[qingcharles]

When I was in jail they had kiosks to order commissary snacks. I managed to take advantage of a race condition to crash out of the app onto the desktop. Typing was a pain because you had to use the on-screen keyboard, and I would only have a few minutes before a crowd of detainees would appear and start squawking excitedly, hoping that I could access their Facebook accounts for them, and drawing the attention of the guard.

(there was a lot of bugs in the kiosk, for instance, no bounds checking on most inputs)

[hn_throwaway_99]

I love reading comments like this, but I admit I'm always pretty curious how the poster ended up in jail. Care to share what your conviction was for?

[Crosseye_Jack]

They right clicked and pressed view source. I’m just surprised they let them out after committing such an heinous act…

[DaiPlusPlus]

You joke, but something like that is a terrifying possibility considering where things like device-attestation is headed, combined with a lack of understanding of the technology, especially the local level (e.g. I'm sure probably most of us here on HN got into trouble in elementary-school for "breaking the computers" or similar - I don't expect a local provincial magistrate to be any more understanding-of-things than the fuming head at my school)

[Crosseye_Jack]

Oh, I joke because I know we are not that far away from it…

https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/15/f12-isnt-hacking-missouri-...

https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/pen-test...

[devmor]

I received a 3 day In School Suspension during the 7th grade for "breaking" one of the computers in the library/school computer lab. What I had done was change the color scheme of the task bar/windows.

Made even more ridiculous by the fact that the computers had ephemeral drives and would re-image when they were restarted.

[gmerc]

I wrote a dos cli simulator that simulated an empty PC and added it to autoexec.bat.

The lab teacher didn’t figure it out and wiped every desktop and reinstalled deleting everything on them.

I felt slightly bad. Slightly.

[devmor]

I wish I was that clever in school! The most actual mischievous thing I did was task schedule my boss's computer to change the desktop background to a photoshopped image of my head on Miley Cyrus' body every day on my last day at work.

[shepherdjerred]

> I'm sure probably most of us here on HN got into trouble in elementary-school for "breaking the computers" or similar

Oh, so, _so_ many times

[genewitch]

I got expelled from high school for holding down shift while booting a windows machine, pre -98. Also suspended (the next year) because someone edited a teacher's gradebook in the "Mac lab" that he left open on an SE; of course the hacker that was expelled the year before obviously edited a single grade for someone they didn't know in a teacher they'd never met.

And I went to a Tech. Magnet. HS

[dmd]

In 1991 I got suspended from middle school for "putting a virus on the computer so it would not turn on".

(What I actually did was turn off the power switch on the power strip, rather than on the computer.)

[qingcharles]

In 1988 I got in terrible trouble for changing the BIOS settings and "destroying a computer" at my school. I had wheedled all the admin passwords out of the computer teacher's son and then used them to cause all sorts of "fun."

I think I had simply changed the computer so it booted from a different device, and it would have taken about five seconds to change it back...

[qingcharles]

I should make a clarification: "jail" in the correctional context refers to pre-trial detention, as opposed to "prison" which is post-trial conviction housing. This distinction doesn't happen in the real world :)

So, to answer you question, I did 10 years locked up without conviction. No trial yet. Maybe one day?

[hn_throwaway_99]

Wait, what? This wasn't in the US I presume then?

[qingcharles]

Yes. The USA allows indefinite detention pre-trial when you can't afford your bond. I really shouldn't have done a day in jail, but I didn't have access to my bank account or my possessions so I couldn't get any money together to get myself out.

I actually did over 8 years straight before I managed to put the money together from the inside. Then when I got out I made an "lol" post on Twitter because the local sheriff's dept was coming to my house every single day and arresting me, dragging me out onto the street and then letting me go. So they took me to jail again for the Twitter post and denied me bail on it since it was such a dangerous post I guess /s.