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I found this posting on rec.arts.startrek. Anyone who has seen Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan, and knows unix should enjoy this. Mailed by ghazi@topaz.rutgers.edu (Kaveh R. Ghazi [King Louis XIV])

I was watching Star Trek II again last night when suddenly I had this vision of what would happen if instead of a duel between starships, it was computer systems. What resulted is this:

Kirk:	What is the meaning of this attack? 
Khan:	Surely I have made my meaning clear.  I mean to avenge myself 
	upon you, Admiral.  I deprived your system of UUCP connections 
	and when I swing around I mean to deprive you of your life. 
	But I wanted you to know who it was who had beaten you. 
Kirk:	Khan, if it's me you want, I'll have myself rcp'ed over.  Spare 
	my crew. 
Khan:	I make you a counter-proposal.  I'll agree to your terms, if ... 
	if in addition to yourself you hand over to me all data and 
	materials regarding the project called UUNET. 
Kirk:	UUNET?  What's that? 
Khan:	Don't insult my intelligence, Kirk. 
Kirk:	Give me some time to recall the data from our archives. 
Khan:	I give you sixty seconds. 
Kirk:	Clear the bridge. 
Spock:	At least we know he doesn't have UUNET. 
Kirk:	Keep nodding as though I'm still giving orders.  Mr. Saavik, 
	punch up the data charts of Reliant's password file. 
Saavik:	Reliant's pass... 
Kirk:	Hurry. 
Khan:	Forty-five seconds Admiral. 
Spock:	The free login? 
Kirk:	It's all we've got. 
Saavik:	File's up, sir. 
Khan:	Admiral. 
Kirk:	We're finding it. 
Khan:	Admiral. 
Kirk:	Please.  Please you've got to give us time.  The machine room is 
	smashed, the editors inoperable. 
Khan:	Time is a luxury you don't have, Admiral. 
Kirk:	Damn. 
Khan:	Admiral? 
Kirk:	It's coming through now, Khan. 
Spock:	Reliant's free login is 16309. 
Saavik:	I don't understand. 
Kirk:	You have to learn why things work on a UNIX system. 
Spock:	Each system has its own hidden free login. 
Kirk:	To prevent an enemy from doing what we're attempting.  We're 
	using our console to order Reliant to let us login. 
Spock:	Assuming he hasn't changed the combination.  He's quite 
	intelligent. 
Khan:	Fifteen seconds, Admiral. 
Kirk:	Khan, how do we know you'll keep your word? 
Khan:	Oh, I've given you no word to keep, Admiral.  In my judgement, 
	you simply have no alternative. 
Kirk:	I see your point.  Stand by to receive our mail message.  Mr. 
	Sulu, lock an Internet connection on target and await my order 
	to login. 
Sulu:	Connection pending. 
Khan:	Time's up, Admiral. 
Kirk:	Here it comes.  Now, Mr. Spock. 
Spock:	% telnet reliant 
Trying... 
Connected to reliant. 
Escape character is '~'. 

M-6 Duotronic 
U.S.S. Reliant, NCC-1864 

login: 
Spock:	login: 16309 
% 
Joachim: Sir, the Enterprise is logging on. 
Khan:	Kill them. 
Joachim: I can't! 
Khan:	Where's the chroot call?  The chroot call! 
Kirk:	Fire. 
Sulu:	% su 
# 
Kirk:	Fire! 
Sulu:	# rm -rf / 
Khan:	Reboot, reboot! 
Joachim: We can't reboot! 
Khan:	Why can't you!? 
Joachim: They've corrupted the file system and the /etc directory!  Sir, 
	we must power-cycle. 
Khan:	No! 
Joachim: Sir, we must! 




And the rest is (ahem) history. 

Jeff Okamoto 

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