From: jtk@s1.gov (Jordin Kare) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Cookie Monster In article <1993Jun3.224738.3793@nomina.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes: > >>Or there was the "cookie monster" program that Chris Tavares wrote one dull >>day...you snuck up to an unguarded terminal, typed >m>cdt>hh>cookie, >>cleared the screen, and walked away. Some time later, the terminal would >>print out "I want a cookie!". It would keep this up for quite a while, >>until you typed "cookie" as a command. Then it would say "Yum, Yum" and go >>away. > >Was this the original Cookie Monster program, or, if not, when and under >what OS was the idea first hatched? Of course, once the idea becomes known, >everybody will want to write one of their own under their OS of choice... > > Magnus Olsson | \e+ /_ > Department of Theoretical Physics | \ Z / q > University of Lund, Sweden | >----< > magnus@thep.lu.se, thepmo@selund.bitnet | / \===== g >PGP key available via finger or on request | /e- \q My recollection is that one of the earliest, if not the earliest, cookie monster, lived on the original Dartmouth Basic time sharing system in the 1960's. One morning, the console terminal printed "I WANT A COOKIE!" and the system came to a halt. Much scratching of heads, typing of commands, etc. to no avail -- any input just produced "I WANT A COOKIE!" Finally, someone typed "COOKIE" and lo and behold, the system came back up. Much system testing and debugging followed, with absolutely no luck. The Cookie Monster program could not be found. So every morning, the Dartmouth Timesharing System sysop had to feed the system a cookie, er, COOKIE... Finally, an entirely new and pristine version of the operating system was installed, with no possible contamination. At last they'd be rid of the Cookie Monster! Loading and booting proceeded without incident, and the new OS printed out: "I WANT A COOKIE!" The system ops threw up their hands and went back to feeding the system cookies. Until... One day the system console (an ASR33 teletype, like everything else in those days) died. In comes the service tech, out comes the screwdriver. "Hey, " he says, as the back comes off the teletype pedestal (a big sheet metal construction, for those of you too young to remember teletypes). "What's all this junk?" Sure enough, there was a lovingly hand-assembled card cage containing.... The Cookie Monster! MORAL: Sometimes it really IS a hardware problem! Jordin (I WANT A COOKIE!) Kare From: dpalmer@beach.csulb.edu (Dave Palmer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: The Cookie Bear Most people assume that the cookie hack is named for the Cookie Monster of Sesame Street, and the hack is frequently called "The Cookie Monster." But it is also called "The Cookie Bear," and I think this may have been the original term. So where did "Cookie Bear" come from? Glad you asked. In the early-to-mid 1970's, singer Andy Williams had a weekly variety show on TV...NBC, I think it was. Though it seems strange to say, the show was actually pretty hip for its time. One of the recurring features of the show was the Cookie Bear sketch. In these sketches, a guy in a bear suit (stuntman Janos Prohoska, if you MUST know) would try various devious methods for conning cookies out of Andy Williams. The sketches would always end with Williams shrieking, "No cookies. Not now, not ever....**NEVER**!" And the bear would fall over...great stuff. The show was actually fairly popular in some parts of the hacker community, especially around Ames Research Center. It was there that I first saw the cookie hack. In fact, I just happen to have a printout from that era (kept because it contained the classic "Sex Life of an Electron" story) that has instructions on how to launch the bear. It reads: FROM ARPANET HOST 198 AT 01:00 ON 09/27/73 HOW TO USE THE COOKIE BEAR ALREADY: %(1%) LOGIN AS "BEAR" OR "PANDA" OR "LION" OR WHATEVER. %(2%) TYPE AT DDT ":XFILE GLS;CHECK FOO" %(3%) WHEN A * (OR MAYBE TWO *'S) GET TYPED AT YOU, TYPE THE UNAME OF THE PERSON TO SIC THE BEAR ON. %(4%) IF THIS PERSON IS NOT ONLINE OR OTHERWISE FOULS THINGS UP, THE BEAR WILL TAKE 50 RETRIES AT INTERVALS OF 5 SECONDS OR SO; THUS IT MAY TAKE A WHILE TO DISAPPEAR. %(5%) WHEN DONE THE BEAR WILL LOG ITSELF OUT. <> THE BEAR FROM THE CONSOLE IT'S LOGGED IN AT. %(7%) IT IS POSSIBLE TO RUN THE BEAR AS A SUBJOB (THE PROGRAM IS "GLS;TS CHECK"), BUT THEN YOU CAN'T CONVERSE WITH IT (DDT WILL ONLY SEND MESSAGES TO OTHER HACTRNS; THUS THE BEAR SHOULD ALSO BE A HACTRN. THIS IS WHAT CHECK FOO DOES.) On the other hand, jtk@s1.gov (Jordin Kare) wrote: >My recollection is that one of the earliest, if not the earliest, >cookie monster, lived on the original Dartmouth Basic time sharing system >in the 1960's. One morning, the console terminal printed "I WANT >A COOKIE!" and the system came to a halt. Much scratching of heads, >typing of commands, etc. to no avail -- any input just produced "I WANT >A COOKIE!" Finally, someone typed "COOKIE" and lo and behold, the >system came back up. >etc... >"What's all this junk?" Sure enough, there was a lovingly hand-assembled >card cage containing.... The Cookie Monster! Jordin: Are you *SURE* this was the 1960's? If so, this would predate both the Muppets and the Cookie Bear. Was the hack actually CALLED "Cookie Monster" at the time, or did that label come later? Can anyone else recall any pre-70's cookie goings-on? I wonder if the Andy Williams Cookie Bear was based on an older gag? ************************************************************************ "To free a man of error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth." --Schopenhauer ************************************************************************* From: verhoef@europa.eng.gtefsd.com (Ed Ver Hoef) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Cookie Monster (was: Wet Blanket) In article <1993Jun3.224738.3793@nomina.lu.se>, magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) wrote: > > In article <1ull7a$9dl@transfer.stratus.com> Paul_Green@vos.stratus.com writes: > > [stuff deleted] > > >Or there was the "cookie monster" program that Chris Tavares wrote one dull > >day...you snuck up to an unguarded terminal, typed >m>cdt>hh>cookie, > >cleared the screen, and walked away. Some time later, the terminal would > >print out "I want a cookie!". It would keep this up for quite a while, > >until you typed "cookie" as a command. Then it would say "Yum, Yum" and go > >away. > > Was this the original Cookie Monster program, or, if not, when and under > what OS was the idea first hatched? Of course, once the idea becomes known, > everybody will want to write one of their own under their OS of choice... I don't have first-hand knowledge of this but a friend who worked at Geico Insurance in Chevy Chase, MD (just outside Washington D.C.) told me that someone had planted deep within the bowels of the operating system of their accounting computer a routine that every so often would bring everything to a halt, clear the screen of the operator's console and then type "Polly wants a cracker". The first time it happened, they tried all sorts of things to regain control of the computer short of rebooting it before some one tried typing "cracker". As soon as that was done, everything was restored to its state before the interruption and normal operations resumed. They reportedly were unable to find the offending routine and just made the "cracker" response part of their standard operating procedure. I believe this all happened in the mid to late 60s. Ed Ver Hoef Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.os.multics From: tom_van_vleck@taligent.com (Tom Van Vleck) Subject: Re: cookie? Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 20:29:26 GMT hank_gillette@smtp.esl.com (Hank Gillette) wrote: ... > In one of Jan Harold Brunvand's books, he mentions computer systems having > a cookie program as being an UL. This surprised me quite a bit, as there > was one on the MULTICS system at Virginia Tech when I was a graduate > student there (1978-1980). After being activated, the program would > randomly and with increasing urgency put the message "Cookie?" on the > screen. Typing in "cookie" at the command level would be rewarded by an > animated ASCII graphics picture of the Cookie Monster eating a cookie. If > the messages were ignored, or if one was in the editor or running a program > and not able to type in "cookie", the computer connection was terminated. > > I'm curious if people are familar with other systems that had such a > program. Perhaps the one on the Virginia Tech system was written in > response to the UL. The Multics cookie program goes back further than that. There was a version (without ASCII graphics though) in the early 1970s on the MIT system. I don't know who wrote the original, or whether other time-sharing systems had a cookie program first. We used cookie as a demo of security issues, of some concern during the design of Multics. If you could put somebody "on the cookie monster" you had penetrated their security and could be reading their files or worse, instead of typing out obnoxious messages. The well known "current directory in the search path" trap common on UNIX systems was first demonstrated on Multics with such a program. Followup to alt.os.multics for more on the Multics version. From: dpalmer@beach.csulb.edu (Dave Palmer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Cookie? Date: 11 Jan 1994 04:37:36 GMT hank_gillette@smtp.esl.com (Hank Gillette) wrote: >In one of Jan Harold Brunvand's books, he mentions computer systems having >a cookie program as being an UL. This surprised me quite a bit, as there > ...etc >I'm curious if people are familar with other systems that had such a >program. Perhaps the one on the Virginia Tech system was written in >response to the UL. ...and tom_van_vleck@taligent.com (Tom Van Vleck) wrote: >The Multics cookie program goes back further than that. >There was a version (without ASCII graphics though) in the early >1970s on the MIT system. I don't know who wrote the original, or >etc. The first version I ever encountered was on the ARPANET at Ames Research Center in 1973. I have an old lineprinter printout in front of me that actually describes how to sic the program on someone. For the sake of history or the morbidly curious, I present it below. BTW, in those days, it was known (as far as I know) as the "cookie bear," and not the "cookie monster." Why? Glad you asked. In those days, before Sesame Street had become a hackish thing, hackers were actually getting their yucks from...sit down now.. Andy Williams. Yes. THAT Andy Williams. Seems he had a rather hip (by the standards of the day) variety show on the tube at the time. One of the best parts of the show was the recurring "cookie bear" sketch. In these sketches, a guy in a bear suit (the late stuntman Janos Prohoska, if you MUST know) tried all sorts of tricks to get a cookie out of Williams. The sketches would always end with Williams shrieking (and I don't mean figuratively), "No cookies! Not now, not ever....NEVER!!!" And the bear would fall down. Great stuff. I SWEAR I'm not making this up... Anyway, here's the printout (the ghastly all-upper-case is original. Sue me.): FROM ARPANET HOST 198 AT 01:00 ON O9/27/73 HOW TO USE THE COOKIE BEAR ALREADY: %(1%) LOGIN AS "BEAR" OR "PANDA" OR "LION" OR WHATEVER. %(2%) TYPE AT DDT ":XFILE GLS;CHECK FOO" %(3%) WHEN A * (OR MAYBE TWO *'S) GET TYPED AT YOU, TYPE THE UNAME OF THE PERSON TO SIC THE BEAR ON. %(4%) IF THIS PERSON IS NOT ONLINE OR OTHERWISE FOULS THINGS UP, THE BEAR WILL TAKE 50 RETRIES AT INTERVALS OF 5 SECONDS OR SO; THUS IT MAY TAKE IT A WHILE TO DISAPPEAR. %(5%) WHEN DONE THE BEAR WILL LOG ITSELF OUT. THE BEAR FROM THE CONSOLE <---something missing..DWP IT'S LOGGED IN AT. %(7%) IT IS POSSIBLE TO RUN THE BEAR AS A SUBJOB (THE PROGRAM IS "GLS;TS CHECK"), BUT THEN YOU CAN'T CONVERSE WITH IT (DDT WILL ONLY SEND MESSAGES TO OTHER HACTRNS; THUS THE BEAR SHOULD ALSO BE A HACTRN. THlS IS WHAT CHECK FOO DOES. *** BREAKPOINT CLOSED AT 11:44:33 ON 09/27/73 -- ************************************************************************ "To free a man of error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth." --Schopenhauer ************************************************************************* From: edward.rice@his.com (Edward Rice) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: cookie? Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 01:02:42 HG> From: hank_gillette@smtp.esl.com (Hank Gillette) HG> In one of Jan Harold Brunvand's books, he mentions computer systems HG> having a cookie program as being an UL. This surprised me quite a bit, HG> as there was one on the MULTICS system at Virginia Tech when I was a HG> graduate student there (1978-1980). After being activated, the program HG> would randomly and with increasing urgency put the message "Cookie?" HG> on the screen. Typing in "cookie" at the command level would be HG> rewarded by an animated ASCII graphics picture of the Cookie Monster HG> eating a cookie. If the messages were ignored, or if one was in the HG> editor or running a program and not able to type in "cookie", the HG> computer connection was terminated. HG> HG> I'm curious if people are familar with other systems that had such a HG> program. Perhaps the one on the Virginia Tech system was written in HG> response to the UL. HG> HG> Hank ("this is my first post, so be gentle with me") Gillette It's spelled "Multics." I've just recently lost about a pound of sensitive flesh suggesting that it /ever/ was spelled "MULTICS," so for god's sake, before they come after you, turn off your caps lock and spell it the right way! Chris Tavares wrote the original Cookie program (I think I mentioned this here, recently). When Brunvand's silly book came out, in which he said he'd consulted with a computer expert of his own choosing who said that such a program was patently impossible and had never existed, I wrote Brunvand a letter and included a copy of the source to cookie.pl1. Brunvand's reply was a lot of backpedalling, saying that just because he'd called something a "legend" didn't mean that he thought it had never happened. He entirely overlooked his "expert" consultant that he'd cited as an authority. Hmmm... just looked for the source and can't find it. If I do, I'll post it. From: ted@novatel.ca (Ted Park) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: cookie? Date: 11 Jan 1994 23:35:47 GMT Hank Gillette (hank_gillette@smtp.esl.com) wrote: : I expected this topic to be in the FAQ, but since it wasn't, it's not my : fault if it's already been discussed to death. : In one of Jan Harold Brunvand's books, he mentions computer systems having : a cookie program as being an UL. This surprised me quite a bit, as there : was one on the MULTICS system at Virginia Tech when I was a graduate : student there (1978-1980). After being activated, the program would : randomly and with increasing urgency put the message "Cookie?" on the : screen. Typing in "cookie" at the command level would be rewarded by an : animated ASCII graphics picture of the Cookie Monster eating a cookie. If : the messages were ignored, or if one was in the editor or running a program : and not able to type in "cookie", the computer connection was terminated. : I'm curious if people are familar with other systems that had such a : program. Perhaps the one on the Virginia Tech system was written in : response to the UL. : Hank ("this is my first post, so be gentle with me") Gillette Hmm. The version that I saw would do nothing for about 15 minutes, then it would interrupt whatever was going on at the time, and ask for a cookie. If you typed "cookie" at it, it would go away for about 15 minutes otherwise it would become more persistent. This program was a demonstration of the timer_manager_ routine I believe. -- Ted Park Novatel Communications Ltd. ted@novatel.ca