Subject: Re: Cookie Monster
From: [email-masked] (Jordin Kare)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (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         |   >----<           
> [email-masked],  [email-masked]  |  /      \===== 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: [email-masked] (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.

<<apparently the line printer skipped a line or 2 here--DP>>

   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,

[email-masked] (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: [email-masked] (Ed Ver Hoef)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Cookie Monster (was: Wet Blanket)

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Magnus
Olsson) wrote:
> 
> In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] 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: [email-masked] (Tom Van Vleck)
Subject: Re: cookie?
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 20:29:26 GMT

[email-masked] (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: [email-masked] (Dave Palmer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Cookie?
Date: 11 Jan 1994 04:37:36 GMT

[email-masked] (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

[email-masked] (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: [email-masked] (Edward Rice)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: cookie?
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 01:02:42

  HG> From: [email-masked] (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: [email-masked] (Ted Park)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: cookie?
Date: 11 Jan 1994 23:35:47 GMT

Hank Gillette ([email-masked]) 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.     [email-masked]