SSH Computer Possession Prank – Part III
This is part three of the Computer Possession prank our house pulled on one of our housemates, Jordan. If you’re not up to date, start by reading Part One and Part Two.
Disclaimer: This prank involves some steps taken which may be ethically unacceptable if abused. I assure you that we did not do anything to harm anyone, and we certainly wouldn’t encourage that kind-of behavior. It was all in kind-hearted fun, and though we had absolute power over Jordan’s computer, we only ever utilized it for comedy.
March 18, 2010
I spent most of today trying to get WiFi to work on my Droid, so that I could use ssh from my phone, by means of ConnectBot. It took a lot of configuration for some reason, but I got it going and we now had an amazing tool in the war on Jordan.
At night, I noticed he was listening to The Beach Boys, so I made a little recommendation, “I noticed you were listening to the Beach Boys, you might like this…” I then sent him to this page. (Our house has a long-standing love for The Beach Boys, and consequently a hatred of Mike Love.)
Funny enough, he gets it wrong when he tells us the story the next day. He said his computer sent him to a YouTube video of a live Beach Boys performance.
March 19, 2010
Today was Jordan’s 21st birthday, so he was set for an extra-special treat. We sent him a song, “Happy Birthday Jordan Happy Birthday Jordan Happy Birthday Jordan” in the Good News voice preset (to the tune of that graduation song…)
We didn’t know that at the exact moment, he was on the phone with Mac tech support again. They had him go through some updates, some settings changes, and the like, but in the end, conceded that they had never seen anything like a computer that made recommendations and sang happy birthday.
He now has the personal extension of one of the managers. I just wish we could have somehow got a recording of that support phone call!
We all went out for a burger, and he spent a good amount of time discussing his problem, when he proposed a theory. He supposes that it’s not outside of the realm of possibility, that when he sent his computer out to Apple for his screen repair last week, that a disgruntled employee inserted an experimental artificial intelligence program. That’s a more perfect explanation than we could have hoped for.
Later that night, returning from an intense bar night, he and two others were sitting in the room when they heard the computer repeat “I need you to listen and I need you to listen close” several times.
Approved! (before the Jelly King)
Fuck You