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⚧️ Alexandra Merideth Erin [she/her]
“I just pushed the Easy button, what security”
“Password was 12345? Amazing, I have the same combination on my luggage.”
“Prepare the Walky’s grades for passing!”
In someone’s office, the password is probably on a sticky note under the keyboard.
In my case it is hidden among 50+ others with haikus, quips, quotes, due dates, math-isms [Creepy < A/2+7], reminders, parts lists and other such ephemera on the window.
Good Luck – Why yes I do use Haikus as passwords XD
Fasten all seatbelts, seal all entrances and exits, close all shops in the mall, cancel the three ring circus, secure all animals in the zoo!
What’s that coming out of her nose?
Spaceballs!
Oh, shit. There goes the planet!
*hacker voice* im in
Damn, you beat me to this gag, I thought my comment was pretty witty until I hit post and then this appeared far above mine
i think i only beat you cause mine was shorter, but yours is indeed better
This may be true, I overdid it
Nah honestly I like yours more, gets the point across quicker
Uh, throught Wifi ? wouldn’t it work from further then ? Well assuming you already know the comp’s IP.
She didn’t know what kind of system it was before she got here.
if it is a local office lan wifi with an easily crackable password (which many are since people don’t change the defaults) and there is no lan security between the different office machines. Then you would have to be close to the wifi. However this would mean the department just has a bunch of computers and they aren’t part of the schools domain requiring real logins to the actual pcs. Also I think the assumption here is they are just in some docs for the particular class and stored on a hard drive and not submitted to the school system yet which might just take final grades not any interim things. The hardest part would be finding the actual document. In truth even if the security of the lan was lax and had no domain and there was no system to enter interim grades, the grades are probably in a document inside of an email system not a hard drive. But in the end *shrug* with the exception of Mr Robot, nothing demonstrates how hacking works correctly anyway. So who cares, the story needed the scene with them sneaking past Sal.
Knowing how lazy some IT departments can be, it wouldn’t surprise me if that server was accessible from the public Internet.
Even jf it isn’t, and the WiFi that Amber’s connected to is relatively isolated, all she needs is a known compromised desktop to RDP into that’s routable to the WiFi and server subnets.
Maybe the system is relatively secure, at least as far as it can be, but the password is taped to the bottom of his keyboard. Or the front of his screen.
WiFi security? I don’t know how that works, I’m just a Comp Sci teacher! Get the IT department to do it!
We don’t HAVE an IT department?? Well, hire someone to set it up!
They want HOW MUCH? Forget that, we’ll just get some seniors to set it up as part of their senior project! It’ll be secure enough, right?
I’m so proud of Walky here! <3
That is an impressive spurt of maturity.
But it comes stright of his self hatred
It’s a +3 Maturity/Honor points plus -5 Self esteem points buff, so I have mixed feelings
Well, he’s always had self-esteem to spare, maybe he can afford to lose some.
I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. When a person improves themselves for the better, it often comes from looking at how they are right now, not liking it, and deciding to change. Walky’s getting a good look at where trying to artificially inflate his ego would take him, and he doesn’t like it. Much better to take the consequences of those actions and try to do better than to live with the knowledge that you’re the sort of person who lies and cheats when things get tough.
Self-esteem that is not actually founded on anything is immensely fashionable, but it turns out to be a very bad thing. It discourages effort, it leads to avoidance of challenges, and it is vulnerable to sudden loss, which leads to many sorts of bad behaviour. Walky needs accomplishments far more than he needs good grades.
Of course, up until the last few weeks Walky had those good grades, those academic accomplishments and he had them without putting any real effort in.
It’s not like being smart and able to do things easily is actually bad and not worth a little self-esteem. I don’t think it’s fair to say his self-esteem wasn’t founded on anything.
self-esteem founded on accomplishments is also vulnerable to sudden loss when your abilities are taken from you.
Very good for him!
Huh? Already done it
Yeah its tempting Walky but do the right thing
….Do the right thing and cheat?
Yes.
In my experience the correct decision is, generally speaking, the decision you want to do the least
What if I don’t want to punt a random child on the Street.
Punt’em anyways.
That’s because if a decision is both correct AND what you want to do, then you do it without any need for soul-searching, so you don’t even think of it as a “decision”.
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because we would rather do almost anything else.
changing grades has gotten so much faster since ferris bueller
She could give him a B and everyone else an A so he doesn’t feel bad.
Teacher apathy can help him get away with it, but surely changing everyone wouldn’t go unnoticed
Congratulations on having a conscience, Walky! Now go study!
Yes. Put in some effort so that you can get reward for effort, which will teach you to make an effort.
Fresher maths isn’t hard if you don’t avoid learning.
This is all bad and I don’t like it. This will come back to bite Walky when he tried his best
Whatever Amber’s changed, it’s only mid-October. So Walky still has to pass exams for the next two months or so, not to mention the final. And if he doesn’t understand the current material, how likely is it that he’ll understand the next two months of material?
Or, maybe two months from now, Amber will hack his grades again.
And Dorothy would know somethings is up. Just saying, little mouse boy.
How would she know?
Joyce?
Since he’s no longer Dorothy’s boyfriend, would Joyce even care enough to tell her? She thinks very little of Wally in this ‘verse.
Walky. *halfheartedly mumbles a curse in autocorrect’s direction*
wwwwwwwaaaaaaaAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLKY (EXPECTATION SUBVERSION HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)
Well, if he started bragging about his grade in math, she’d know. But otherwise I think she’d just assume he passed, maybe learned to study.
Until they took a ‘break’ she was helping him study.
And since then, they’ve broken up entirely. That’s why Walky was drunk, remember?
It’s only been two days.
I know that but the point is, Dorothy knows he’s struggled in math and would be suspicious if his final grade is stellar.
Dorothy was his math tutor for awhile (or was supposed to tutor him), and she knows he’s skipped class at least once, probably more. So at the very least, Dorothy will be suspicious if she finds out Walky’s official grade is anything more than a low B.
Dorothy knows everything.
And that’s not the point – the point is that Walky would do something that would make Dorothy think less of her if she were to find out. And for all his talk about being garbage… he doesn’t want to be a person she would think less of.
less of *him
What the hell, there wasn’t even a laser grid. Movies are full of crap.
Oh, there was a laser grid. And also the whole floor was electrified. Amber is just that good.
Frankly, the laser sharks did not deserve what happened to them.
This is entirely plausible when you remember she has used pliers to zipline onto a moving truck solely to avoid an awkward conversation.
Dangit, let’s see where this goes. I like responsible, non-wacky Walky.
Amber: *closeup of slapping keys on computer* *switch to midshot, speaks computer jargon*
Wally: IN ENGLISH, DAMMIT
Amber: *closeup* I ‘ m i n .
All About The Pentiums! All About The Pentiums! YEAH!
It says here “Novell NetWare”?
That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time…
So you know him?
What’cha gonna do, wanna-be hackers?
Code-crackers, slackers?
Wastin’ time on all the chat-room yakkers?
Chillin’ 9-to-5 at Hewlett-Packard’s?
Workin’ at a desk with a dumb little placard
Payin’ the bills with my m@d programmin’ skillz
Defrag my hard drive for thrillz
Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I’m strictly plug ‘n’ play
I ain’t afraid of Y2K
I hang with Bill Gates – I call him ‘Money’ for short
I call him up at home and I make him do my tech support
It’s all about the Pentiums WHAT WHAT
Still good.
(… you have just reminded me that)
that song is almost twenty years old.
damn.
Panel 3, guessing Sal is on his mind. It’s sweet to see that the stuff she said that he was initially resistant to listening to did in fact sink in.
Very true. He might even see his failed grades as a bonding moment and don’t want to ruin it.
Worked “hard” to get her grades up.
Dunno what the quotes are for, since that’s what she did (yes, I’m aware she tried to get Jason to change her grades, it didn’t work, the grades she got are legit).
Seriously, fuck all these people ignoring that the sex did absolutely NOTHING and that she put in the work.
Like, this was a distinct thing. Jason didn’t change her grades. And I’m pretty sure she only went for the sex option after an attempt at tutoring with Jason went nowhere, it was a last resort. And when it didn’t work, she found a new tutor who did know how to help.
Yeah, the sex wasn’t at their first tutoring session. She’d had at least one before, and it made her grades worse.
Shit, Jason sucks at teaching.
“See, now you’ve got all zeroes… and now you’ve got all hundreds… and now you’ve got-”
“Amber please just put my grade back to what it’s s’posed to be.”
Wow Amber is a good hacker, but yeah should change it back.
Or the school’s network security is crap.
Well Walky, do your morals hold out over it already being done, or is it easier to just go with it now that it’s fixed? I do respect your willingness to accept the consequences of your actions; And if you are willing to actually get help with tutoring and apply yourself, you could just let it slide, ethics be damned. After all if you stray too far the one who did it is also a vigilante, I’m sure she can put you back in line.
Your avatar makes this feel especially judgmental.
Well that was fast. Damn, I think all those movies have lies to me about how hacking works.
We didn’t see all the time Amber invested in her cracking tools.
it me (well, replace cheating with nasty impostor syndrome, but)
Impostor syndrome is the opposite of Dunning-Kruger syndrome.
It’s actually included, it’s just the top half.
(the ones who are smart and aware enough to think they can’t be better than all the rest, vs those who are dumb and/or ignorant to assume that they are)
walky: sal i was going to do something illegal to change my grades but i remembered how hard you worked for yours so i decided not to
sal, frantically pushing jason into a broom closet: uhhh
I wasn’t ready for your comment.
Oh yeah um wow I didn’t stop to think about that parallel.
Jason has nothing to do with her grades improving.
yeah, but she did make the attempt.
And then she turned around and actually worked at it. I’m not trying to blow over what she did, but she HAS since put in the work required for her grades.
She still committed the act though.
And it had nothing to do with her grades improving.
If I broke into a bank and I found out there wasn’t any many in there before I made a getaway then after words win the lottery I don’t think the cops will let me off the hook if they find out it was me even if I tell them ” officer I assure you I did not steal this money.”
Reason why is simple, I still broke into the bank.
This is such a weird comparison, for a number of reasons, but okay…
If you broke into a bank, sure, you’d get arrested whether or not you got any money for it, whatever. So say you served time, then got out and worked hard and earned money. When people asked how you had the money you had, would the answer be “I broke into a bank”or “I worked hard (after a bad decision)”?
Now, the part that I suppose is missing an equivalency in this, again, really weird comparison, is the “serving time” aspect, that there wasn’t really a punishment for Sal. Maybe that’s what makes so many people so stuck on that or whatever. But even without a punishment, it’s still possible to do something wrong at one point and then do something right later.
Oh he doesn’t.
Don’t mean she didn’t try tho.
I never said she didn’t. I said Jason has jack all to do with her better grades.
I don’t think anyone is trying to say he does.
I think they’re only trying to point out that in a question of ethics regarding their math grades,
despite the fact that Sal’s improvement is what’s spurring on his decision to do the right thing,
if she knew what was going on,
she wouldn’t be able to condemn him for considering the easy route to better grades.
Except
A) Sal’s first instinct wasn’t to bang Jason, it was ‘find a tutor’. It was after it was clear Jason wasn’t helping that she decided to bang him.
B) While it’s absolutely not okay that she tried, Sal’s grades are legitimate. Sal’s improvement is her own. Walky’s point about her working hard to get her grades up and resenting him for always having things easier is still true.
You keep saying that as if anyone is saying her grades are not legitimate.
I haven’t seen anyone say that. If they did, I apologize, but it seems like you’re pushing against a point no one is making.
That said, she did have sex with him with the express intention of getting good grades (and scratching her itch). That’s the part people are talking about. And every time you say “yeah but she earned her grades without Jason”, you come off as if you’re trying to deny that part.
Cheating is not Walky’s first instinct, either. If anything, considering that Walky studied with Dorothy multiple times (if not every night recently until the break up), and is only now considering cheating, this would be equivalent to Sal having sex with Jason the first time. Now he just needs a better tutor (and to improve) and the cycle will be complete.
First of all, the idea Sal can’t respond to how she worked hard for her grades except by shoving Jason in a closet and stammering does imply to me that she got those grades via sex which is just not true. Pointing out she got those grades legitimately isn’t denying anything when people are implying she got them via sex.
I didn’t say cheating was Walky’s first instinct. I said Walky’s point about Sal’s improvement still stands.
@ Cyrus – That’s true but the point that it wasn’t ‘Bad grade = try to bang a better grade out of Jason’ still stands.
Not how I read it that at all.
She’d want to hide the fact that she’d tried that at all. I don’t think that implies she didn’t get the grades legitimately.
@BBCC what she can’t respond to is trying to cheat. Since Walky hasn’t actually received better grades, yet since they’re still talking that out, the having better grades part, by hook or by crook, doesn’t apply to the conversation. Only the cheating part does.
You’re leaping to defend an argument no one is making. And by doing do unnecessary, you come off as arguing against the position that is being made, which is she attempted to cheat.
Basically, people are only saying A and B and stopping, while you keep bringing up C and D because you believe it’s implied to go along with A and B, despite not a single person mentioning it in the way you want to defend against.
I don’t agree with you. I never said Sal can judge Walky for cheating or that she didn’t try. But yes, I do think saying ‘Sal frantically shoves Jason in a closet’ in response to Walky saying she worked hard for her grades and that’s why he chose not to cheat is an implication that’s what happened and that’s not true. She did work hard for her grades.
Actually, her first instinct was to not give a damn about her grades. Finding a tutor was a byproduct of trying to get Joyce off her case.
She did take the path of right thing-> wrong thing-> right thing, so I agree that she wouldn’t be in a place to judge the ethics of him considering an easy route. She could still resent it working for him, if it did work, when it didn’t for her.
It does seem like people are discounting her later efforts because she made mistakes on the way there.
It feels like it’s the other way around. It feels more like people are sweeping past actions under the rouge despite not facing repercussions for them.
Like I want deny she accomplished what she set out to do but if you put that ASIDE she can’t say she never cheated she just didn’t cheat successfully.
Hell now that I think about she was more successful doing it the right way then she was successful doing it the wrong way.
Keep in mind doing it the right way with Jason apparently did less than nothing.
The key is to do something small. Just change the F to like a C- or something.
Nothing below a 95 will protect him from Linda’s disappointment.
A though crossed my mind – a pretty sad and awful one: that even if he didn’t get an A or, as you said, 95, as long as it’s better than Sal’s grade, Linda probably will not be disappointed as much as if she found out Sal scored higher grades. I bet she could handle slight disappointment, especially if Walky’d turn it into an excuse of “new material”, “wasn’t feeling well during the test” etc.
Though she might then accuse Sal of cheating, if she scored higher points than Walky.
Would be interesting to see and read, however awful it’d make me feel on the human level.
This scene is straight out of War Games, you know.
Note that the hands on the clock haven’t moved. Amber is so fast she went from “I don’t know what kind of system they have” to “done!” in less than a minute. Really?
Maybe it’s actually that they’re so technically incompetent/slothful that they can’t even be bothered to change a clock battery, let alone use actual security.
(Maybe there’s a Post-it note where anyone can see that says “Admin password is Leibniz1675”)
Maybe she’s had her phone set up to listen in on wifi for the whole term and she’s already got a dozen different passwords from grad students and professors who don’t know that wireless connections aren’t secure?
The IU staff in this universe still thinks WEP is secure.
The clock outside my door in my last academic job would sometimes get stuck at 3:30 and stay there for hours, occasionally making horrible clicking noises.
Just sayin’.
Post-its with passwords are incredibly common still. We were once taken on a tour of a mayor television station and in the cutting room, there was one on each monitor.
I’m guessing that Amber had a pre-written script on her ‘phone to do the job. She only had to add the target name and desired outcome. Then everything happens at the Speed of the Internet at the touch of one button.
Amber is supposed to be good at this. Probably unrealistically good.
As Willis puts it – let Amber be magic at computers!
The entire reason the clock is there is so I can make a visual point of it not changing, demonstrating Amber’s amazingness.
“Do you seriously think I’d explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome?”
And Walky will say “Change it back!”
And I’ll whisper…”no.”
Phone wifi? Isn’t that kind of insecure for what they’re doing?
They just replaced all the TAs, after a sex scandal. All the log in creds are in view from the hall. Probably on a white board.
I meant from Amber’s perspective – doesn’t that leave crumbs?
Yeah, it was quick, but it was also sloppy. Very much a hack job.
They say subtlety is the key, but that really isn’t my type.
Amber’s being a bit oveRAMbitious, isn’t she? Eventually someone’s going to notice Walky’s changed grade, and once they check security footage it’ll all click into place
Security footage? Just how many resources do you think this college puts into their academic buildings? Security ends at the door.
As for the hacking, the required work is almost certainly just putting in passwords (quite likely already written down), then changing entries in a spreadsheet.
As the NetAdmin in a school I have to say that it is this easy. Too many teachers log in and leave it that way and half of them are too into using their own systems and are too lazy to use the BYOD network (secure) and use the open Guest network instead. Easy Linux app and you have all that you need in seconds.
Plus, the password TO the network was probably either “123456”, or “654321”. Or “password”.
It’s always hunter2.
Hm, password. How about…guest? …no way, it can’t be! Jesus Christ that’s like baby-town frolics!
It’s Walky….’s impostor syndrome.
Make her change it back, Walky.
But don’t keep the SS. Garbage Skowl from sailing.
If it’s a choice between cheating and sinking the ship: cheat.
Sorry, Garbage Roof doesn’t allow sudden crises of conscience.
Uuuhh, no. Whatever happens afterwards, hacking his grades is wrong. Period, end of sentence.
That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a champion of justice would do.
Remember, Amber and AG aren’t talking to each other, and Amber is actively trying to prove that AG failed.
Alright, slow your roll there Ozymandias.
Anyways it’s not like changing the grades will solve anything. He’ll still get bad grades the next time he takes a test.
Ambster the Hamster.
*hackster
So what happens now?
Pizza?
I’m very disappointed that no one added an “or subs”.
What’s even the point of writing in a comment section if there are no compulsory chains of running gags?
Compulsory chains of running gags is the forum equivalent of “My god told me he was right so I have an excuse to stop thinking.”
I can decide if your gravatar is perfect for the comment or a bit too on the nose.
Amber sends IU’s IT people an anonymous email explaining just how useless their intrusion protection measures are. In the ensuing panic, she comes forward in person to ‘fix’ the problem that the email has caused and gets a tidy income stream by occasionally blowing a hole in IU’s firewalls and then coming forward IRL to ‘fix’ it, getting both reduced tuition and a string of awards for her services to the school.
isn’t that how white hat hacking works without secrecy
Funny story: I hacked my school’s system when I was 8 (I found my teacher’s user name and password on her desk along with a URL and got curious) and used my evil powers to send a province-wide email with the subject line, “I need better passwords” The body read “I am 8 and I found it” repeated 20 times followed by the word poop about a hundred times (I was 8… not exactly the paragon of maturity).
They never figured out it was me. I was read as a girl so my shit-disturbing nature, my hatred of my teacher at the time and my general tech-savvyness and observant nature weren’t put together to put me on the suspect list. Probably the one and only time sexism helped me out on something.
They did improve the security in the system, though. Before that, apparently the system assigned random alphanumeric codes as passwords and you couldn’t change it so all the teachers wrote the codes down because who the fuck can remember a random 16 character sequence?
Three years later on me and another kid in the class discovered if you hit the “Login” button on the school board’s teacher site a lot in quick succession it would log you in to the admin account and you could change people’s passwords and wreak other havoc. Again, we did nothing more than sending a system-wide email (they still hadn’t fixed the fact that there was a list email that sent it to everyone in the education system in the province) explaining what the bug was and how we exploited it and making fun of the fact that 10YOs could and did break their system and also that it was probably a bad idea to give the admin account access to all student info, all grades, all teacher records, I could go on.
Yeah. Me and that kid were holy terrors in the way only bored smart kids can be. Oh cool this is a tech system! Let’s see if we can figure out how it works. Oh, we broke it. Wait, we broke it?! How?! We’re 10 we shouldn’t be able to break it!
And again, they never caught us. As far as I know, they didn’t even investigate that time, they just fixed the problem. I’m guessing they assumed it would’ve been too hard for actual kids to figure out and never thought that “let’s see if we can break the school board website on recess” would be exactly the sort of thing bored computer-savvy smart kids would do.
Mind you, both of those incidents were late 90s/early 00s, and our school board’s system was about a decade out of date at the time. So… it’s not like breaking the system was exactly hard.
Ah yeah, the good old times of old computers and easy passwords.
Though I gotta admit, I sometimes write passwords down too, so I can kinda understand your teachers there.
It’s probably safer than using one and the same password for all of your accounts. If that gets hacked, every account, mail etc. is compromised. But your written down passwords are only really in danger when someone breaks into your home – and unless you are wealthy, it’s pretty unlikely they’d go through notes. So writing things down might be safer – as long as you don’t have the possibility of losing your password-notes.
Nostalgia-flashback: Recently found the old laptop of my father from the 90s, remembering how I played Rayman on it, and that it just had like 12GB memory space. How did we even survive back then? XD
You had Rayman on your 90’s computer? Jealous. All I had was stupid Lemmings.
Hey, I loved Lemmings, had it on my Amiga 1000.
To be fair, I loved Lemmings as well. But there’s a reason why today Rayman is synonymous with beautiful, hard-as-nails platforming action, and Lemmings have faded into obscurity.
“on” my computer? You mean, as a CD, right?
But yeah – I was lucky that my father was so computer savy and a colleague of his liked games, and didn’t have children, so if he got tired of a game, he’d simply give it to us. Was also how we came to own a PS1 – we didn’t buy it, but my sister and I basically got it as a present as my father’s colleague was done with it.
Can’t remember Lemmings (which means we probably never got it as a present, and as you said, it kinda faded after a short period of time), but I loved playing Simon the Sorcerer. And I remember thoroughly enjoying the pre-installed Flipper.
Later on as I was older and allowed at the desktop PC, I loved playing Crazy Taxi, Black&White and the very first Sims to death. Like, I’d play hours and hours, if allowed to. Still can’t figure out why at one point I stopped playing games for years.
Me too! God I miss that game.
Disneyland?
They go make out.
Not yet, but soon :3
Oh hell I just realized that “not liking Amber back” is still a thing that could happen and it’ll probably be MONTHS before we find out
Idk how these computer grade systems work (my school site was a nightmare and I avoided it like the plague), but honestly if she already changed them, she probably doesn’t remember the grades he actually had before to change them back….
So a bit not picky but… I am not sure how they do it IU but many schools use blackboard to keep track of grades and then post via the schools course system near the end of the semester, or during the midterms. Blackboard requires either the password of a instructor or TA the class. I suppose Amber could have gotten into blackboard bia her own account hacked it and then changed her status to an instructor or TA for that specific clas but blackboard informs the main instructor is informed about the addition of new TAs or instructors the other scenario. is the midterm grades were already posted and Amber changed that, but the original grades were still in blackboard, so at the end of the semester they will calculate the grades and Walky still fails .I doubt she could hack both blackboard set up the necessary conditions for her to be given admin status on a specific course and also hack the schools course system that fast. Even if she could someone will notice. There is the possibility that the instructor or TA keeps the grades in a file outside blackboard. It’s just really hard to believe. it I do appreciate Walky learning a lesson that part was neat. also sorry this was written on a phone.
The screen was tiny and I couldn’t see all the mistakes and trying to scroll up to reread is kind of hassle. once again sorry.
Blackboard is notoriously easy to crack.
So aside from keystroke loggers what other ways are there?
All Amber needs is the password of someone with access to the grades. That’s not that hard to get. 12345, sticky note next to the computer, Prof just stays logged in, she got it a while ago, whatever. Once you’re in, then it comes down to how the grades are stored. Walky already has the hard copy, so that’s good. How long does it take to find the grades? I’d probably expect it to be a shortcut on the desktop, or in recently-used programs. If there is a backup, Amber might be in trouble, but automated backups will probably just clone the change when the backup triggers. If they manually enter the data into 2 files, Amber could easily have found both.
Yes, there’s stuff that would make it harder, especially if the school is running a real program to store and share grades, but even then most of those will make changes relatively easy, just so that no one gets 300 alert emails when the TA goes back and adds the 5 points extra credit from the bonus assignment to every student’s exam.
So yeah, possible with a lot of schools, maybe impossible with certain setups.
The vast majority of hacking is done through social engineering. Stupid quiz memes that require you to “re-log in” to Facebook and then checking your other accounts using variations on your names and screen names with common services and finding where you reused a password, or sending you a link with malware embedded in the page or sending you an attachment with a virus in it… could go on.
Software engineers are getting very good at designing secure software. Unfortunately, humans are really bad at not falling for tricks.
You’re thinking in real world terms here. Amber is a hacker. A fictional one. In fiction this means that if Amber is close to a computer (or sometimes just if she has a wifi signal) she can effectively do anything even vaguely computer-related.
Remember that in this universe Amazi-Girl can fall upwards.
Oh no, is Walky gonna walk back his change of heart and mind?
Just make them Cs
I actually find that lying in beds works better when they’re not made.
Don’t change his Women Studies grade. He needs to learn that one the hard way.
These computers, and the grades they’re worried about, are only for the math department.
Unless Women Studies (I thought it was Gender Studies) is in the same building, it’s not even on the radar for the hacking,
The clock didn’t change, so either it wasn’t noticed or Amber is Just That Fast
Proud of you Walky
Stay strong, and make her change it back!
(Dorothy would proberly be proud to)
“Oh, I’m sorry, Walky! Were all those noises you were making something important? I was busy bending reality to my will but I can reverse it, if you really mean it!” – Seriously, sometimes Amber is so efficient that it frightens me!
College English teacher here chiming in (waves). Changing grades is, actually (sadly) rather easy now–all you need is the teacher’s user name (often the same as their email address) and the teacher’s password. Heck, you don’t even need to go into some “official school computer.” You just change the grades from your home computer… just like teachers do. It’s not rocket science.
In my head, Amber only snuck in there to see if the teacher had the password as a sticky note on their monitor.
“What’s the password?”
“1-2-3”
“That’s the dumbest password ever!”
“Really? It’s the same as the combination on my briefcase!”
*cue “This is supposed to be our glorious leader?” stares from Dark Helmet and Colonel Sanders*
Highschool french teacher here. It’s so easy that grades I gave for exams were changed behind my back in order to increase the percentage of passing students.
Oh and once I found that by copying it in the url bar I could allow php request that was normally forbidden to my access level. Told it to IT and cursus directors. Hasn’t changed since.
Good on you, Walky. Took me a moment to realize that it was Sal you were talking about, not Dorothy, but yeah… What would Dorothy think if she knew you were cheating?
Walky Performs An Impostor’s Syndrome
…I’m not sure it’s Impostor Syndrome if you are by any reasonable metric an impostor.
Impostor’s Syndrome is when you’re qualified and good at something but feel like you’re not actually good enough to be in that position.
I.e. “What am I doing speaking on this panel with all these professional artists? I don’t belong here!” as thought by a professional artist who is just as qualified to be there as anyone else.
So this doesn’t really apply to Walky here? He’s realizing cheating WOULD make him a fraud, not feeling like a fraud when he’s not, which is kind of a whole different thing.
Sincerely, An artist with impostor syndrome.
I assume you’re trusting someone else about that? Because I have never been able to figure out how much I have impostor syndrome, and how much I legitimately don’t belong.
“I know this, its a UNIX system!”
“What on earth is that lizard-thing pacing up and down outside the server room?”
Amber is a Watch_Dog and her Amazi-girl voice is just Aiden Pearce’s voice
Ha, as soon as I saw the punchline that’s all I could think of. I guess Amber just needed to get close enough to the computer to see the magic button prompt that lets her hack anything from a phone
So Amber is going to have low income from an unsuccessful game and would need a sequel to rescue her money?
Yes, Walky, make her put it back. And if she finds another system with a game called “Thermonuclear War” do not play it.
By the way at our university we work super-hard to secure systems, and have frequent security audits, and post-it-notes are still probably the biggest security issue.
Great security systems will always have to contend with the people using them, unfortunately. Sometimes knowing they have a good security system even makes people more likely to be irresponsible.
It’s a common, known, security problem that if you make things too difficult for the users, they circumvent the security. Require complex, frequently changed passwords – users write them down. Because they have to, to avoid forgetting them regularly.
Security is a constant war/balancing act between convenience and inconvenience.
You can have a perfectly secure system (powered off, sealed in concrete, you know how this joke goes), if you accept that it’s completely unusable. And vice versa.
I had a job like that. 5-6 systems I had to use irregularly. Each had different password requirements so they couldn’t be the same and different update schedules. Somewhere around # 4 or 5 I gave up and just kept a list in my top drawer.
My, my, Amber… What would Amazi-Girl think of this criminal activity?
moral of the story? have your epiphany before you do the scummy thing
Goddammit, Amber! You are supposed to be a hero, not a minor criminal! If you punch people for drinking at age 17 and hack computers to change grades, then you are slowly becoming a jerk. Sombra would be proud though.
Amber isn’t the hero. Amazi-Girl is.
Attacking people for drinking was crappy of her/Amazi-Girl all by itself. That’s why there was a whole story arc where she realized she was wrong to go after Sal like that, dropped her unjust vendetta, and gave Sal power over her via that tracking app
This is incredibly minor compared to stalking and assault
“You were the chosen one!”
You were supposed to punch the Blaines, not become one! I loved you, Amber.
Back on topic, Amber should stop dissasociating from her Amazi-Girl persona. It’s going to hurt her and everyone else if she doesn’t recognize her own good and evil. When she saves people, it’s herself, not the mask; when she hurts people, it’s herself, not the mask.
“Amber should stop dissasociating from her Amazi-Girl persona”
…I’m pretty sure that’s not something she has control over. She absolutely *does* need to stop viewing Amazi-Girl as the Good One and Amber as the Bad One, and realize that neither is all good or all bad, but even that is no small feat
“Amber should stop being mentally ill.”
Much like Ruth should stop being depressed.
And Billie should stop being an alcoholic.
It’s not good for them.
“okay, maybe just give me a C- then, split the difference…”
“I said change it back,”
Anyone else notice that when Amber’s in the midst of doing something bad, she looks a little extra Blaine-y? Like, look at those eyebrows and that gaze in panel 1.
That looks like a look of concentration to me.
As someone who works near school data.
I sincerely doubt she was able to navigate the cluster mess of on board school grades that quickly…
Unless she’s been in there before…
She really IS Batman.
aw I’m proud of himmm