[Martyn.Rae]

Years ago, when I was working on ICL 1900 mainframes, the Senior Systems Programmer was responsible for implementing a terminal subsystem called Maximop. In a meeting of directors and senior programming staff, he announced that this system was totally secure and user accounts were private (not hackable - but this was in the days when hacking did not exist). I was in that meeting and after the meeting was over, I asked to speak to the General Manager and this Senior Systems Programmer. I informed them both that the Maximop system was not secure and it was easy to gain access to anybodies account. The Senior Systems Programmer leapt out of his chair and said I was spouting rubbish. If I could break into his account he would resign. I looked at the General Manager and said give me five minutes and went away. Upon return, I asked the Senior Systems Programmer to log into his Maximop account. He could not as his password seemed to be incorrect. I smiled at the General Manager then turned to him and said try typing in idiot which he did and gained access to his account. He insisted that I had seen him type his password in and so I told him to change his password to a new one immediately and when I was out of the room. The General Manager was in the meantime very amused at this. Three minutes after he had shouted he had a new password on his account, I walked back into the office and asked him to try logging in. Again, his password failed. I told him to try stupid which of course worked.

I give him credit, he resigned on the spot, it was accepted and I got his position along with a considerable pay rise. Nobody really liked this guy as he thought he knew everything. I am quite sure he never found out how I was accessing his account!

This post has been edited by Martyn.Rae: 26 March 2011 - 04:02 PM

[RyanRobinson]

Cool story and much respect for the guy who stayed true to his word and resigned.

[TMKCodes]

RyanRobinson is right he became cool guy on the spot when he actually resigned.

Though I like to do this to sales people so much that sometimes they kick me out of the shop before I get to buy the product I was going to buy.

Few times when I was working in this local electronics store I got one co-worker to feel dummy even though he had been doing the stuff years longer than me, but he was cool guy, but it was nice to teach the old guy some new tricks.

[Programmist]

Sounds like something out of a movie script.

[RetardedGenius]

You are my hero!

[silent]

lol that is brilliant! im still waiting for my day to come for the same sort of situation as yourself

[Patrunjel]

Wow.Nice story, very motivational
So i guess you were a smart guy Like Zuckerberg in "The social network" at his OS class, when he got the idea to implement something on TheFacebook, and ran, and the teacher asked him something, and he said about access bits and stuff like that, and the proffessor was amazed, and then he met the guys from the rowing team.
So, the point is what i guess that was awsome Any more stories like that?

[RetardedGenius]

Patrunjel, on 02 April 2011 - 02:56 PM, said:

Wow.Nice story, very motivational
So i guess you were a smart guy Like Zuckerberg in "The social network" at his OS class, when he got the idea to implement something on TheFacebook, and ran, and the teacher asked him something, and he said about access bits and stuff like that, and the proffessor was amazed, and then he met the guys from the rowing team.
So, the point is what i guess that was awsome Any more stories like that?

Yeah, I'd also like to hear more.

This post has been edited by RetardedGenius: 03 April 2011 - 07:29 AM

[Jack Eagles1]

I can remember some kid kept getting annoyed at school because "System Idle Process" was taking up 99% of the CPU. He was adamant that he had a virus.

[ButchDean]

That is an excellent story, Martyn.Rae. I wouldn't say that I've made anyone look that stupid, but one time I was working with a technology that none of my fellow programmers was familiar with. I spent the best part of two weeks getting my head around this tech for which there was a book in the company that covered it.

One guy, a genuinely excellent programmer, couldn't explain the content to me for this particular section of the tech that I was learning. Thing was he was one of the book's contributors! I ended up kind of reminding him of what I'd learned.

Go figure. :\

This post has been edited by ButchDean: 04 April 2011 - 08:08 PM

[no2pencil]

Not nearly as cool as Martyn.Rae, but years ago I was selling items on eBay. Someone stole my source code & was selling the same item. This was especially a poor move because all of the images were hosted on my webserver. After they listed their item, I made a duplicate directory, & updated all of my items to point to the new images. I then made all of the images that their stolen code pointed to, an image that simply read "Do not bid from me, I am a thief". I showed it to a friend & he gave me the idea to change them back when the item was finished. Sure enough, this person re-listed the items. On the 3rd go around, we made of the images, a background image, the tubgirl image. Someone eventually reported the account for adult material & their account was removed from eBay.

[Lemur]

Colleague not as much as administrators in high school, though I'm not going to risk posting stories about that on here considering they're still sore about it,

OffTopic - Ha! I ruined no2's 1337 rep.