I run the IT department for a mid sized corporation, and we were having a few issues with script kiddies. Nothing too advanced, but it was annoying anyway. We were keeping them out, but just keeping them out wasn’t any fun. So I decided that something needed to be done. I talked it over with a few others at work, people like our lawyer, the janitor, and of course the secretaries. I needed the lawyer’s advice to make sure I would not be liable for any damages. I didn’t really need the janitor’s advice, but I knew he had a bottle of Jack hidden somewhere. As far as the secretaries go, figure that one out for yourself. Anyway, now the stage has been set and its time to get to the point.

I rummaged thorough the old and useless computers and found the perfect computer to set up my little friends. It only took a few hours to accumulate all the necessary goodies that would be needed to try out my “experiment.” The first thing I did was load a fresh copy of Winblows 95 osr2 without any of the patches. I figured that it was safe to assume that this box was going to crack without much resistance. The next thing to go into my new toy was every virus that I have ever accumulated. This was actually the hardest part of the entire job. I say it was the hardest part because of the shear numbers involved. I have been collecting viruses for many years the way some people collect porn. Since it was Friday night and I didn’t have much to do, the janitor and I worked on this many hours past closing. Well… we drank for many hours anyway. I have no idea of how long it took us to finished setting up the computer.

As I awoke on the floor of my office on Saturday morning, I had a cloudy memory of renaming the computer from Leper to Payroll. For some reason I thought that was the funniest thing I have done in a long time. I remembered it seemed logical that if I was setting up someone it should look like they were about to hit the jackpot. I crawled over to the computer and checked to see what was going on. Sure enough it was named Payroll. Not only that, but I had renamed most of the viruses from things like CIH to Social Security info, and from nasty worm to May 2000 bank records. I was about to just let it be when I notice that not only had renamed stuff and left it very insecure, but I had opened a share on the root directory. I was a little baffled as to the nature of that so I decided that the best way to find out exactly what happened was to speak with a witness.

I call the janitor and his wife answered the phone with, “you’re a crazed madman.” I asked her to explain and she replied that when she came to pick up her husband, I was laughing like a lunatic as I typed at my computer. Apparently, they tried to convince me to get a cab home, but I told them that I was going to stay until the Leper spread his disease to all the unholy. She said that I was in some kind of religious fervor, and kept talking about the necessity to cleanse the network of the blasphemers. About that time the janitor got on the phone and said that she was just messing with me, and that yes I was crazed but I didn’t say anything religious. I only said that I was going to cleanse the network, nothing more. To say the least I was glad to hear that, it is too late in my life to make a career change to “Holy Cyber Warrior”.

Well I decided to see if anyone had taken the bait. Guess what, not only had someone taken the bait, but according to the logs on the sniffer, quite a few had fallen victim to the Leper Server. I had to smile, I couldn’t help it I knew what I had done was quite shitty, yet funny. As I sobered up I realized that I needed to do whatever damage control I could. I removed the machine from my office and hid it back in the scrap pile. On Monday my boss found out what I had done. I waited for a summons to his office, and yes I did get one. Just before we closed shop I was paged to his office. I am not sure how he found out but he thought it was funny as well. He thought it was so funny he demanded that I make it a permanent resident on the network. Oh well I guess there is a moral to this story. -- Never get drunk with a janitor. They don’t care if you pass out on your office floor.

Jakery