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ctseawa at 03:29pm on 29/07/2020 under system administration
ctseawa at 03:29pm on 29/07/2020 under system administrationWhen I was but a young #sysadmin my boss told me a story of a brilliant kernel hacker (of the good kind) who left a 'gift' behind when he moved on to a new gig. I presume this story wasn't true but it sounds so good I wish it were.
Our protagonist hid a bit of code somewhere in the system that would occasionally print a message on a random (active) terminal saying "I want a cookie." If the person using that terminal typed "cookie" the message would stop and all would be well again for a while.
However, if they didn't type cookie the messages would get more and more insistent, saying things like "I want a cookie NOW!"
Eventually, if it didn't get its cookie, it would crash the system.
They couldn't find the code so they just left standing instructions with all users, if the system (known by then as the cookie monster) asked for a cookie, give it a cookie.
Our protagonist hid a bit of code somewhere in the system that would occasionally print a message on a random (active) terminal saying "I want a cookie." If the person using that terminal typed "cookie" the message would stop and all would be well again for a while.
However, if they didn't type cookie the messages would get more and more insistent, saying things like "I want a cookie NOW!"
Eventually, if it didn't get its cookie, it would crash the system.
They couldn't find the code so they just left standing instructions with all users, if the system (known by then as the cookie monster) asked for a cookie, give it a cookie.
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