There was this moment in your college life that you will never forget and will last in your memory for eternity. So if I will going to name what would be that moment in my college life that I could tagged as the most memorable and happiest one it would be when I have my classmates as my friends and spending many hours with them everyday learning, joking, laughing and many more. The friendship that we have started when we were on our 1st and 2nd years in college but it was only in our 4th year that we came up with a name for the group that we have. Actually there was a history on why we called our group as “THE BAND OF BROTHERS” and I’m proud to write in on my blog post the group that became famous on our very own department.
The group Band of Brothers is a group composed of Computer Science (CS) and Information Technology (IT) students from the Institute of Computing department of the University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP). So based on the nature of our course, we need some sort of computers for us to sustain the needs for our subjects like programming. Sadly, majority of us don’t have our own personal computers or laptops so we need to utilize the computer laboratory within our department. So as more and more projects filing up added with some projects from other students who asked our services to create programs for them, our faces has become common scenery inside the computer laboratory. So after our classes, we go directly inside the laboratory starting to rock and roll. But in spite of our background as good students, we are also open on doing silly things and these silly things added to the tight bond that our group already had. But take note our group has no alias yet that time. We never expected that also these things will ignite us to name our group as Ban of Brothers. With that, let me name you what are these silly things that only the Band of Brothers could do.
Hacking of Account using finger speed
Yes you read it right, hacking of account. But before I will put my diploma in danger, let me explain first that this is neither hacking on the database of our school nor confidential data of the administration. The internet laboratories inside the USeP campus are not free as all students are aware of it. Before students can access the web inside the campus they have to validate their id number and use it as their username and password to a log-in system called vaqsys. So if username and password is verified in the server as existed and validated, then a student can access the web for 21 hrs. Per semester but later increased to 50 hrs/semester. So for 1 semester, we are only allowed to use the laboratory for 50 hrs. And this is insufficient for us having to use computer every day. So we have no choice but to look for an alternative to survive in our department. Since we are using the same ID no. format with the other students and many of them are unaware of changing their passwords, so we used that opportunity to have more time inside the laboratory. The technique is using the speed of your finger.
With username and password is the same, then we just needed to randomly enter some series of random numbers and if got lucky, then we can use the computer laboratory without using our own account. That’s why we lasted for 1 semester inside the laboratory even if the number of hours allotted is not enough. But to those lower years of our department who might read this, I’m discouraging you for doing so because you don’t know the consequence of such actions.
Modify IP Address for a Faster Internet Connection
Our school is not the richest school in Davao City; in fact it is one of the schools that offer a very low tuition fee because it is a state university but also one that offers high quality education. Since it is a public university, the facilities inside including the computer laboratories are not that expensive and high technology. There are times that there are no vacant units inside the laboratory since there are only about 30 units that will going to cater the needs of 3000+ students. Not only is the hardware specification suffers but also the internet connections. There are times that internet connection is very slow and took too long to open Google website. So with that, we need to change the IP address of the PC we are using to connect to the internet. We use dynamic IP. But the problem is that network places were disabled on all computers so we need to learn first how to enable it back. Sorry I don’t teach you how to do so for it is not good the computer units inside the lab if done without caution. We usually do it at night where internet down frequently happens.
Bypass Vaqsys for Fee Access
This next thing is the worst thing we have done inside the computer laboratory is to bypass the installed vaqsys server to freely access the computer laboratories. Again, it is not easy to do and I will not teach the younger students in the department. This is also the thing that made us the Ban of Brothers. The story goes like this; the technician inside the laboratory has started to doubt about this problem because some of the units are not functioning already or could not be logged in by other students since the IP that the computer has is now different from the default ones. So when the computer restarts, the network server will not find the computer because of its new assigned IP. So the technician used this computer as a bait to catch who is doing such things inside the laboratory. During that afternoon, there were only 2 of the group who were inside the laboratory and sadly, there is only 1 vacant so I told my classmate Rendell that I will be the one to use the remaining unit. Unexpectedly, he used the bait unit. He successfully logged in to the unit so the technician who happened to be at the server at that time came to Rendell and asked him how did he managed to logged in that unit. Rendell had no choice but to teach the technician how he do it. After an hour of use, Rendell logged out but before he reached the glass door of the laboratory, he was escorted by the technician to the department’s secretary and said “ban this person from using the laboratory. He is now a blacklist student in the laboratory for bypassing the vaqsys logger”. After I heard it, I was so nervous that I logged out my account and went out of the laboratory so that I will not be involved.
But the morning after Rendell went to school bringing letter stating the violation committed and addressed to the dean of our department. We were shocked that our names were in the back portion of the letter. We even had a talk with Rendell on why he included us in the letter. But the friendship prevailed and we voluntarily signed the letter.
After the letter being submitted to the dean, we were all asked to report to the dean’s office and each of us explained what had happened inside the computer laboratory. The dean discussed to us the corresponding punishment of the violation we committed. He even scared us that he will submit our names into the office of the Vice President on Academic Affairs of the university but it didn’t happen because we agreed to serve the punishment to be banned from using the computer laboratory for a month and to render our services in helping the secretary like sorting documents, shutting down the computer units during closing time etc. After that meeting and little sermon inaugurated the official name of our group as THE BAND OF BROTHERS. Since then up to this very moment where majority of us already graduates, we still called our friendship and group that way.
The good thing about the Ban of Brothers was that our bond didn’t end on the 4 corners of the campus or 5 years of college life but it is still continuing and even growing as many alumni of our department wants to include themselves on our group. Also the group is very active on both academic and non-academic bonding like bowling, drinking sometimes, playing computer games, karaoke and many more. Everyone in the group shows sharing to everyone on both material and non-material thing.
That’s why I never regretted the day when I joined this group of people. I’m proud to say that everyone in this group knows how to balance school and socialization. I will never forget everyone who has been part of my daily life in my college days sharing stories, laughter and even love problems. I can say that this group is a true friend for me that they will never live you in times when you need them. Sad to say we need to say goodbye with each other as we depart ways from school to work. I expected that after our graduation; we will now seldom see each other maybe in facebook we can still communicate, but nothing more special and happy if we will see each other soon.
Now that THE BAN OF BROTHERS will graduate after 5 years of staying the Institute of Computing Department, hope that the young ones in our department will show unity with each other, set aside competition and work as a team, be passionate on their craft and most of all, have faith in GOD though I’m not encouraging them in fact I’m discouraging them in doing the above stuffs because it will do no good for all of you. I can’t wait to see the young generation of the Ban of Brothers.
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