[lordelph]

Way back in 1988, I was in the sixth form of a school in the UK (that's for students aged 16-18). We had a bunch of BBC Micros networked together using Acorn EcoNet.

Very detailed manuals for everything were just on a shelf in the classroom.

I forgot how we did it, but we wrote something that gave us access to the place where the passwords were stored on the master server. I also forget why we did this, but somehow we accidentally deleted the master password file.

We were still logged into the system, but panic set in. We logged out...

...and of course we could not log back in. Nobody could log in.

We owned up right away. The difference between mine and the OP's story is I just had a very stern talking to from the headmaster and strongly worded letter home! He did admit he was quite impressed but suggest we channel our talents into less destructive projects.

Network was down for a day while it was completely reinstalled!

[kwhitefoot]

Even further back, as third formers in 1968 or 1969 there were no computers in schools but we were keen chemists and discovered ammonium iodide.

As we were the best students we had access to the chemistry lab store room, so we made a big batch and painted it everywhere (under chairs, blackboards, waiting areas outside classrooms, etc.). It was hilarious. Again all we got was a stern talking to and a mop and bucket, and told to clean it up.

I suppose that today anything to do with explosives would be taken too seriously to be fun.

[femto]

I recall the same type of network and exactly the same situation here in Australia, with a student locking everyone out. From memory, despite appearances the password system was essentially an honour system, involving one computer being the "master terminal" (try keeping kids away from that keyboard) and even then there being ways around it. I think the offending student got a stern talking to and a day off school. We taught ourselves quite a bit on that network, and the teacher in charge of it was quite happy to admit that his knowledge could take us only so far, before self-learning had to take over.