Unemployed Programmer Kept Sneaking Into Apple to Finish the Job | Hacker News Reader

Unemployed Programmer Kept Sneaking Into Apple to Finish the Job

mentalfloss.com

125 pointslandonhowell37 comments

Link to the actual programmer's account of the story: http://www.nucalc.com/Story/

and a Google Tech Talk video of Avitzur telling his story: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7497796873809571567...

1. Dig up old stories from slashdot.

2. Write a blog post summarizing them.

3. Post to HN / Reddit.

4. PROFIT.

Smart business plan.

Remove step three and you've described a good third of the bloggosphere (why did I just use that word? Somebody get me a gin and tonic, ack)

Remove step one and replace with "Lookup folklore.org stories"

Hey this is a fun site to read, did not know of this. Thanks!

I'm pretty sure this is actually the 2nd or 3rd time this one's been on HN.

My guess is higher but I don't care to research it.

The '500 mile email' and 'The story of Mel the Real Programmer' are trotted out on a regular basis also.

As long as you can glean the story from the headline, you can ignore it. It's a tiny bit annoying but I'm not asking for a refund.

It's a tiny bit annoying but I'm not asking for a refund.

"All right, I've been thinking. When HN gives you recycled content, don't make comments - make the submitter take the story back! Get mad! I don't want your damn recycled stories, what am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see Paul Graham! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson recycled content! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's going to to burn your house down! With the recycled content! I'm going to get my engineers to invent a combustible anecdote that burns your house down!"

Don't give him lemons, either.

Sure its a bit annoying, but this is the first time a new member gets to read a fascinating story like this one.

I wish we could put this classic stuff in the Hacker Canon and reserve HN for, y'know, news.

> Hacker Canon

What's/where's that?

It doesn't exist. But it would contain all the classic works of hackerdom.

For what it's worth, I appreciated reading this story. Just because it may be old hat to HN and/or ./ veterans doesn't necessarily mean that it's not a reasonable contribution.

However, I assume you are inferring that the OP made this contribution specifically to boost his/her karma points - a practice I do not support either.

It sounds like you would enjoy http://folklore.org/

Read the original, linked at the top. This version lacks the insight into the process and the thrill of the hack.

You know you have a good company when people sneak in to do more work after they're not being paid anymore

You know you have a bad company when you fire people who would sneak in to do more work after they're not being paid anymore

But he wasn't fired. His project was cancelled so Apple offered him to work on something else and he declined.

I don't get why the manager would want to throw him out though. A capable employee working for free sounds like every managers dream.

A facilities manager was the one who wanted to throw him out. They've got a very different mindset. Software & hardware managers actively aided his cause.

If management knows he's working for free they probably are vulnerable to all kinds of labor problems.

And this is during the non-Jobs years!

Not necessarily. After some layoffs at Atari, there was a guy who daily got past the receptionist with an old badge (not electronic) and hung out in our building's machine room. He was logged onto a Vax as some innocuous account. There was a lot of turmoil, so he got away with it for a while.

When we discovered him (I was flushing old accounts, and found this guy in our Vax room who shouldn't have been there) we ejected him, and he had the chutzpah to ask for a tape of his directories.

To be fair, a computer the caliber of VAX wasn't something you just pulled out of your pocket and complained about in those days. I was only born in 1985 but I remember craving the computer so bad I'd even endure my bachelor fathers filthy apartment for hours just to play in DOS.

It's not clear that he wasn't getting paid:

On the last day of the canceled project, Avitzur’s manager called him into her office to say goodbye. He hadn’t completed the length of his contract, but the company would pay it in full anyway.

“Just submit your final invoice for what’s left,” she told him. That’s when it clicked: If Avitzur didn’t submit the invoice, his contract stayed in the system. And if his contract stayed in the system, his ID badge would keep getting him in the front door.

The article doesn't specify, but I would imagine that he submitted his invoice once his badge was deactivated.

In effect he was working for free, since he could have gotten paid with or without continuing to work for Apple.

Good company, or good cult of personality.

Some people would have open-sourced the code and then there would be no need to sneak into Apple headquarters and lurk in the bathrooms waiting for facilities people to leave. But I guess in 1994 it might not be as natural as it is now. I wish more companies would open-source their "not quite worked out" projects instead of just burying them.

Good point.

Would it be preinstalled on 20 million computers, though?

Also, it seems like they needed to work at Apple because:

- They needed access to an unreleased computer (hardware). - They needed feedback from other Apple employers.

Here's This American Life telling the story (very, very entertaining): http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/284/s...

A link for downloading the Graphing Calculator program http://www.pacifict.com/FreeStuff.html

That is the viewer. It does not allow you to input the functions to plot. Fun, but not half as much as the real tool.

Max OS X has Grapher (in Applications/Utilities). That likely is a descendant of this tool.

Would this even be possible nowadays? As soon as your badge gets disabled typically any access you have to systems gets disabled as well.

> typically

Even in the best systems, there are bugs and human operators.

Yes, but it would still be de-facto unfeasible in most modern (well-run) organizations. It's no longer a matter of setting up a few boxes in a hallway and dodging a lone manager who happens to be patrolling. Everything from building access onwards is non-trivial to consistently bypass - even with inside help.

FWIW, I'm not sure the current culture at Apple would support this either. Every single one of the employees who aided Mr. Avitzur would essentially be putting their careers on the line. Modern day Apple is notoriously stern when it comes to employee transgressions.

From a few weeks ago.

Eric Simons spent two cash-strapped months living inside AOL's headquarters while trying to build his start-up. He explains how he played outside of the rules.

http://www.inc.com/john-mcdermott/eric-simons-interview-youn...

I don't think that example is equivalent. The ex-AOL guy was working on his own stuff and was basically squatting on AOL property. It's not clear he was accessing AOL computer systems and resources and making changes to or contributing to AOL projects. Basically, place to sleep, munch, shower and perhaps free wi-fi.

There's something to think about comparing this story to the entrepreneur who sneaked into AOL:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57440513-296/meet-the-tire...

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