Hacking Answers by Gateway (Summer, 2007) ----------------------------------------- By Franz Kafka I used to work as a technical support representative for Answers by Gateway and would serve as a corporate guardian to ensure that people calling in about pirated software or to help crack passwords were not helped. I have parted ways because my colleagues have a different mentality about hacking than I do. Most people who work as technicians (with some exceptions) can't program in any language, not even in Visual Basic. But there are some ways the people who call in to Answers by Gateway can get help. Lie to the technician. There is no way that we can verify over the phone that the copy of Microsoft Office or your OS is pirated unless you tell the technician, so don t tell the technician that it is an illegal copy. Remember if you are calling in for support on an OEM copy of Windows to tell the technician that it came with the machine. (We won't tell you this, but all copies of Windows that are a full version OS and not an image disc will work on any machine as long as you have the product key. The trick is to 1) lead us to believe that the disc came with the machine, or 2) lead us into thinking that you bought a new copy of Windows to install on your machine.) Some of the technicians are anal retentive and may want you to describe what your Windows CD looks like. Use Google Images and describe the image of the CD that you see. Again, we can't tell if you're lying to us over the phone because you are calling a support technician and not a psychic. Use this fact to your advantage. Getting us to help with passwords is a bit trickier. Sometimes if there is a password for Windows XP, you can boot into Safe Mode and login as the administrator and get in without a password. If you can't get into Safe Mode without a password, we won't be able to help you. What you need to do is this: Tell us that something is preventing you from starting Windows normally and you need help backing up your data in Safe Mode. Tell us you can't get into Windows normally because of a virus, a power surge, your kid tried to install his PS2 game in Windows and hosed the system, or you opened that picture of Britney Spears that your boss sent to you. Whatever you do don't mention that there is a problem with your password. Better yet don't even mention the word password. A lot of technicians at Gateway will refuse to help you if they suspect that you are calling in about a password issue. If you need to reset your BIOS password, ask us to help you replace the battery on your motherboard. Replacing this battery will reset your password without you even needing to mention the password issue to the technician. Another part of our job is selling you things that you don t need. Most of the security software that we sell is worse than programs such as AVG and Ad-Aware that you can download for free. Some employees are salesmen posing as technicians and will try to sell you a new system when all you need to do is reload your operating system. When you call you are really playing the lottery. You are gambling that you will reach a good knowledgeable technician that knows what he is doing. Most of the time you will lose. Be careful when you call for support on your computer. I can only comment about how Gateway operates, but I suspect that most other companies' support centers would be about the same.