Forget Perl. Just reset his login shell to /usr/games/wumpus.

• Email his work address at random times that his password was found to be insecure and that he needs to change it in N days or he'll be locked out. Using Mail::SMTP, you can spoof every single header, making it impossible to backtrace.
• Do the above, but put a bunch of ^G's in. (A college coworker of mine did that to a friend who opened his email in the middle of a class. *grins*)

Do the above, but put a bunch of ^G's in.

You could take this evil one step further and incorporate an Audible Code Separator in perl scripts - A search-and-replace of semi-colons with CTRL-G's in a script file with the single BEGIN block outlined in the above node could make for all sorts of fun in code review.

 

perl -le "print unpack'N', pack'B32', '00000000000000000000001011000010'"

One of the simplest one I used long long ago was to alias a bunch of common commands like this:

alias ls='echo "This program requires Microsoft Windows..."'
alias cd='echo "This program requires Microsoft Windows..."'
alias vi='echo "This program requires Microsoft Windows..."'
# Any other programs you can think of

alias unalias='echo "This program requires Microsoft Windows..."'
alias alias='echo "This program requires Microsoft Windows..."'
[download]

Make sure alias is the last one :)

Of course it is trivial to get around by using a full path to the program you want to run, but it usually gets a laugh and the odd time it stumps someone for a while...

You could easily wrap in in a loop read through /bin and /usr/bin and alias every command if you wanted :).

Here's a couple techniques I used to employ when having fun with a fellow coworker. One requires X being the windowing client, but the others are sufficiently "entertaining" IMHO :-)

• (requires X and access control enabled if ran remotely) Make a perl script to use xset(1) for alternating the mouse acceleration from 1/1000 (incredibly slow to go across the screen) to 10000 (move a quarter inch and it's gone!). Have the script fire off randomly and sleep for up to 3 or 4 minutes then reset mouse speed to "normal". Having the script swap buttons (or make all the "left" one) as well is always a nice touch.
• A perl script that'll randomly choose a printable character and use stty to remap that key to the line kill for the youth's terminal(s).
• Make replacement versions of common commands (I prefer 'ls') that are a bit sassy. For example, every N times ls is ran, have it refuse by saying something like "nah, use your memory!". Bonus points if he does it by command aliasing and then grabs the type, which, and whence commands to make the new versions tougher to track down (obviously he'll need to stealth in the aliasing).

Internal compiler error: modulus segmentation beyond dangling pointer. Recompile with RTYPE_PRUNING=3?

Maybe it could get more cryptic or introduce more humorous errors over time. I like having something filter the shell too. Maybe make the 'z' key not work 10% of the time. It could take days before they understand the problem. They'll be swapping keyboards and all kinds of good stuff!

Just be sure you do a good job so they don't figure it out really quickly :)

(Bizzare C Compiler Error)++, though I suspect there is a compiler out there that actually has such an error message.

----
: () { :|:& };:

Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated

It's not Perl, but you could always change his shell to the New Adventure Shell. It makes your shell act like a text adventure game. Or maybe the MUD-shell, which is in Perl.

1. Randomly selects a shell from the list of supported shells on your system and exec's to it.
2. Checks the uid and only does this to his ID.

2) As suggested by others, use a wrapper to introduce funny messages in place of normal commands. My favs:
"I'm sorry <username>, I'm afraid I can't do that." <username> = dave
"System shutdown in 5 seconds... log off now"

3) alias ls with ls ../ (think about it)

Get your resume ready, as you may be fired over too much stuff like this... ;-)

#!/usr/bin/perl
eval pack("h*","5687563602177782b696c6c602d21302d21392");
[download]

Of course you better not play stupid tricks this way on any box I admin. Accounts are not to be shared. And if I need to spend time fixing someone's account, that time will be charged to the budget of your department/group/section whatever.

Abigail

Not to mention that in many corporations that type of "play" is abuse and a reason for dismissal -- so if you have any body out gunning for your job, it places you in an awkward position. Also as a system administrator, you are trusted with executive level private data many times, do you really want to be associated with pulling pranks on your machines -- how trustworthy are you representing yourself to managment?


-Waswas

The fact is this is a sun box that I run in my cube that is not associated with any project ( except my own ) and I open it up to other users to learn unix, or to test software without risk. The fact is that these pranks have accelerated the education of many people. Especially of the 'youngster' and the 'old fart' mentioned in this node.

coreolyn

[Not Perl] Install VNC on the victim machine, remote in, type the odd character at critical times (password input, command line parameters), and have a stealth mouse war.