Experiences with non-techies

[WhitetailAni]

A few weeks ago my parents sat me down and said:

Quote

It's clear that you know enough about computers to cause harm by yourself, and you've gotten around our restrictions without too much trouble (they put a BIOS password on my main machine but I set up a camera to record one of them putting it in, and when they tried to enable Screen Time on my phone they didn't enable Screen Time passcode so I could disable their restrictions on games, put in place because I got a C on a single assignment).

We trust your judgement, so try not to get into trouble again, and if we see another Cease and Desist letter no computers for a month other than your school Chromebook.

Yes, I have a Cease and Desist letter. I pirated 3D World.

 

EDIT:
My dad isn't a non-techie or anything, he works in IT a lot and iirc he does server management. He just isn't as familiar with enthusiast hardware nor does he spend a bunch of time researching his stuff like I do.

[CT854]

27 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Yes, I have a Cease and Desist letter. I pirated 3D World.

You wouldn't download... **checks notes** ... uh...

 

There isn't a joke here.

 

Damn.

 

You have your work more cut out for you than I ever did. All I ever really had happen was that my mom wanted me to stop playing World of Warcraft in the run-up to an admissions exam for high school.

 

I circumvented this pretty easily.

[Windows7ge]

50 minutes ago, Schnoz said:

I got around my parents' restrictions on computers through a similar route quite a few years back.

 

On both my first desktop and laptop, I was given only Standard account access, while the Admin account was controlled by my parents. Rufus and a bootable USB wouldn't work, since it needed admin permissions to launch. However, I discovered that burning a CD didn't need elevated permissions. With one of @Windows7ge's great guides, I got HBCD 12.0 (it was small enough for a blank DVD) onto a disc, booted from it, and enabled the "Super Admin" account that I used. My parents were initially understandably quite unhappy, but they've eventually relented given that basically everything I do needs elevated permissions.

Quote

Bypassing security features, restrictions, or filters (including parental filters

Me:

[WhitetailAni]

54 minutes ago, CT854 said:

You have your work more cut out for you than I ever did.

I choose to think of it as that they're training me to get a part-time job as a security tester.

[da na]

55 minutes ago, CT854 said:

You wouldn't download... **checks notes** ... uh...

 

There isn't a joke here.

 

Damn.

 

You have your work more cut out for you than I ever did. All I ever really had happen was that my mom wanted me to stop playing World of Warcraft in the run-up to an admissions exam for high school.

 

I circumvented this pretty easily.

My parents set up Microsoft account restrictions (limited Bing searches and websites, wouldn't allow things like this forum, YouTube) but I switched to a local account lol

[CT854]

3 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

I choose to think of it as that they're training me to get a part-time job as a security tester.

I mean, why not go full time as a white hat?

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, CT854 said:

I mean, why not go full time as a white hat?

I'm a high school sophomore and my big achievement is accidentally figuring out that they didn't block the MS store correctly.

Which led to PowerShell which could have led to PrintNightmare because their systems are 3 years out of date but I won't go that far; I like my school.

[CT854]

1 minute ago, FakeKGB said:

I'm a high school sophomore and my big achievement is accidentally figuring out that they didn't block the MS store correctly.

Which led to PowerShell which could have led to PrintNightmare because their systems are 3 years out of date but I won't go that far; I like my school.

Sure, but those still sound like the background story to someone who could potentially be a successful whitehat. Doesn't really matter where you are now, it's just about where you want to end up.

 

You don't need to be a prodigy to be good in a field. You just need to put in the work that could get you there. Mundane things lead to inspiration for whole careers. I'm 99% sure I'm doing my chemistry PhD because one day I thought it was cool that oil didn't mix with water when I was screwing around in the kitchen when I was like, 6.

[da na]

1 minute ago, FakeKGB said:

I'm a high school sophomore and my big achievement is accidentally figuring out that they didn't block the MS store correctly.

Which led to PowerShell which could have led to PrintNightmare because their systems are 3 years out of date but I won't go that far; I like my school.

Glad my school lets us bring our own stuff...

[WhitetailAni]

2 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Glad my school lets us bring our own stuff...

My school technically does too but their "bring your own device" WiFi runs at approximately 500 bits per second and most websites don't work because they haven't replaced their isrg-root-x1 certificate.

[Bitter]

I bypassed everything too. Mostly physical stuff like locking a door or taking away the mouse or keyboard. Tab and Shift-tab as well as the onscreen keyboard will get you everywhere you need to go lol..it's easy to climb in and out of 1st story windows. Software restrictions weren't as advanced back when.

I feel like the more you try to keep a determined teen away from things the more determined they are to succeed and WILL find a way that may be more harmful or destructive than just letting them have it. Like learning all these ways to bypass security, probably more dangerous long term knowing that stuff than just letting them play more Minecraft.

 

 

@FakeKGBoone C on one paper? C is an average grade, A and B are outstanding. Let me tell you what expecting to be perfect on everything does long term, it's really discouraging when you're not successful later on at things. If I try and fail at something I feel like someone punched me in the gut now because I used to be a straight A student until 6th grade when it all fell apart. I still feel broken by that honestly. The best lesson to learn is it's perfectly ok to fail at things, but it's hard to learn that with parents breathing down your neck for perfection. I had stress migraines for years throughout middle and first year of highschool from that stuff. Eventually I just snapped and quit trying entirely even at things I was good at. It really all backfired.

[Bitter]

I vote yes for

@FakeKGBa white hat security tester. A fine career choice!

[da na]

2 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I vote yes for

@FakeKGBa white hat security tester. A fine career choice!

The man would've saved Gigabyte! 

Or do we want him to, actually? 

[CT854]

7 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Let me tell you what expecting to be perfect on everything does long term, it's really discouraging when you're not successful later on at things. If I try and fail at something I feel like someone punched me in the gut now because I used to be a straight A student until 6th grade when it all fell apart. I still feel broken by that honestly. The best lesson to learn is it's perfectly ok to fail at things, but it's hard to learn that with parents breathing down your neck for perfection. I had stress migraines for years throughout middle and first year of highschool from that stuff. Eventually I just snapped and quit trying entirely even at things I was good at. It really all backfired.

I got 80s my first term of high school after being a consistent straight A student. Beat myself up over it until I got my shit together and finished high school with an 94% average.

 

Went to a college notorious for being difficult, got my ass whooped, finished with a 3.4 GPA.

 

Got into grad school, getting my shit whooped again. But hopefully once I get out of this I'll get a job where I'll be making money I'll be happy with.

 

Getting your ass whooped and failing is important. But you really have to embrace it, every. Single. Time. Shit still hurts even after failing plenty of times. It doesn't get easier to pick yourself up again, but at least you know that that's what you're going to have to do.

[WhitetailAni]

18 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I feel like the more you try to keep a determined teen away from things the more determined they are to succeed and WILL find a way that may be more harmful or destructive than just letting them have it. Like learning all these ways to bypass security, probably more dangerous long term knowing that stuff than just letting them play more Minecraft.

AA to agree x2. Many people just don't like that they can be told what they can't do, and usually don't end up doing that thing after a few days. Compared to when there's security involved and now it's a challenge.

18 minutes ago, Bitter said:

@FakeKGBoone C on one paper? C is an average grade, A and B are outstanding. Let me tell you what expecting to be perfect on everything does long term, it's really discouraging when you're not successful later on at things. If I try and fail at something I feel like someone punched me in the gut now because I used to be a straight A student until 6th grade when it all fell apart. I still feel broken by that honestly. The best lesson to learn is it's perfectly ok to fail at things, but it's hard to learn that with parents breathing down your neck for perfection. I had stress migraines for years throughout middle and first year of highschool from that stuff. Eventually I just snapped and quit trying entirely even at things I was good at. It really all backfired.

When they took away my phone fully they spent about an hour talking about future life choices blah blah blah. The crux of why taking away my phone is good is because it's a distraction. (I got 5 B's 2 C's, I had 2 A's but got distracted by something else in life and slipped in school. I had a D in my APUSH class and saved that).

Instant problems with that:
- You're not teaching me how to deal with the distraction.

- There are so many times where having a phone at school is darn useful.

   - I can ask a question about a school assignment when I remember.

   - I can answer someone else's question.

   - I can take a picture of something in a class to save for later

   - Every single teacher takes students having a phone for granted.

I currently have my SIMless 6S at school as a camera since that's what I use it for most (other than Discord), and I have a rough draft that is, to me, a really good counterargument to all their points. It's convenient that we're doing a literature unit on rhetoric, and thus effective arguing.

11 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I vote yes for

@FakeKGBa white hat security tester. A fine career choice!

I want to become a civil engineer but it could be a fun part-time job or hobby.

Side note: I found out that my school has a WPA1 protected network. I really want to crack it, just so I can see if it runs at at least 1 Mbps. If so I might just use it.

9 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

The man would've saved Gigabyte! 

Or do we want him to, actually? 

Breaking news: PowerPC Mac OS source code leaked by user "RealKGB".

Edited January 11, 2022 by FakeKGB

[CT854]

Just now, FakeKGB said:

Breaking news: PowerPC Mac OS source code leaked by user "RealKGB".

"Alexander Lukashenko wants to know your location."

[Bitter]

Without getting off into topics too personal, it sounds like most of you have great parents who do a lot to understand and care, especially @FakeKGB.

Not saying that I didn't, I was just a lot different than my parents which made things extremely difficult between us for a long time which made their help often more of a hindrance. I know they wanted what was best for me like all good parents do and I appreciate everything they tried to do, just didn't always work and everyone was very stubborn.

You should appreciate that they're willing to listen and be willing to compromise even if you're sure you know better. Showing them you're willing to be flexible now will help them to be more flexible toward you later. I think as we age we forget how much people change as they grow and we kind of imprint in our minds our expectations at a particular point in their life and that can be hard to change. It goes both ways, child and parent, we all change as time goes on.

 

Phones in school!? Jeeze when I was in school that was grounds for getting suspended! Your phone was to be kept in your locker and only used outside of regular school hours...if you even had one. For context, the GameBoyColor was pretty new and we all had CD players, the Pentium 3 hit 1Ghz the year I was failing AP Bio. The concepts and science wasn't over my head, the amount of homework was just horrendous. The difference between regular and AP classes, to me, wasn't a more difficult subject it was a larger volume of work. Ah well I'm glad I chose to give up on academics and pursue doing work I knew I would enjoy doing instead of work that I was expected to do. Everyone was convinced I was going to be a 'computer guy', jokes on them I still am just the computers I work on have 4 wheels and vroom vroom.

[WhitetailAni]

3 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Phones in school!? Jeeze when I was in school that was grounds for getting suspended!

Our school is pretty lax about it, I think another high school in the district is really strict about phones. But here they're literally everywhere.

4 minutes ago, Bitter said:

jokes on them I still am just the computers I work on have 4 wheels and vroom vroom.

Make this but with an RC car

 

[Bitter]

15 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Make this but with an RC car

Didn't Sega do that pretty recently??

[Poinkachu]

Whenever there's a tech related problem in the house, I'm the one called to do something about it.
My brother always wants the best result, but don't want to spend the required money for it.
Whenever I told him something is not possible, he replied me with :

"You should do something about it, I'm sure there's a super cheap solution"
In a shaming tone.

Like I'm some sort of magician that can turn, let's say, A single band wireless router into a tri-band wifi6 wireless router with a coverage area of 6000m2 for free by only saying "Abracadabra".

Or make 90 meters cat6 ethernet cable magically appear.
 

[EphraimK]

When I wasn't allowed to watch on YouTube as a younger kid, I signed into my mom's Google account and she got a notification on the YouTube app about a sign in from my computer.

 

"You're signing into YouTube?!"

She didn't understand that I was signing into Google Analytics and the YouTube app sends the notification. I attempted to explain, but she wouldn't hear of it.

She told me to get off the computer for the rest of the day.

[soldier_ph]

Ah yes the Internet is stored in Crystal Balls:

 

[Kilrah]

Well you technically could say the internet is run by crystals...

[Rauten]

So, I have a support ticket about a potential link to an item in a web application that doesn't work, it returns an error (404, apparently).

I decide to ask the user for the link to make sure it's not wrong, see if there's anything screwy with it.

 

She just attached a picture of her address bar.

 

*gRoaN*

[WhitetailAni]

Yesterday during robotics I did the "tape a piece of paper over the mouse sensor" trick for a random assortment of mice.

I come back today (I have a class in the same room 2nd period, there's a class here 1st period) and every single mouse I affected is still taped over. People just moved a desk over.