Funny that this story should come up.
Recently, me and my friends have discovered major exploits on our school's entire network. Our school has around a thousand workstations, all connected to 5 different servers. Now, normally the school have blocked users from directly accessing servers by typing phrases such as '\WP-SERVER2' (the server which contains ALL student personal data) into the explorer address bar, but by going multiple layers deep into program folders in the start menu, I am able to access these servers.
That is not the only way I am able to access ANY of my school's data. When saving any form of document, I am again able to type in '\WP-SERVER2' into the file name bar. From there, I can view all of the folders on that server. Moreover, I can drag any of the folders from that window into my home directory, and a shortcut right to the server's root directory is created. Now, many folders only allow access to administrators, but that is also no biggie...
Another major flaw is being able to remotely access the 'Computer Management' program of any computer or server in the school, without requiring admin permissions. From this, I can set tasks, such as shutting down the computer minutes after startup - or even disabling the video adapter (or any piece of hardware for that matter) of any device in the school! But the biggest deal is being able to enable administrator on any computer and being able to change the administrator password with no permissions required. From this, I can do anything - bearing in mind our school runs on Windows 2003 servers, from a PC connected to our school's LAN, I can penetrate the server and cause even more kinds of trouble.
It just goes to show how that with very little effort, one can expose many, many flaws in networks in schools and offices. Bearing in mind our school hires external network operators, it is a large surprise that the network is so insecure - if I wanted to, I could destroy everything on the network!
Before warning me not to, I plan to do little about this. I am finishing school in May and going to college in September, so I plan to pull a few pranks (changing the background picture of every pc in the school to something slightly edgy, yet tasteful) before I leave - as is tradition in many British schools, and probably worldwide. I would inform the IT department of my school; however I am very shy and quite frankly, I think they are a bunch of cunts.