SSH Computer Possession Prank – Part IV
In this installment of the story of the best computer prank ever pulled, we take a break from messing with Jordan when he returns from Spring Break. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
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 27, 2010
Jordan was away for a couple of days, and since we couldn’t SSH into his computer while he was gone, we thought it prudent to wait a while before we do anything else again. After a week of waiting, he was almost convinced it was over, when late at night we sat in the kitchen messing with his volume controls.
We then send him a message saying “Hello again Jason” in a woman’s voice. He runs out of his room crying, “Duuuuuudes…”
Now the whole Jason thing might need some explaining. In his hometown, the guy who set up Jordan’s guitar regularly, mistakenly called him Jason–consistently. Jordan immediately made this connection and was deeply concerned by it.
He stood in the kitchen and explained what he had just experienced, which made for some pretty funny stuff. We generally expressed our disbelief as I secretly started playing ACDC again on his computer. The volume was low enough that we couldn’t hear it from outside, but once he went inside and discovered the song, he came out to tell us what was going on.
He then encouraged us to sit in his room and wait for it to do something again, fairly certain that it would.
I brought out my phone’s SSH client, and sent out another “Hello again Jason.” I think this whole experience was pretty effective at reinforcing the idea that we weren’t involved in it, because after all, how could I hack his computer from my phone?
We followed that up with sporadic songs playing, some voiced security warnings that were fairly unintelligible, and eventually he decided to shut down his computer.
Now, at this point, we became somewhat concerned about how this was affecting Jordan. He seemed fairly frightened about how much the computer knew about him and when we asked what he would do if it turned itself back on in the middle of the night, he said he would have to destroy it.
We certainly hoped we didn’t cause him to do that, but this was too good an opportunity to waste.