when i was 13 years old
i singlehandedly took down
the whole school it system
It was a rainy day
cold
Perfect for computer class
Perfect
for some undercover
slavic cheeki breeki
and hackerman boris
was about to be born
now this was early 2000s
there were about 30 computers
total in the whole Eastern Bloc
at this point
and for some reason
20 of them was in my school
now this was some regular
regional school
the barrier for entry
was literally a pulse
hello are you breathing?
good. welcome.
i never found out
where these computers came from
but i do know
that at least two of them
were stolen the next year
along with the school stereo
that is the type of school
I went to
But that is a story
for another time
some people steal pens
some toilet paper
some steal my time
by forcing me to learn computers
at age 13
Let me tell you
at 13 i was already
computer hacker mastermind
i opened word
paint
internet explorer
like nobody’s business
life was good
and i had already solidified
at this point
my title as the family It expert
Yes
we even had a printer
and internet
I was unstoppable
so one day
out of blue fucking sky
the school announce
that There will be
it class
for the more computer oriented
slavs of us
i’m thinking great
i can finally show off
some of my ms paint skill
i sign up for it
first lesson comes around
eventually
In some weeks
around 20 kids in the class
and this is mixed class
of different grades
otherwise they could not
fill the class if they tried
so there i am
ready
teacher tells us
Okay, everybody switch on
their computer
me and one more kid
from my class
from my grade
Let's call him maksim
instantly switch on
our computers
Naturally
the rest of class
look at us two
like we just invented fire
teacher, unimpressed
good to help everybody else
Switching theirs on
this is early 2000s
so most people
never seen a computer at all
Not adults
not to mention children
in my computer at home
was some mid 90s box
that barely ran doom
but it ran
I was never told where it came from
but most likely
someone’s office
still has one pc unaccounted for
welcome to post-Soviet Eastern Europe
so there we are
in the computer class
Me and maksim
we are told to open word
type some letters and shit
kids stuff
teacher look at me and maksim
We are sitting next to each other
that we are not having
enough of a challenge
brings on the heavy guns
tells us both to create
a personal folder
on the school shared network
drive
me, i freeze
I freeze for a moment
Is he bluffing
What the blin
i had never seen a network
even less a shared folder
or drive
suddenly remember
that you can make network location
in your computer
Open up network locations
and find the thing
teacher still hovering above us
but ultimately unimpressed
proceeds to leave us alone
and goes to help
the other 18 children
Most of who
are still stuck
on turning their pc on
i whip open
the network drive
boom
create folder
boom
name it
boris
hackerman certification
achieved
maksim look at me
how you do that?
i lean back and say
what? you don’t know?
in the typical 13 year old
demeaning tone when you
know one bit of information
more than anybody else
then you lord it over everyone
for the fraction of the moment
that you are smarter
than everybody else
and proceed to help him
create his folder as well
so there we are
wait for a few minutes
look around
nothing much to do
teacher still busy
explaining to others
how mouse works
now, normally when a student
shows a greater skill
or knowledge in something
than others
the teacher usually
points it out
to other children
for them to take notice
in this case
this attention never came
okay fine
I don't need the attention
i know I’m the best
I say to myself in my dreams
much more realistically
i think The teacher was too worried
we might blow some shit up
before he even gets to
end the school year
And he was not wrong
at this point
i knew how to boot to dos
input commands
and run format c
I was not dangerous
I was the danger
and then classmate
classmate gets this genius idea
creates text file
in his new network folder
writes
penis
nudges to me
to look into his folder
I open his folder
there is a file
i open the file
select the text
and remove
as if to remove any traces
of this rogue vulgar statement
on school property
this will not be tolerated.
me, still surprised
i have read and write rights
in somebody else’s folder
but i guess teacher had not
configured this shit yet
because he never expected
this lesson to go farther than
moving the mouse cursor on screen
i then proceeded to write
something much more sophisticated
into the text document
and write
b a l l s
so obviously we keep ourselves
entertained with this
back and forth text file editing
thinking to ourselves
we are geniuses
for just having invented
instant messaging
even though we are sitting
literally right next to each other
and talking would be
many times faster
but still
geniuses
We keep busy with this
For maybe 2 minutes.
every other student in the class
still trying to hit
the word icon
with the cursor
and then maksim
signal to me: hey
open the file
i open the file
is a very long text file
of gibberish
made to look like he was
writing for the past 10 minutes
but he was just
copy pasting the same text
phah
what do i look like?
beginner?
unimpressed here
and me, control-a
backspace
done
start writing
and this
the following events
and the following text
is word for word
What happened
i start writing
warning
there is a virus
in the computer
in all caps
thinking i will give maksim
a small scare with this
thinking the computer is
infected or something
hit save
go to close the
notepad window
so that I could open it again
because we are editing
the same file
and the close button
does not work
i’m thinking
hah
shitty old pcs
someone probably opened word
too many times
crashed the network here
classmate
Look at me
and say
hey i cannot open the file
cold sweat
blyat what did i do
i nervously tell him
you pc probably just crashed
this some old shit anyway
he shuts his pc off
from power switch
and i switch of mine as well
because mine was it not responding at all
completely dead
i’m thinking
safe
literally seconds later
I hear someone
from in front of class saying
they cannot click on things
any more
sweat intensifies
now keep in mind
maksim had no idea
what i had written
into the file
because he never found out
and i never told him
I never told anyone
this is the first time
i’m mentioning this
at all
teacher goes around class
trying to fix this problem
Everybody's pc has crashed
comes to my pc, i say
uh mine crashed too
I just
I just switched it off
he’s like
okay yeye
the network probably crashed
i’m thinking what
the what?????
teacher walks away
i’m clear
for now
instantly start thinking about
the shenanigans we had done
with the text file
and how that might have
killed the whole network
and then remember
the text file
with all the incriminating
evidence
was in maksim’s folder
not mine
safe once again
but blyat
maybe they find out
who was editing the file
the last time
because everybody was logged in
with their personal accounts
shit
few minutes pass
teacher cuts the class short
by 20 minutes
because at this point
all 20 pcs
are dead
including his
i’m thinking it’s over
i’m safe
I can breathe another day
be in next class
haven’t told anyone anything
don’t want to incriminate myself
you know
i’m in literature class
mid lesson
the school administrator
walks in
i think nothing of it
this is common
she always bring in some chalk
or some shit
fresh notebooks
but not this time
she’s not alone
and who walks in
after the administrator
Of course it is the it teacher
oyyy blin
i’m going to jail
they found out what i have done
they probably traced it back to me
and is all pizdec
but this is not all
after the it teacher
walks in
the final boss
It is the headmaster
This old woman with the post-Soviet
ruling fist of iron
and let me tell you
you did not see
the headmaster ever
around school
unless it was something
completely pizdec
i take deep breath
accept my fate
start Imagining getting kicked
out of school
having to explain this
to my parents
face paler than the chalk
on whiteboard
I knew what was coming
i had seen these public
humiliations
These public
in front of classroom
takedowns before
and the headmaster calls out
my name
blyat
ah it was fun while it lasted
walk in front of classroom
tralilalila
but then i notice
the it teacher
is holding a paper
with 5 names
he reads from the list
next is maksim
maksim walks in front of class
to my surprise he was
not shocked at all
Later found out he assumed
we’re getting some kind of medal
for being so good at it class
but no, he comes up
everybody is dead quiet
students, teachers
the birds outside
had Stopped singing
and then it teacher
calls up three more names
and before i could say
uh teacher they had nothing
to do with it
it was just me and maksim
there is suddenly five students
standing in front of class
four of them
waiting for what comes next
and me
just confused
so as they started explaining
these were the five people
from my grade
that attended it class
just an hour ago
and then the headmaster
starts talking
completely out of her element
this 60+ year old fossil
ask the 5 of us
who did it
First of all
I knew she had nothing on me
on none of us
but she has found out
that it was one of us
somehow
but nobody budged
nobody said anything
i will not betray my
fellow classmates
You cannot scare me
with your gestapo crap
nobody spoke a word
and then i slowly realise
nobody could have
the 4 other children
in front of the class
probably look at
headmaster like
has she finally gone crazy
what you even talking about?
and then it came to me
It was me.
i had done that
I don't know what i had done
but i had done something
so the headmaster
and it teacher
start going on about
how we broke the law
how One of us will be expelled
for this
how there will be punishment
and consequences
for what we have done
silence
All five of us silent
class silent
rest of class just watch at us
like sheep at a fence
since they had no idea
how a computer even works
for them this was just break
from literature class
for me
this was interrogation
and i am a cold stone wall
you got nothing on me cyka
so they keep talking for a solid
ten more minutes
asking who did it
and why we felt the need
to destroy school property
I do not budge
it teacher goes to explain
that one of us
Did something
that made the whole
school computer system crash
wait so
even he doesn’t know who caused it
and i do not mean just the
beginner pc class
that i was attending
this crashed
every pc
in the whole school
admin pc
headmaster pc
library pc
all the it pcs
even the server
everything went black
i’m there thinking
blin must be a shit system then
and apparently they could not
figure out
how to fix it
because they had no idea
what was wrong
so they came to us to find out
that maybe we
knew how to help
and thus incriminating ourselves
and confessing to the crime
But nothing
headmaster
it teacher and admin
storm out of class
slammed the door
but not before threatening
to find out
Who was behind this
and have them expelled
me standing there wondering if
they really assume
some 13 year old children
who have the knowledge
and the capability
to take down a school
system like that
or did they just need
somebody to blame
so okay they leave
literature teacher pays no mind
probably knows and
cares less about computers than
The headmaster
we all sit back down
and only then i realise
all these four children
had the
trauma of a lifetime just now
and they still had no idea
what even happened
I was the only one
who knew
and only after some time
did i realise that
since i had written this text
in English
and saved this on the server
then the server antivirus
possibly activated
and probably detected it
as primitive threat
and lokced down the whole system
now of course the it guy
could have possibly fixed it
if he knew what he was looking for
But I guess he could not even
possibly
start to imagine
this primitive kind of
cheeki breeki
from some 13 year old children
so the file was on the server
the server was on lockdown
and he had no access
because he most likely
did not configure these servers at all
but since server was down
the whole school it system was down
and that was generally
a bad thing
So I come to school the next day
computers still down
say after that, same thing
and by the end of next week
they had either fixed the problem
or gotten a new server
but what i do know
i never saw that
it teacher ever again
and computer class
was removed
for the next two whole years
and that is the story of how
i singlehandedly took down
The whole school it system
in style
with a simple text file
and got the it teacher fired
and i had just earlier seen
the 1995 movie “hackers”
And let me tell you
doing something like this yourself
even accidentally
100 times more satisfying
oh and i never got caught
and from that day on
I knew I had to become
hackerman boris
computer mastermind
then went to study it in college
working programing for Few years
and Quit to make YouTube
the end good night
stay cheeki breeki