It proves nothing!
He almost had a clue in his sixth email when he said "Wow, I feel dumb now". But he was wrong. He didn't feel dumb. He didn't know what it's like to feel dumb. I'll bet he does now though. - Triffid, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11@McDLT
Well if you are representative of your political association, I'd take the former - kmckanna, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Probably the most funny part of this was the squirrels thing and...
"...i'm going deep underground if they ask about me or
attrition we don't know each other..."
Haahahahahahaahha, wow, a good laugh. - nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Was the guy a moron? I don't know... "
Sorry, but if you don't know, then you're a moron. Making a request to do something illegal to complete strangers, and providing all identifying information as requested ... what could be more stupid? I can't think of anything. Oh, wait - I can. The squirrels. - synystar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Pigeon would have been better, but squirrel will do. It's obvious he's just messing with the guy. The only info that a person might get from a photo is location. "Take a picture right now, send it to me within 5 minutes". This way he can trust that at very least the guy is telling him the truth about something.
- DanJohnHarris, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8(3 hours ago) Raveren: "At least he was modest about it,- he DID say he was a n00b and that whole scam idea is quite reasonable for a guy this desperate for grades and knowing little about computers.."
(1 hour ago) troubledyouths: "he DID say he was a n00b and that whole scam idea is quite reasonable for a guy this desperate for grades and knowing little about computers..
http://www.silveradoboysranch.com/"
unified conscious? - Metasquares, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@adamsucks:
If you think all you need to get into any college is a perfect GPA, you've never tried applying to an Ivy. - jacksh11t, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Love the squirrel. Too bad there were no pigeons.
- burke, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Wow, that was actually really entertaining, but what the hell is rot-26? That sounds pretty useless...
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