Hidden Guides to CMU

Disclaimer: These are just a few things that I remembered from my time there. They helped me a lot, and I hope it will help others in the same way. Some of the stuff listed here are not strictly by the books, use at your own risk.

  1. How to pwn every printer on Campus (unlimited print quota, yes, color as well)
    Required: access to a departmental unix terminal, (SCS: fish machines or Gates clusters, ECE: cluster machines in Hammershlag or Wean, etc..)
    Depending on which building of the printer you wish to print to, adjust according to department.
    Once you have a terminal window, issue the following command

    lpstat –v

    You will see a list of device names followed by lpd://something, this is the address of every lpd device in that department. For ece the server name starts with treekiller, scs server names start with color names, e.g. magenta. After that just use the lpd address and add it as an ordinary printer to your machine. For MacOSX select generic postscript drivers, and enable “Duplex” option if you intend to print on both sides (saves paper). Here’s the location of every printer owned by SCS: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~help/printing/printers_by_building.html

  2. How to get a list of every email address in CMU
    Required: knowledge of a scripting language, AFS access (could be expanded to all schools that use AFS)
    Everyone’s andrew id is split into volumes on AFS, usr1, usr2, usr3… doing ls on /afs/andrew/usr10 will give you a list of all Andrew IDs under usr10, write a script to loop through /afs/andrew/usr*/* will give you every Andrew ID in CMU.
    finger andrewid
    Will give you something that looks like this:

    name: John Doe
    class: Master
    department: Computer Science
    login name: jdoe
    e-mail: jdoe@cmu.edu
    forwarded to: jdoe@gmail.com

    When that person is no longer with CMU, the record will show this phrase: (Email addressed to ‘jdoe@cmu.edu’ will not be delivered…

  3. How to get into classes legally or illegally
    Required: A little bit of courage, willingness to take on a challenge, faith
    Typically for classes you do not have prereqs for, but feel compelled that you are advanced enough to be in that class, you can still get in. Harder for undergrad courses, easy for grad courses.

    For undergrad: You need approval from your dean, OLR will restrict you automatically
    For grad: You only need the professor’s approval, OLR place no restrictions during registration.

    Either way, you have to speak to the professor. If you know your stuff already, great, the guide does not really apply to you, if you don’t know the course material yet, but still want to take the course. Obtain past lecture notes/midterms/hw prior to the meeting. (How fast can you read and memorize phrases?) This could happen if the course uses blackboard, look for remnants of the course from the past under Courses tab in blackboard, or better solution find someone who took the course already and ask for it. If neither works, it gets a little tricky, e.g. 18731 was one such case for me. Wait until the professor distributes the syllabus, then Wikipedia about 50% of the topics. When speaking to the professor, use terms and phrases from your “research”, (works a lot better if you can name papers). He/she will not ask detailed questions since the meeting will be short. If all goes well, you will be admitted. If he/she says you need to take a placement quiz, agree to it. This is where it gets easier for grad courses but harder for undergrad. Placement tests do not matter to grad, but matters to undergrad. For grad wait long enough on the waitlist, you will get in. (Have a little faith) For undergrad, if you cannot pass the placement… tough luck.

  4. How to get in touch with autolab servers
    Required: SWAG
    213 Autolab is being hosted in Intel Labs on the fourth floor of CIC, to find the machine ip address as well as host name do this from CMU subnet:
    ping autolab.cs.cmu.edu
    You will see the server reply happily. Furthermore, working from Intel Labs in CIC, you will be on LAN with the autolab server. You will find that a lot of the connections in Intel Labs are quite “open” in LAN. Land a research position there, and do some research.
  5. How to quickly set or wipe privileges recursively to/from AFS directories for another user
    Required: AFS access
    Execute the following command verbatim in the directory you wish to perform set/wipe privs

    find –type d –exec fs sa {} andrewid access ‘;’

    Note: access is a subset of rlidwka, and chmod will fk your system up.

  6. How to gain access to Gates after 6PM everyday without a CS badge
    Required: Patience and SWAG
    Land a research position with any professor who has a lab in gates. Looks good on your resume + you can abuse guide 1 from above as much as you want. To find professors in Gates, modify your script from Guide 2; look for Faculties with cs in their description or email address. Look them up, all CS professors have their own page. Once you land a position, express to them this message: “I am an workaholic, I like working late.” Cha-ching!
  7. How to get unlimited texting/talk plan if you don’t already have one
    Required: SWAG
    Land a research in mobile* class. Preferably security class. CMU faculty have upwards of hundreds of android phones ready to give out to students doing research for them. Once you get the phone, express the following message to them: “I need this phone to be activated to experiment with packet capture”
  8. How to bypass moss
    Required: internet connection and a terminal
    Moss is open to all now. To obtain a Moss account, send a mail message to moss@moss.stanford.edu. The body of the message should appear exactly as follows:

    registeruser
    mail username@domain

    where the last bit in italics is your email address.
    If you already have an account, the latest submission script can be downloaded here.

  9. IRC chat with friends
    Required: terminal
    Download irssi on your terminal ready laptop, or simply log on to Unix Andrew. Start the client:

    irssi

    To join the CMU channel:

    /connect irc.freenode.net
    /join #CMU

    Switch #CMU to anything else for a random channel of your choice. To leave a channel type /leave

  10. “Secret” passages/shortest paths
    Required: willingness to walk, unless you are the only asshole on campus with a segway
    From Neville to Campus: Go under Forbes bridge and enter CIC parking garage, take elevator to Lobby to goto Gates, take elevator to G1 for a hidden side exit for quick access to Doherty/Hammershlag
    From Donner to Wean: Steam tunnel entrance at Donner Ditch, exits at UC and Wean
    From ENS to Porter: Press the elevator button and wait for 1 second, if no show, take the underground hallway to Porter, if elevator shows up, take to 5th floor and walk above ground to Porter.

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