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 title: Hacker High School
 date: 2025-10-17 15:41:00
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This article was originally published in 2600 Magazine, Autumn 2025
[0]. I had originally just sent it in as a proposal for a larger
series, but they published it as-is, so it reads a bit weird.

Who am I to argue with their editorial decisions, though?

Enjoy!

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**Course**: Hacker High School<br />
**Room**: `/dev/null`<br />
**Prerequisites**: Curiosity, disrespect for authority, basic
terminal fluency<br />
**Warning**: This course may violate district policy, state
standards, and the laws of physics.

## Course Description

This document was not approved by the school board. It was not
submitted for review, not listed in Google Classroom, and as far as
your parents are concerned, doesn't exist. If you're reading it,
you either made a wrong turn in the curriculum database or you know
exactly where you're supposed to be.

Hacker High School is a semester-long immersion into subversive
computing, inspired by over four decades of 2600: The Hacker
Quarterly. Every lesson is real. Every exploit has been tested in
the field—often by teenagers with too much time and too little
supervision. This is not about theory. This is about doing.

The syllabus below outlines a full 18-week course blending system
intrusion, digital disguise, network manipulation, and physical
bypass—taught from behind a desk covered in stickers and caffeine
residue. It is structured, thorough, and deeply unethical in the
most ethical way possible.

If anyone asks, we're teaching "digital literacy."

...

### Week 2: MAC Daddy

This week introduces the concept of identity at the hardware level.
If last week was about controlling what you reveal, this week is
about controlling who you appear to be—on the network, anyway.
Students will learn how MAC addresses work, how they're used to
fingerprint devices, and how to break that chain of trust.

We're not asking permission to be on the network. We're showing up
in disguise.

#### Themes
 - Identity vs. identification
 - Fingerprinting and tracking
 - The futility of hardware-based trust

#### Warmup

> Run `ip link` in your terminal. What brand is your network
interface broadcasting? How often do you think it changes?

#### Tool of the Week

`macchanger` – The classic utility for changing MAC addresses
**Alt**: ip link + ifconfig combo – Because it's good to know
what's underneath the wrappers

#### Required Reading

- "DHCP is Your Friend!" - Volume 19, Number 4 (Winter 2002-2003)
- "Vulnerabilities in Subscription Wireless" - Volume 21, Number 4
(Winter 2004-2005)
- "MAC Address Changer" - Volume 25, Number 2 (Summer 2008)

#### Hands-On Objectives

By the end of this week, you will have:

- Identified your device's hardware MAC address
- Spoofed it to impersonate another device
- Used your new identity to bypass a basic access control system

#### Prompt for Reflection

> If you can change your device's identity at will, what's left of
trust on the network?

#### Assignment

- Use `macchanger` or a manual method to spoof your MAC address
  - Connect to a restricted or captive portal network (in a
sandboxed lab)
  - Document how the network treated you differently—or didn't
  - Reflect on the ease or difficulty of being someone else,
digitally

**Bonus**: Set up a cron job to randomize your MAC address on a
regular interval. Then write a reflection on whether this has
improved or hindered your experience online.

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[0]: https://store.2600.com/products/autumn-2025
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EOF