Tried to get into a course at university, but it was full. I really wanted to get into it but had to hope that someone dropped it AND I'd be the first one to add it once they dropped it. Originally I was refreshing the "add course" screen every 15-30 min and trying to add myself, but I realized that wouldn't work. So I decided to write an AutoHotKey script. It moved my mouse, wrote in the 5 digit course code, hit enter, and repeated every 15 seconds. I left it on overnight.

When I woke up it said I had maxed out my course add attempts and to contact my registrar for assistance. I did, they said to come in for a chat. Not interested in handling it over the phone, though I asked. So I went in. They sat me down, told me I was a naughty boy who tried to add himself to a course 3000+ times in 10 hours, and banned me from registring for courses online this term.

My first autohotkey script. FML.

heliusx

United States2306 Posts

May 10 2012 19:14 GMT

lmao you should be praised not punished! Punished for being smart. =[

The_LiNk

Canada863 Posts

May 10 2012 19:15 GMT

Lol my friend did the same thing for a first year for a language course. He was successful though. Good thing my school has a waitlist. Don't need to deal with this crap.

SnipedSoul

Canada2158 Posts

May 10 2012 19:15 GMT

Lol that sucks. You can still register offline I hope?

micronesia

United States24698 Posts

May 10 2012 19:19 GMT

The obvious answer is "I wasn't aware of a policy that I couldn't do this? Where is the policy so I can read it?"

"Of course I won't do it again now that you told me but I don't think any punishment is appropriate" (assuming there really was no policy)

United States3249 Posts

May 10 2012 19:20 GMT

On May 11 2012 04:19 micronesia wrote:
The obvious answer is "I wasn't aware of a policy that I couldn't do this? Where is the policy so I can read it?"

"Of course I won't do it again now that you told me but I don't think any punishment is appropriate" (assuming there really was no policy)

I'm allowed to email in my request to the registrar and get added. No reason to start a big fight for a small punishment.

micronesia

United States24698 Posts

May 10 2012 19:21 GMT

On May 11 2012 04:20 cz wrote:

Show nested quote +

I'm allowed to email in my request to the registrar and get added. No reason to start a big fight for a small punishment.

Yea at this point there's nothing worth doing about it. However, that's how I feel it should have went down at your original meeting (ofc nothing you can do about that now)

United States3249 Posts

May 10 2012 19:23 GMT

On May 11 2012 04:21 micronesia wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yea at this point there's nothing worth doing about it. However, that's how I feel it should have went down at your original meeting (ofc nothing you can do about that now)

I don't know how much power I have. They might just say "there's no policy but you are getting punished anyway." I can make a lot of enemies, be on some watch-list, or take a small punishment. Kind of like a captain's mast vs going for the full court marshal. I mean they might just end up expelling me (I'm not in a degree program), saying they aren't interested in having me take courses here.

Chef

10810 Posts

May 10 2012 19:29 GMT

Hahaha wow. TBH I'm not that surprised tho. At least my university had a lot of problem with traffic (zz pay more for bandwidth and less for swimming pools, jerks), it makes it worse if it's not even human beings.

If your university's site designers were smart tho, they would let you put yourself on a waiting list so that you would have a seat reserved if someone dropped out. My school didn't do it, but I know a friend whose school let her put herself on waiting lists for courses if they were full. Saves you the stress of checking back all the time.

United States3249 Posts

May 10 2012 19:33 GMT

#10

On May 11 2012 04:29 Chef wrote:
Hahaha wow. TBH I'm not that surprised tho. At least my university had a lot of problem with traffic (zz pay more for bandwidth and less for swimming pools, jerks), it makes it worse if it's not even human beings.

If your university's site designers were smart tho, they would let you put yourself on a waiting list so that you would have a seat reserved if someone dropped out. My school didn't do it, but I know a friend whose school let her put herself on waiting lists for courses if they were full. Saves you the stress of checking back all the time.

I was shocked they caught me. The website looks like it was designed in 1998 or something. They told me though that this has happened before though, usually with engineering students.

s.a.y

Croatia3840 Posts

May 10 2012 19:57 GMT

#11

That is very cool actually.

ModernAgeShaman

Norway484 Posts

May 10 2012 21:14 GMT

#12

well played dude, this brought a smile to my face

felisconcolori

United States6168 Posts

May 10 2012 22:26 GMT

#13

Hmm. You should probably have done a little more in-depth work on the script. Check for success, something like that. And space it out.

Also, when they called you in, have on a wrist brace and band-aids on your fingers. Then moaned in pain every time you moved your wrist, and screamed loudly "why don't you have a bloody wait list?!?! I sat and I clicked and I sat and I clicked..."

Okay, that second part is unlikely to have done anything, but seriously. Any half-competent registrar's office that even offers electronic registration should be at the point where a wait list is an option. And they have to come and slap you down for using technology? That's like a credit of computer science right there.

Jinsho

United Kingdom3101 Posts

May 10 2012 22:39 GMT

#14

What is this nonsense about telling him to pick a fight with them?

It's obvious that his script generated a huge load on the database and that the IT guys are very much in their right to tell him to fuck off. You don't need the policy to be shown to you to realize that it's justified.

Ktk

Korea (South)753 Posts

May 10 2012 23:50 GMT

#15

3000 times in 10 hours isn't that much stress for a college db, is it -_-?

Shoulda kept it at every 5 minutes.

iSometric

2221 Posts

May 10 2012 23:52 GMT

#16

Good try, but they probably should expect something like this especially with so many people registering and knowing how to do shit like this to abuse the system.

United States3249 Posts

May 11 2012 00:07 GMT

#17

On May 11 2012 08:50 Ktk wrote:
3000 times in 10 hours isn't that much stress for a college db, is it -_-?

Shoulda kept it at every 5 minutes.

It was once every 17 seconds for a database that services 15k students, and it was run at a near-zero traffic time. It probably mimicked like 5 units during peak hours, so did basically nothing.

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