Rogue Computer Mouse January 25, 2005
I pulled the greatest prank today. It all happened in computer networking class, where joseph sits to my right, and tyler sits to the right of joseph. To my left was an empty computer that hasn’t been used all year. Our computers are all dell, with infrared USB mouses, and two USB ports on the front of every computer, under the panel that says Dell.
I reach to my left, and with a lot of effort, pulled the USB plug of the mouse out of the unused computer. While the dudes to my right were distracted with something, I quickly opened up Josephs panel, shoved the mouse cable into the port, and closed the panel on the cable. Then I shifted my keyboard over the wire, so it would be hard to notice an extra cable running into his computer.
Since its USB, it instantly became active, so there were two mouses controlling the pointer on his computer. I had my controlling mouse to my left, so at first, all I did was shift it a bit at a time to the left, either with my hand or with my elbow.
Joseph stared at his screen for the longest time.
I noticed him staring and I asked him what was wrong. He muttered that his pointer kept shifting to the left. Tyler and I started guessing that his laser thing on the bottom of his mouse was probably messed up. I guess he accepted that response, so he kept reading his work. I then started to lean, with my arms crossed on the desk, so that my right hand wouldn’t be seen while I could fully control the mouse.
First I went and moved the pointer all over the screen. Then, without looking, I quickly moved to the upper corner and clicked, closing the window he was reading. He still didn’t say anything, and just sat staring at his screen. I kept using the best of my marvelous acting talent, and curiously asked him what was wrong, and tried to help him troubleshoot.
Finally, I started fully clicking around like a madman, and randomly highlighting the text on his screen, until Tyler and Joe were convinced someone had hacked the computer. Joseph went over to a text box at the top of his screen, and typed “Hello?”.
I took advantage of the situation.
The cursor then “mysteriously” went over to what joseph typed, and slowly moved across it, as if the person were reading it. Joseph and Tyler suddenly went, “WOW…!” and had amazed looks on their faces. Joseph became excited and started typing some more.
“Can you read this? Put mouse at top for yes, down for no”. I casually put the mouse up to the top of the screen. Joseph and tyler wowed some more, and became even more excited. I noticed a part of the article joseph was reading said “U.S. Department of Defense”, so I highlighted that part of the page with the mouse. Joseph then typed “Are you saying you’re from the department of defense?” I moved the mouse up.
Joseph was really enthusiastic about his new ebuddy controlling his computer. He went and typed “Want to play a game?”. I asked Joseph what he was planning to play with the hacker. He said zookeeper, which was the flash puzzle game we used to play a lot, which he saved onto his computer. The cursor moved to the top of the screen.
After Joe opened up the game, the cursor went over each option on the title screen, and the dudes watched it with hawk eyes, waiting for it to do something. Finally, the cursor went and closed the window the game was in.
Joseph typed into the box, “Have you seen the movie sphere? This reminds me of it”
I said to joseph, “Dude. Just restart your computer… ” He replied, “There’s a crazy guy controlling my computer!”, or something to that effect.
Finally, I right clicked the curriculum page, and opened the source code of the site. I slowly mouse wheeled and scrolled down, and then tyler got panicked. He said, “Joe. Just close it. Close it! You should go tell the teacher.” Joseph told him, “Just go tell her.”, so Tyler got up and started walking over to the teacher, to report the crazy hacker that was controlling josephs school computer.
Thats when I decided things had gone on far enough (I didnt want them to pee their pants out of excitement or fear) , and I called out for tyler to come back, and sat up to show them the mouse I had, and I moved it around for them to see how I was the crazy psycho hacker they had played with all period. They suddenly realized what a genius and talented actor I am, and everyone had a good laugh.
Most pictures of the prank taken was during the period, when they believed someone was controlling the computer. There is a picture of them pointing at the possessed cursor, and joseph has a pondering look on his face.
Looks like this new semester is going to be fun.
I got a personal letter from ITT Tech. I guess my career is set now. I’m so happy.