The Adventures Of Hax0r Man

Chapter 16

Hax0r Man goes to school

by LateBlt

  It had been many years since The Man Formerly Known As Hax0r Man moved away
from Silicon Valley and into some nondescript place: One of a million small
settlements across the country where burned-out people who have already died
inside go to wait out their lives until their bodies can catch up.
  Although he had no official handle that he went by since he did not go on
any computer networks anymore, he still occasionally thought of himself as
Hax0r Man. If he'd had any friends, they might have either continued to call
him this or quickly dispelled this notion from his mind, but lacking close
personal contact with anyone, there was no one to tell Hax0r Man that he was
no longer a hax0r, and so he occasionally imagined that his life still had
some purpose.
  If you asked him, Hax0r Man wouldn't be quite sure what it was that he did
from day to day. It certainly wasn't hax0ring; people seem to have some
nebulous way of getting along from one day to the next, and perhaps this
human instinct underlies even the instinct for hax0ring.
  An indefinite amount of time had passed when one day, Hax0r Man noticed an
avertisement for a local community college stating that they offered classes
in computer system administration. This didn't sound too bad; like all
intelligent people, Hax0r Man had never gone to a school, finding that he
could learn much more effectively by allowing his mind to pick up information
rather than being hindered by having some instructor or professor to bar his
progress. Nonetheless, Hax0r Man was curious what it might be like to
actually be in a classroom, and a long time ago, he'd been a system
administrator for several years, so he figured it would be a pretty easy
class.
  The class was taught by a woman, which Hax0r Man liked, because back when
he had had jobs, there hadn't been many women who were interested in
hax0ring, and it was nice to see that this had changed since the industry
died. The class was small, but several of the people, like Hax0r Man, had
something of an air of confidence, suggesting they were already relatively
computer-savvy.
  Indeed, when the class began, the teacher treated the students as such.
"This is an advanced class, so I'm going to assume that everyone here is
already computer-literate," the teacher began. "I'm not going to walk any of
you through the basics, so just go ahead and get logged in," she said while
handing each student a piece of paper that had their login and password
information. Hax0r Man restrained himself from frowning with disgust; he had
never liked computer systems that required people to log in, because this
prevented computers from being free since it eliminated the possibility of
anonymity. But Hax0r Man did not want to rock the boat this early in class,
and so he opted to comply.
  As Hax0r Man prepared to log in, he noticed several of the other students
beginning to press buttons on their keyboards. This time, Hax0r Man had a
more difficult time preventing dark emotions from clouding his countenance.
These students had just gotten here and already they were playing games on
the computers instead of going along with the class? It seemed a bit
disrespectful, but then again, the college itself had attached keyboards to
all these computers in the first place; it didn't seem to make much sense to
have gaming controllers plugged into the computers for a system
administration class, but since the college had allowed the keyboards, gaming
during class must be acceptable in the college's eyes, so Hax0r Man kept his
mouth shut and began to open the cover on his computer so he could log in.
  He was peering at the interior of his computer when the teacher came to him
and, in a voice that suggested agitation bordering on irritation, asked him
what he was doing. "I'm logging in," he responded.
  "How are you logging in? You're looking at the inside of the computer."
  "Of course. I'm trying to figure out where the primary input region is. I
don't see a set of switches for entering information into the system, so I
was about to assume that I would have to just toggle a pin by repeatedly
touching it to either +5 volts or ground, but I'm not sure which pin is
appropriate for that purpose."
  The teacher hesitated, fixing Hax0r Man with an expression that suggested
the future held promise of unpleasant events for both herself and for Hax0r
Man. "You don't log in with the computer open," the teacher said slowly and
clearly, almost as if she knew what she was talking about, which was
obviously impossible unless she expected Hax0r Man to delicately insert a
logic probe through one of the small ventilation holes in the computer's
case. "You sit down and you type your username and password using the
keyboard, and then you press ENTER."
  Hax0r Man was flabbergasted, to the extent that he wasn't sure how to
respond to this for a moment. "You encourage using a _keyboard_ to log in?
But that's something that end-users do; end-users use a keyboard, not
sysadmins. Besides, logging in with the keyboard is a security risk; what if
some interloper has installed a key-logging device somewhere on the keyboard
cable, or a memory-resident process that records all keystrokes? They will be
able to record the password."
  "I see you have a good head for security risks," the teacher said
approvingly. "That's good, but for the purposes of this class, please just go
ahead and use the keyboard to log in. We'll talk more about securing your
servers and networks later in the class."
  Fair enough, Hax0r Man thought. He complied and waited for the teacher to
begin her instruction.
  "I'm going to begin by showing you how you can see what processes are
running," the teacher started off. "In this class, our focus is WhizBang OS
4, so processes will be completely different if you're using WhizBang OS 3,
or a competing operating system that comprises the other 0.5% of the server
operating system market. A process is something that goes on inside the
computer. Any time you do something, whether it's clicking on a button or
toggling a check box, you're interacting with a process inside the computer.
To view your current processes, go ahead and start by clicking on the Menu
button, then go to Settings, then open the Administration folder, then the
Advanced Administration folder, then the Extremely Advanced Administration
folder, then the Debugging Tools folder, then the Advanced Debugging Tools
folder, then the Bob, Remember To Remove This Folder Before The OS Gets
Released To Market folder, and finally click on Processes. Now, you want to
be careful when using things in this folder, because it contains some
dangerous tools that you can hurt yourself with. It includes programs that
might display numbers, which I know are scary, but again, we're training to
be system administrators here, so we might have to endure looking at a
numerical figure now and then. Okay, once you're in the Processes window, go
ahead and click on the Show Me My Currently Running Processes button, then
click on the Yes, Please button, then click on the Yes, I'm Really Sure That
I Want To See My Processes And Am Not Afraid Of Them button, then enable the
Yes, I Absolve WhizBangCorp. Of Any Legal Liability Regarding Mental Damage
That May Be Sustained By Viewing Actual Information check box, then finally
click on the No, I Wasn't Joking And Really Do Intend To See My Current
Processes button. This is some pretty advanced stuff, so you better remember
it, because this is how we administer systems."
  After following the teacher's instructions, Hax0r Man noted that he was now
looking at a window showing a list of two items: "Operating system" and "User
shell."
  "Is everyone still with me?" the teacher asked, looking over the students
to ensure that people were indeed still with her.
  "I don't understand," one other student said. "I got scared at the Yes, I'm
Really Sure That I Want To See My Processes And Am Not Afraid Of Them button.
How can I overcome my fear of seeing actual information? I just expect the
computer to take care of everything itself, but now it's almost like I have
to actually understand something about how it works."
  "I understand your fears," the teacher said reassuringly. "Please be
assured that this really is the kind of information employers are looking
for. When you go to a job interview, they'll want to be sure that you are not
afraid to click the Yes, I'm Really Sure That I Want To See My Processes And
Am Not Afraid Of Them button. If you tell them that you clicked on that
button in this class, they will be impressed."
  "I have a question," Hax0r Man said. "All I see is a window with two things
listed: 'Operating system,' and 'User shell.' Where can I see more
information about these processes, such as how much memory they're using?"
  The teacher seemed quite thoroughly puzzled now. "Why would you want to see
how much memory the processes are using? The operating system takes care of
those kinds of details for you."
  "Yeah, but what if you run out of memory, or are almost out? Wouldn't you
like to sort of know about it?"
  "No, because that's something the operating system does internally," the
teacher explained. "I'm sorry, I don't think you're ready for a class at this
level; I think you need to start with the basics. Why don't you go to the
admissions office and sign up for the foundational computer literacy class."
(This sentence was a statement; an order, not a question.) "Classes have just
started, so they'll still let you sign up for it although you'll have missed
the first class meeting."
  And so Hax0r Man found himself in a class for people who had scarcely used
a computer before. The teacher was a friendly man who had encouraging words
for everyone: "Even if you've never used a computer before, don't worry!
We'll have you using the computer like a pro. By the time you're done here,
you'll know the most important things that every computer user must know.
Now, the most important thing that you need to know is how to give money to
companies for products that you don't need, won't use, and which don't
actually do anything anyway. Let's get started on that now! I'd like to ask
you all to open up your web browsers and go to www.whizbangcorp.com. If you
don't know what a web browser is, how to run one, or how to go to a URL, no
problem! I'll come around to each of your desks personally and make sure that
you can complete this step. If any of you advanced users already know how to
do this, just go ahead and the rest of us will catch up with you later."
  While the teacher busied himself with helping some other students perform
this task, Hax0r Man proceeded. He had come prepared for this class; he
really wanted to do well here, so he had brought most of his equipment. He
quickly removed the network cable from the back of his computer, attached his
network signal generator, logic analyzer, and digital storage oscilloscope,
and began sending the network signals that would request the web page. Sure
enough, after just a few moments, he saw the web page appear on the
oscilloscope and on the logic analyzer, a clean series of bits that were the
series of network frames that carried the page information.
  It took a while for the teacher to get to Hax0r Man since several of the
other students had needed assistance in understanding that the word "dot"
referred to a period and that it was really necessary to type "www" and not
"the letter w 3 times" or "triple doubleyou," but once the teacher finally
got to Hax0r Man, Hax0r Man pointed to the oscilloscope: "There's the page."
  The teacher pursed his lips in a way that suggested he didn't quite agree
with Hax0r Man's statement. "Are you sure? The page has WhizBangCorp.'s logo
on it, and 534 buttons saying 'Add to cart.' This screen is just showing a
bunch of wavy lines."
  "The code to represent the buttons is right here. See, here's the start of
the HTML <INPUT> tag that represents one button. The < character is 00111100,
and there's the 0 that is the first bit of the < character, this is the 0
that is the second bit, that's the 1 which is the third bit..."
  "I don't understand," the teacher said. "Why didn't you just type
www.whizbangcorp.com into a web browser and then press ENTER or click the Go
button?"
  "Because that would have been confusing," Hax0r Man explained. "It would
have led people astray and created more questions than answers."
  "How is that confusing?" the teacher wondered. "People do it all the time.
They go to some website using www.domainname.com. It's part of foundational
computer literacy."
  "A procedure like that doesn't provide any insight about what's really
happening," Hax0r Man explained with great patience, since he was beginning
to understand why this gentleman taught the foundational computer literacy
class and not a more advanced class. "All digital logic is a series of 1s and
0s, a succession of voltage levels above some certain threshold and voltage
levels below some certain threshold. Computers do not work by the
manipulation of check boxes, push-buttons, or any other pixel constructs on a
screen. Rather than lending clarity to a process, such constructs create
confusion by fooling people into a sense that computers work in such terms
instead of providing people with the depth of understanding that would be
achieved by understanding the underlying electrons."
  Hax0r Man failed his foundational computer literacy class. It would have
been discouraging, if Hax0r Man had had any courage left to lose. It didn't
really matter. Getting an A wouldn't have changed anything anyway. Hax0r Man
hadn't really taken the class to get a good grade; he'd just wanted to have
some fun and learn some new things, and indeed, Hax0r Man did learn one
important thing from the class: He was not cut out for computers. He really
didn't, and couldn't, know anything about computers at all. Even the teacher,
who had worked with people from all walks of life and had helped all of them
learn to use computers, declared that Hax0r Man was the most hopeless case he
had ever seen; apparently Hax0r Man had some learning disability that
prevented him from understanding computers at even the most basic possible
level.
  And so a former hax0r emerged back into the world from the womb of the alma
mater, to drift to other pursuits, or more likely, the lack of any: He had
forgotten to ask his teacher to show him what subfolder the Show Me A
Worthwhile Use Of My Time And Efforts icon was in.