IT Pranks

I am in a IT class in high school and we use Labsim for our A+ training. We have a computer lab, and I wanted to know some pranks I could pull on my friends. Some pranks I have administered or received are changed passwords, changed backgrounds, shortcuts to shutdown.exe, and Remote Desktop Connectio to force log off and change account settings. I was wondering what are some pranks I could do to my fellow class mates when not studying.

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Asif Dasl

Post-it note under the mouse!

aftereffector

You can do a lot with RDP and SSH if you have some time. If you get access to their machine, it's always fun to screenshot their desktop, replace the background with the screenshot, and hide all their icons. That's a classic...

If you ever get somewhere where they use CACs or other smart-card-based PKI, a piece of clear tape on the back will often prevent it from reading.

ptilsen

I used to use Psexec to kill my roommate's game executable back in the day if we were playing games and he was winning. Not that I'm a sore loser; it just amused me.

I love to write a batch script that calls itself recursively with no stop condition. It doesn't even need to do anything, though that makes it even better. Drop it in startup and wait till the reboot for the fun. If it's someone particularly unsavvy, don't have it call itself, but have it change a desktop background or open a web page or program on every startup. That's good, too. Be sure to hide the background image and have the script copy it to the path to which it points the file so the victim can't delete it.

There's always the classic of plugging a wireless mouse in and moving their cursor randomly.

And never, ever forget Shift + Alt + arrows rotate screen (where supported).

Priston

depending on the network setup you can remotely shutdown your friends computers with shutdown /m and do it with a time-out period with /t
There is also a way to open and close cd-rom drives over the network but I can't remember how.

ScrawnyRonnie

I got my a co-worker's computer and started his messenger service. When he got back, I sent a message to his computer in the cmd prompt saying "I need to see you in my office. -Deb". He walked into our boss's office wondering what she wanted. They quickly figured out it was me messing with him

Edit: Another one I remember doing. Plug in a wireless mouse receiver into the back of their computer. Don't overdo it, but slightly move the mouse every minute or so and watch them wonder what is wrong with their mouse.

nestech

TByrd450 wrote: »

I am in a IT class in high school and we use Labsim for our A+ training. We have a computer lab, and I wanted to know some pranks I could pull on my friends. Some pranks I have administered or received are changed passwords, changed backgrounds, shortcuts to shutdown.exe, and Remote Desktop Connectio to force log off and change account settings. I was wondering what are some pranks I could do to my fellow class mates when not studying.

This is a good one. Press and hold ctrl + alt + the up or down arrow buttons and at the same time. The screen display will rotate. Repeat the step to correct the problem.

jmasterj206

At one job we used to take a screenshot of their current desktop and then make that their background while hiding the desktop icons. It never got old watching them trying to click on the pictures. At that same job we ran a wireless keyboard off of our bosses computer and would randomly hit ctrl, alt, delete and lock it on him. He was pretty close to pulling out his hair.

colemic

ptilsen wrote: »

I used to use Psexec to kill my roommate's game executable back in the day if we were playing games and he was winning. Not that I'm a sore loser; it just amused me.

I love to write a batch script that calls itself recursively with no stop condition. It doesn't even need to do anything, though that makes it even better. Drop it in startup and wait till the reboot for the fun. If it's someone particularly unsavvy, don't have it call itself, but have it change a desktop background or open a web page or program on every startup. That's good, too. Be sure to hide the background image and have the script copy it to the path to which it points the file so the victim can't delete it.

There's always the classic of plugging a wireless mouse in and moving their cursor randomly.

And never, ever forget Shift + Alt + arrows rotate screen (where supported).

And when they say WTF, you can always suggest they turn their monitors upside down.

SteveLord

Pop up the keys on a keyboard and switch them around. I did this to someone using an identical keyboard (so I could put his normal one back right away afterwards) and he put his password in wrong a few times before he had noticed. "Who gave me this polish keyboard?!?!" was what he yelled out.

PurpleIT

aftereffector wrote: »

You can do a lot with RDP and SSH if you have some time. If you get access to their machine, it's always fun to screenshot their desktop, replace the background with the screenshot, and hide all their icons. That's a classic...

A variation of that is to put an error message in their wallpaper then watch them try to click OK.

DevilWAH

At my first IT job I first came across Psexec

So i wrote a script that would take a user name or PC name. unmute there speakers and turn it up to 100% and then play "THE COMPUTER SAYS NO!" on a loop in a hidden window.

Was great in the end i could run it and have a list of names, press the number next to the name and off it went. great for when a user came in asking them for help, and watch them scrabbling for the mute/volume key.

DevilWAH

jmasterj206 wrote: »

At one job we used to take a screenshot of their current desktop and then make that their background while hiding the desktop icons. It never got old watching them trying to click on the pictures. At that same job we ran a wireless keyboard off of our bosses computer and would randomly hit ctrl, alt, delete and lock it on him. He was pretty close to pulling out his hair.

oh yes psexec, copy batch script over and run it that locks the screen every 5 minutes, run and watch

Psexec is the most fun tool if you have access rights. I sure powershell can be just as much fun if you know it well.

TByrd450

DevilWAH wrote: »

At my first IT job I first came across Psexec

So i wrote a script that would take a user name or PC name. unmute there speakers and turn it up to 100% and then play "THE COMPUTER SAYS NO!" on a loop in a hidden window.

Was great in the end i could run it and have a list of names, press the number next to the name and off it went. great for when a user came in asking them for help, and watch them scrabbling for the mute/volume key.

That sounds awesome. Do you know the script used. I'm abou to take my A+ soon and I don't know how to write scripts or do anything you described. Could you please go in greater detail

LeifAlire

shutdown.exe /L in the Startup menu

Qord

I'm a huge fan of switching the "N" and "M" keys. Subtle, but fun. You need patience with this one, but it's definitely rewarding.

Danielm7

I almost forgot about psexec, used to have a lot of fun with that.

SteveO86

It's always to connect to someone else's computer and eject the CD-ROM drive!

Of course that maybe more than 10 years, can you still connect to other Windows PC's through Compmgmt.msc? Do computers still have CD-ROM Drives lol

Kelkin

Back in da day when I was just a network admin working beside Service Desk folks.. we use to play pranks alot on each other..

Like a small program that caused your icons to move when you tried to click on them.
or if they had speakers.. remotely changed there volume to max and startup sound to "who let the dogs out" or sometimes less tasteful

or take a screenshot of there desktop and remove the icons and set that screenshot as there desktop background..
or setup a scheduled event to disable and enable there network port every 5 mins..

One time we played a prank on the Local Cisco SE.. he came in to do a demo and he used the companies "guest" network.. instead we ran his connection through our lab F5 and everytime he tried to pull up a site with Cisco's logo it was changed to Juniper..

Chivalry1

Ahhhhh....some of these are classics!! For the Unix Machines {I.E. Macs, Linux} I wrote a BASH script that I could send remotely via SSH script that would randomly open the shell on there screen and say "You are hacked..enter your credit card number!!", then it would quickly close the shell.

My favorite was really quite simply and quick on the Windows machines. I edited the host file to commonly visited websites {Microsoft, Google, Bing, Gmail} to not so nice websites.

LMAO!!!.. these IT Admins with CCIE's, CISSP & MCSE would starting looking at corporate DNS, run network scans for viruses and packet sniffs, start analyzing the IDS/IPS and Firewalls. After they have spent 2 hours troubleshooting all of that....I would just tell them maybe it something with your host file.

DevilWAH

TByrd450 wrote: »

That sounds awesome. Do you know the script used. I'm abou to take my A+ soon and I don't know how to write scripts or do anything you described. Could you please go in greater detail

A bash script is just a list of commands in a text file that you rename ".bat"

to begin with it was just psexec, and two little executables called "sound.exe and vol.exe"

with Psexec you can pass switches like

psexec -i -c \\pcname "c:\temp\vol.exec 100"

this would copy the file vol.exe in you local temp directory to the remote computer and execute it, (ok the syntax might be slightly wrong its been a while)

so a batch file that has

psexec //pcname -c "c:\temp\sound.exe -unmute"
psexec //pcname -c "c:\temp\vol.exe -100"
psexec //pcname -c "c:\temp\sayno.wav"

in a batch file will run psexec (google internal tools to get a copy of psexec) three times for the three different functions. However it will be hard coded to a single PC unless you update the batch file.

look up batch scripts (although they are a little out of date now) and you will see its easy to ask for a varible at run time to replace the PC name or sound file.

Oh you do need admin / log in permissions to the remote PC for it to work.

Oh for a really simple batch script open notepad and type paint.exe.
close it and rename the file to paint.bat
double click it and you should find paint opens.

wiki has some basic script examples you could build from if you wanted. Batch file - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ajs1976

BSOD screen saver.

jibbajabba

Made a screenshot of someone's desktop, set it as background picture and disabled the actual desktop through the registry ...

Fun fun fun

DevilWAH

ajs1976 wrote: »

BSOD screen saver.

another sysinternal great

of course again with PSexec tools you can remotely changes some ones desktop image

or open up IE with a NSFW link.

jibbajabba

ajs1976 wrote: »

BSOD screen saver.

nonsense

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ACPI]
"Start"=dword:00000004

Get's yourself a real one upon reboot - restore last known should fix it

On a sidenote

vsish -e set /reliability/crashMe/Panic 1

Forces a PSOD in ESXi

sthomas

Some of these suggestions are pretty harsh. As a Systems Administrator at a School District I am disappointed in all of you! j/k

jibbajabba

I think most of us have been on either end of the prank

f0rgiv3n

I once telnet'd into our email server on the SMTP port and sent an email from my boss, to my coworker stating "We need to talk." And then did the reverse, from my coworker to my boss "We need to talk".

I thought it was hilarious, they did not

tpatt100

I only did it back in my Help Desk days which was the usual ejecting CD Rom drives or placing IE shortcuts in their start ups to lame websites.

tpatt100

f0rgiv3n wrote: »

I once telnet'd into our email server on the SMTP port and sent an email from my boss, to my coworker stating "We need to talk." And then did the reverse, from my coworker to my boss "We need to talk".

I thought it was hilarious, they did not .

We had a sys admin years ago that sent a netsend to somebody they knew saying something kinda offensive as a joke but got the user name wrong by one letter and it went to a government employee. I found out because I got a call from the employee saying they had something popup on their screen and they were too embarrassed to repeat it to me, I connected to their PC and it said "sup beyoch". They made the admin go up and apologize and I bet he was glad nothing serious came from the incident.

olaHalo

I used to make batch files and set them to run with Task Scheduler on coworkers PCs.
Theyd just open random webpages or restart the PC etc. It was funny to watch.