Remember the old normal and regular school days? If you wanted to cut a class or skip school altogether, it would be something like escaping a prison with no equipment. You would wear the school uniform, even go to the bus, then vanish. However, once you were inside the building, escaping would be nearly impossible, save for some daredevils who fear nothing. With everything shifting online due to the coronavirus pandemic, students are finding many innovative ways to skip classes. After all, technology is fickle, electricity might go out, WIFI could stop working and so on. In a recent incident, one genius 8-year-old girl found a way to completely evade school altogether instead of missing a few classes.
A man called Mike Piccolo made a Twitter thread of how day-by-day his young niece planned a very successful strike against online classes. As her classes were being held on Zoom, she found a trick to fool her parents, school, and even the company Zoom itself.
Her scam was so brilliant that no one guessed something was amiss for weeks.
It started with a simple error. She innocently went to her mother and told her the Zoom class isn’t working. The mother, believing it was some app glitch, informed the teacher that the little girl would miss today’s class as they tried to resolve it. A new day, but the same glitch. Again, teachers were informed. Zoom would flash ‘Incorrect password’ every time the girl tried to join her class. So, the teacher created a whole new classroom; every student had to create new calendars and logins. Still, the problem persisted.
Exhausted, the mother contacted the school’s computer teacher who came to their home and could not resolve it. Zoom customer care employees were also baffled as none of their attempts helped either. The mother thought the girl should give up on school and be home-schooled instead.
However, one day the girl was at a friend’s house to attend the class. The friend’s mother noticed she was logging out constantly.
Thus, her whole plan was unravelled. The girl would log out of a class, then input wrong password over 20 times. This locked her Zoom account.
The girl’s story is so wild it even featured on the Jimmy Kimmel Show!
The grifter: My 8 year old nieceThe prize: Playing virtual hooky permanently (School Zoom calls)The marks: My sister, my brother in law, the teacher, the school’s computer teacher, the principle and Zoom's support teamThe con: How she pulled it off… thread pic.twitter.com/cdz3SRhRu9— Mike Piccolo (@mfpiccolo) February 13, 2021
Is it bad that when I heard the story I felt proud more than anything? As someone in the IT industry, let's pray she goes white-hat or we might all be in trouble.— Mike Piccolo (@mfpiccolo) February 13, 2021
Others applauded her tactics and shared similar stories.
My wife’s a teacher and has a student the regularly that tries to fake like Zoom is broken. Silently mouths words, freezes in a pose like the screen is locked, stutters and then freezes. My wife is like,”there’s a cat licking itself behind you. Get to work”— Rick Clark (@Rickclark802) February 16, 2021
My personal takeaway from this story is that I am not clever enough to thrive at childhood during this particular point in history.Also, your niece has infinite potential. May The Force be with her.— Words are cheap 🐑 (@words_are_sheep) February 17, 2021
But all those people who wasted all that time trying to “fix” the problem—all the kids who had to update—the teacher who came to the house—I do feel sorry for them. If they have any sense, they’ll probably steer a wide berth around this girl in the future— Cynthia B. Meyers (@AnneHummert) February 17, 2021
Tricking adults into believing cons is an age old game although as I remember it started in high school with a friend telling her gym teacher her grandmother had died when she didn’t show up to gym multiple times, times have changed The Connors got younger and sneakier— Penny Weinberg (@penny_weinberg) February 17, 2021
As a Zoom employee. If your niece applies for an internship at Zoom in a few years, I'd be happy to refer her.— Derek Pando (@djpando) February 16, 2021
Absolutely just made my day. The drama. The suspense. The sheer genius. She's right. She doesn't need them. She has fulfilled her purpose in education: to read, write, speak clearly, develop logic, reasoning, industriousness and useful skills. Ready for society! Class dismissed.— Jess Vaughn Writes (@itspersonal411) February 18, 2021
I really hope your niece didn't get punished for this! This is clever. Prevent her from doing it again, but reward her for exploring. This is how people become good security engineers.— Autumn's Hauntings (@tyrsalvia) February 16, 2021
My friends kid took a screenshot of a screen loading gif and changed her name to “loading”. Replaced the video with her new “zoom handle” and bingo - a week off class pic.twitter.com/Jr8SUWZSMF— Cath (@perkieturkey) February 17, 2021
I'm laughing so hard right now! I'm in two minds whether I should send this to my sister. The niece who would try that is also able to unlock her mum's phone so sending it might backfire 😄— Bruno Girin (@brunogirin) February 16, 2021
A true genius indeed.