Well… I should then confess what I did, many years ago… It is a long story, so please bear with me!
This happened in 1988, in my city of birth (Albacete, Spain). I was in my third year of university (I studied computer science).
That university had been founded only 3 years earlier, and we were still in a temporary campus, some 3 miles from the city, while the main campus was being built in the city itself.
That temporary campus was roughly a half-mile away from a very important air force base (Spanish air force base “Los Llanos”; they had supersonic Mirage fighter planes). One fateful saturday, during a party, a friend of mine who was a sergeant in the base told me: “Oh, by the way, this coming thursday, at noon, don’t be scared if you see that the base goes crazy – We are having a full drill”. At that point, a little lightbulb went “ding” in my head… An idea began to take form…
From monday to wednesday I meticulously prepared what was shaping to be a nice prank… The terminal room we had for our VAX had big windows with a wonderful view of the air base. Some time ago a group of us found out how to send messages and dump files from one terminal to another in such a way that the “Message from Terminal XXX” wouldn’t show.
Anyway… By that fateful thursday, I had everything ready. I went to the terminal room at 11AM, sat in a corner from which I had a good view of the rest of the room, and waited for a suitable victim.
Around 11:45 or so, a new teacher of English (we had to take English language classes) entered the room. He sat one row in front of me, a bit to the right, so I could see what he was doing. He took out of his pocket a little sheet of paper with what appeared to be instructions, and I saw him doing what every newbie did (checking his account, changing his passwords, etc.). After about 10 minutes of observation, I could see that this guy had absolutely no idea regarding computers, and I decided that he was going to be my victim.
I prepared my first file, and when he was busy checking his “crib sheet” I dumped a file on his terminal. The screen was blanked, and the following text (in Spanish, of course) appeared:
"WELCOME TO THE COMPUTER SYSTEM OF THE ‘LOS LLANOS’ AIRBASE
Please enter your password (4 digits):_"
The poor man looked at his screen, did a double take, looked around (I was busy working at my own terminal, of course…) and, after maybe 30 seconds of hesitation, human curiosity compelled him to do what I hoped he would do: He pressed 4 digits at random.
At that point, I dumped the second file on his terminal. Again his screen went blank, and the following text appeared:
"ACCESS GRANTED – MAXIMUM ACCESS RIGHTS.
Please select one of the following ten options
- Green dog
1… (and so on, until 9, each option showing some kind of absurd codename)"
The teacher in question was again taken aback, and it looked as if he was going to call the operator or something… In the end, though, after another 2 minutes or so (by then I was starting to worry that I would run out of time) he hesitantly pressed a digit.
That was it. I immediately dumped the third and final file on his terminal. This is what appeared:
"VERY WELL, SIR.
GENERAL ALERT – ALL PERSONNEL TO TAKE THEIR POSTS.
TARGETS DESIGNATED AND CONFIRMED.
ALL AIRCRAFT ARMED AND READY."
The poor guy was sitting there, looking at his screen in total confusion. There were perhaps 20 seconds of perfect silence, and then…
…Sirens could be heard coming from the base… People could be seen in the distance running around… Supersonic fighters began taking off…
That unfortunate English teacher literally jumped almost to the ceiling and ran out of the room screaming: “OPERATOOOOOOOR!!!”. As soon as he went away, and while the few other people in the room looked at him, flabbergasted, I got to work erasing all traces of what I had been doing.
A few minutes later the poor man came back, literally dragging the operator by the arm, and trying to explain to her that he had accidentally triggered a war. He never lived that down.
This story has an epilogue, though…
Months passed… At the end of the academic year, after all classes and exams were over (and after all the marks of all the students had been confirmed and were fixed), I went to see this poor guy to his office, and made a full confession. I explained that it had been a prank, I told him how I did it, and asked for his forgiveness.
He took it very well, and laughed. I asked: “So… No hard feelings?” “No hard feelings!”, he said.
Three weeks later you had me trying to explain to my mother how come I had a year’s subscription to “Play Girl”.