Changing Your Grades on a High School Computer
by Drewl/Salivate
So you wanna be the next Ferris Bueller, huh? Well, it's actually easier than you think! (But not as easy as (((Hollywood))) makes it.) Are you frustrated with those damn teachers? Or are you flunking out 'cuz you're doing too much Internet hacking and phreaking? Well, this method is better than stealing blank report cards and running them through your printer (which was the method I practiced until now!).
First of all, high school computers are very simple (they have to be in order to get anything done!). The security is extremely low, the hardest part will be finding the dial-up.
When I realized that my high school was all networked, I knew that really all I had to do was find the number. At first I snuck in the computer room and rifled the desk for the number, hoping I'd find it on a memo or something. After the second or third day I was beginning to get frustrated, 'cuz wardialing is a pain in the ass. So I decided to check the phone line itself and there it was, written in pencil on the phone box: 527-XXXX (sorry, gotta protect the school).
Step 2: Once you find the number, find out a little about the system. Mine was an IBM 386 (with at least 100 or so megs) running the Pupil Attendance and Records System (PARS) with 10 or so Ethernet Wyse WY-60 terminal hookups, so it was a fairly small system. To kinda get a feel for the system, I made an appointment with my counselor and asked him to show me my spring schedule (this was in December, two weeks before the end of the Fall semester). As he cruised through the system, I kinda checked it out.
Next, I rushed home at once (cutting all of my classes after lunch) and called it up. I was of course confronted with the "Login:" prompt. After failing a few GUEST etc. accounts, I remembered that computer managers are lazy and stupid. So I tried my counselor's first name. Bingo!
What to Do if This Happens to You
When the computer asks for an emulation, type ANSI. There should be a menu of some sort, and all of the functions will be numbered:
The only two items we're interested in are 55 (PARS) and 60 (Spooler). PARS is the heart of the system and you will be confronted by another password.
As many experienced hackers know, businesses (and schools) have lame employees who forget the system password(s) easily, so they take it out of the banner. In this case, the password was simply NAME!
So you are now deep into your school's brain. You have many options: in the attendance menu, you can change that cut you got when you found the number earlier that morning or you can change your class schedule 'cuz your teacher is a jerk! (Even though it doesn't matter anyway, 'cuz you'll get an "A' in the class no matter what.) You can also alter an entire class period, or even register a new student (That is a lot of phun! I named him "Daemon Cocot."). Then give him a schedule and voil´, you have the first cyber student at your high school! But best of all you can change your grades and permanent records.
Look for an item on the menu that refers to schedules/marks. Then in the sub-menu, pick something that says Student Mark Maintenance. Yet another window will pop up. It should say ENTER GRADING CYCLE, so type Q1, Q2, Q3, or Q4 for which quarter grades you want to change (Q2 and Q4 are the fall and spring semesters) or you can do D1, D2, D3, or D4 for deficiencies (yes, you can delete your cinch notices, naturally you don't want your mom wondering how you pulled an "A-" out of a class that you got a cinch in!).
Now comes the tricky part! So you know how to change your grades, but when do you do it? Be aware of how your grading system works and how the teachers enter the grades. At my school, on the last day of finals (a Friday), the teachers would submit all of the grades on a Scantron (fill in the bubbles with a #2 pencil type of thing) and they would be scanned that afternoon. Then on Monday, they would be printed out and sent back to the teachers to be checked. This obviously was not the time to change grades! The grades would then be recollected and entered later that day. Now for the real tricky part! In order for your grades to appear correctly (correctly for you of course), you have only a few hours to change them - from the time that they were scanned in until when they are printed out (see the calendar - between two and five hours depending on how much is backed up to print that night).
Monday is the day you should call up the computer. Once you have the main menu up, type 60 this time (Spooler). Then list the spooler files printed today. You should get something like the following (a lot of absences and stuff, but the very end is what we are looking for).
The __:__ and the previous time are the most important bits of information. The __:__ means that it has either not printed out yet or it has started but not finished. So look at the line above it - this tells when the last document finished printing. So if the time right now is 4:00 pm then you are fine. But if it is 4:15 or later you had better hurry (unless your name is at the end of the alphabet). Exit the Spooler menu, enter PARS/Schedules-Marks/Student Mark Maintenance and hack away! And give Daemon some grades also while you're at it!
Now you will forever have the grades you gave yourself, and they will come about Wednesday. But, being the hacker type with no patience, you wanna find out right away, right? So just go into the counseling center and request a transcript the next day (Tuesday). If they say you are getting your report card tomorrow, just say you have this college... Harvard, perhaps.
If the grades you get are the ones you changed, congratulations. You are now the envy of millions of high school students around the world! Which brings me to my last point: don't, don't, don't go bragging about your latest hack!
Another note: it isn't a good idea to give yourself straight "A's," unless all of your teachers are oblivious of your existence. You don't want some teacher or administrator snooping around 'cuz they were sure they gave you a "C-" in the class when you made the 4.0 Club!