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A prank played on me

tunoku

tunoku

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 16, 2011
6
0
I wasn't super sure where to ask this question. So forgive me if it's in the wrong forum.

but.

I left my macbook alone for a minute at college and now every hour my audio is turned up all the way and my computer starts telling a joke, out of a list of jokes that they wrote out. Not really sure how to turn off what they've done, hopefully someone knows of whatever they've done.
 
I've never heard of this happening at all, but I have to say it sounds funny. Have you tried restarting?
 
it was for a little bit but it's drudging on now, and my friend won't fix it until monday.

but yeah I've tried restarting it, it was turned off after class that day and turned back on when I got home, yet it persists.
 
tunoku said:
I wasn't super sure where to ask this question. So forgive me if it's in the wrong forum.

but.

I left my macbook alone for a minute at college and now every hour my audio is turned up all the way and my computer starts telling a joke, out of a list of jokes that they wrote out. Not really sure how to turn off what they've done, hopefully someone knows of whatever they've done.
Click to expand...

Explain where joke messages are coming from ? Is there some kind of program that pop ups that tell the joke?
 
Sounds to me like a launch daemon was created to run every hour. Incredibly simple to make. Perhaps post a list of files in /library/launch daemons, ~/library/launch daemons...
 
in my launch deamons I have.


com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist

com.apple.third_party_32b_kext_logger.plist

com.logmein.hamachi.plist

org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist


before I do anything with timemachine I'd like to figure out what happened so I can be mad at them later :)
 
Isn't there a list of jokes in OS X somewhere? Most likely it was a script that was set to read one of them using OS X's text-to-speech software and turn the audio up.
 
iThinkergoiMac said:
Isn't there a list of jokes in OS X somewhere? Most likely it was a script that was set to read one of them using OS X's text-to-speech software and turn the audio up.
Click to expand...

This is possible. However if it is just a regular script, it would need to be loaded into the startup list to survive a restart. Perhaps checking the startup list may shed some light? Also do like the other one said and watch activity monitor when it happens.

There is a file of jokes in the hidden emacs folder. Cant remember its exact location atm.
 
yes hopefully something shows up in my activity monitor, almost another hour. I can't fake it out either and set the clock manually to a minute before an hour and get it to activate either, I have to wait out an hour.
 
tunoku said:
yes hopefully something shows up in my activity monitor, almost another hour. I can't fake it out either and set the clock manually to a minute before an hour and get it to activate either, I have to wait out an hour.
Click to expand...

If it was scripted it is probably set to a count of 3600 seconds...
 
man, didn't see a thing when the hour mark hit, but it did activate again.

I just can't find anything in the activity monitor that looks suspicious. Gosh.
 
mmmm.

my friend setup a crontab if anyone wants to do this to there friends. :D

didn't know how to turn it off or how to set up crontabs myself, I knew they existed though. Sucks.
 
tunoku said:
mmmm.

my friend setup a crontab if anyone wants to do this to there friends. :D

didn't know how to turn it off or how to set up crontabs myself, I knew they existed though. Sucks.
Click to expand...

Open up a terminal and type crontab -l

It should list anything for your current login.

If there is something you can use crontab -e to modify it. Careful though if you use this method to edit it as it uses the vi editor and if you're not familiar with it, it might be a bit confusing.

Basically what you'll have to do is move the cursor to the line that you want to delete then hit "dd". That should delete the line. Then hit ":qw<enter>" which should save the file.
 
tunoku said:
mmmm.

my friend setup a crontab if anyone wants to do this to there friends. :D

didn't know how to turn it off or how to set up crontabs myself, I knew they existed though. Sucks.
Click to expand...

1.) Launch Terminal
2.) Type "crontab -l" (type without quotes, will show you what jobs are running)
4.) Type "crontab -r" (type without quotes, will remove all cronjobs)
 
Is it possible that your friends might know your admin password? If so they may be SSH'ing in to set it going manually every hour. Turn off all the sharing settings in System Preferences and see if the prank stops.
 
mrsir2009 said:
I so wanna do this on my sister's MacBook!
Click to expand...

LMAO you could literally write a launchdaemon to do this in like 5 minutes.

EDIT: As a test I created this. Just unzip this file to your desktop,open Terminal and run these commands:

Code: 
sudo -s
cd ~/Desktop/prank
chown -R 0:0 *
chmod -R 755 *
mv com.funny.prank.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/
mv prank /bin/
launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.funny.prank.plist

This will max the volume and tell a joke every 60 minutes. To stop it is as simple as running:
Code: 
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.funny.prank.plist

To completely remove it you would do:
Code: 
sudo -s
launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.funny.prank.plist
rm -f /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.funny.prank.plist
rm -f /bin/prank
 

Attachments

  • Prank.zip
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Last edited:
go to activity monitor and look to see any weird hidden apps running.... and end it... but it sounds pretty funny
 
daleycss said:
go to activity monitor and look to see any weird hidden apps running.... and end it... but it sounds pretty funny
Click to expand...

The problem with this is that if it is done with a simple launchdaemon or something like that then the only thing that will show in activity monitor is launchd or other inoccuous process, which runs normally for a number of different things.
 
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