[dangrossman]

The very first time I tried Linux, after spending an entire day downloading Slackware, copying it to a set of install diskettes, partitioning a hard drive and installing it, I set my root password to "12345".

I was around 10 at the time, 1995 plus or minus a year or two.

After booting for the first time, I dialed up AOL and logged on to a Linux-topic IRC channel. I talked to the strangers there about how excited I was to try Linux for the first time.

I quit my IRC client and typed "ls". Command not found. I tried "uptime". Command not find. "cd". Command not found.

While I was on IRC, someone had telnet'd in, guessed my stupidly simple password, and rm -rf'd the whole hard disk. I cried over breaking the computer and had to be consoled by my parents. I never used a common password again.

I now miss the days when hackers and viruses alike just wanted to delete your files or print messages on your screen. Secretly taking over your still-functioning system is much nastier.

[bobf]

I had a similar experience around the same age and year, except it was with FreeBSD. I got it to boot once, then tried to change the bootloader setup to allow dual booting with the existing MS-DOS 5.x installation. You can imagine how well that went, as a 10 or 11 year old with no previous FreeBSD/Linux experience. My parents were not quite so understanding about why I had broken their $3000+ computer and lost all their files. It took a few days, but I eventually managed to fix the MBR by reinstalling MS-DOS. Imagine my surprise when I booted into MS-DOS and found out that the files were still there!

[saiko-chriskun]

LOL I did the exact same thing with my parents' computers back then >:D

[asveikau]

Nitpick: `cd` would not get command not found because it is a builtin, and must be so since an external program can't update the working directory of its parent process.

[jrockway]

Heh, I also destroyed my Linux system at about that age. "swapon /dev/hda". Oops.

[kondor6c]

Wouldn't you need to initialize the partition with 'mkswap'?

[jrockway]

Apparently not. Try it :)

[kondor6c]

sorry for the old post, but I did try it and it refuses to activate swap on a non-swap enabled device. Now I assume that you had done that a while back (judging from the hda device) so there are probably now some extra safety checks (good thing too!) :-D well I'm sorry for your loss long ago :-)

[root@localhost ~]# swapon /dev/sdb

swapon: /dev/sdb: read swap header failed: Invalid argument

*edited the formating

[brownbat]

Oh don't worry, now they're deleting your files and extorting you to restore them.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/11/cryptolocker-crew-ratchet...

Wanton destruction like the old days, now fueled by profit motive.

[eli]

It might be true that its use is on the rise, but that's an old idea. I encountered "ransomware" in the wild in the late 90s/early 2000s.