• Published 6th Jan 2016
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What If... - TheMajorTechie



A buncha stories based off of random "What if?" questions. Eight years old and one thousand chapters long. Holy crap. BROKE THE 1000 CHAPTER LIMIT WITH A 1001ST CHAPTER!!!

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Sunset Shimmer was a pro hacker?

Author's Note:

Came up with this while questioning how Sunset Shimmer was able to fake messages to the (hu)mane 6 in the first Equestria Girls movie.

Also, I wanted to ramble on about things I learned from books and videos about how the internet functioned. Because internets.

Many have asked how I earn money without a job. Quite a few have wondered about my ability to fake emails and texts to others without stealing an identity. Though, nobody has yet to simply confront me and question, "How in the world did you even get into high school?"

The answer to all those is, to put it in an easier phrasing, is that I know my ways around technology.

Think about it for a moment. How would a unicorn from another world be able to figure out technology? It's easy, once you get around the roadblocks. They hang around coffee shops, "borrow" a device or two.

In the end, magic and technology are in no way comparable to each other. Technology was created over millennia in order to improve and soften the daily lives of it's users. Magic, on the other hand, is not only a mere definition of unexplained sciences, but a whole category of it's own definition. To have a regular spellcaster find themselves in a world of technology would hardly be anything to scoff at, for just the comparison of complexity between magic and technology would be incomprehensible.

Basically, technology still has a pretty long time before it could possibly match half of the capabilities of a well-rounded mage.

And that is exactly how I wormed my way into society when I came through the portal. At first, judging from the immediate surroundings, I had thought that it'd be easy to manipulate the local population to do my bidding, but after finding that there was a far more... intricate layer to society, I decided that it would be far more entertaining to spread my influence from there.

And so, my digital career began. Without my magic, it was at first mildly confusing, if not annoying, to have to physically manipulate objects, but once I had gotten used to it, I went off on a roll.

It started off as a simple tablet I had bought using the few bits I had brought with me. A few golden coins and gems for the best model on the market and such. I immediately took advantage of the infinite database known as the "internet", and began my research.

"Research on what," you may ask. Initially I had planned to return as soon as possible to bring vengeance upon Celestia, and anypony who had opposed me, but over time, my studies on the inner workings of similar monarchies faltered. As many have told me, history is written by the victors. Everything I had read about bringing down a ruler typically consisted of bloody struggles, and considering as to how those struggles involved armies, I was completely unprepared. As such, I decided to bide my time and wait for the perfect opportunity.

Over the course of months, I waited. Weeks became months, months became years. I finally realized that my chance would likely never come within my lifetime. So instead, I began to dive deeper into the inner workings of human society. I had yet to give myself any sort of identity in the world, and seeing as there didn't appear to be any counterpart to myself in existence, it would be much harder than simply stealing papers.

I soon discovered the so-called "dark web", a loosely connected anonymous network of various users and groups who often used said network to illegally transfer goods and services. A perfect place for me to learn.

A few days of searching later turned up some useful information. For example, I had met an old man in an alley who was willing to not only hand me his motorcycle, but his personal account on a dark web forum site. All for a small handful of my remaining bits.

As for the rest of the bits, I had used them to buy myself a quiet condo on the edge of town, complete with basic lifetime utilities. Obviously, it took the rest of my bits anyways, considering how people in the area complained about their high bills.

Though, once the bits ran out, I had to get myself a job as soon as possible. Luckily, a local fast food restaurant handled the problem. No ID required.

I took on the position of student yet again, this time as the protege of a supposedly renowned hacker who made millions off of bank accounts. In short, I quickly learned the ways around secure networks, through both viruses and glitches. To an extent it would occasionally involve custom built hardware such as card scanners, but those weren't as common as the rest.

Once I had created my false identity, I was able to infiltrate the ranks of a local high school that coincidentally went by the same name as my home city back in Equestria. Using the forged papers I was able to enter as a freshman. And though I was already nearing my early twenties, my human form strangely took on the childish look of an early teen. As such, like I mentioned before, I was enrolled as a freshman.

Initially, upon the beginning of the school year, I was quite relieved to be accepted into the community. It was already enough of a struggle to create my identity, but to have to find a place to hide my motorcycle? That was especially hard due to the fact that said motorcycle was still unregistered in the DMV. Not to mention the fact that according to my papers, I was still too young to drive. Either way, navigating on a motorcycle is far easier than accessing secured bank files using nothing but a rooted tablet.

But soon, after my entrance into Canterlot High, I realized that the prolonged friendliness would likely prove hurtful. It would only take a single overly talkative person to pipe up, and I'd find myself imprisoned for what I did. Naturally, I didn't take a liking to the prospect. And so, I began to tear up the ties between students.

It was actually quite easy since I already knew my way around, y'know? All it takes is a brute-force password cracker and a user name, and suddenly, you're in. This particular group of girls that I'm now friends with were my first targets. I at first spied on them, looking over their shoulders while they were busy texting away and stuff like that. Just to learn their usernames. Texts were relatively simple to fake. All you need is a dummy cell tower to intercept their signal, and push it along the way with a completely different message.

As for emails, the password crackers worked for a time, but eventually after a client update they failed. So instead, I began looking to the knowledge I had gained about creating hardware to combat the software walls.

It was quite the social experiment as well, in fact. drop a couple of flash drives infected with a keylogger, and wait for someone to pick it up. Chances are, they'd plug it in at some point out of curiosity. What they didn't realize, however, is that the keylogger would silently install itself, and transmit everything they did to me.

And so with that came the downfall of the Canterlot High student body. Once their bonds were broken, it was quite easy to individually push them to my liking. As for the Element of Magic, I had heard talks about it in occasional disguised trips back to Equestria.

Obviously, I no longer do these things, considering how I went all "she-demon" and whatever. All in all, I still ran into the law after the confrontment with Princess Twilight, but they agreed to let me off the hook if I returned everything I had bought using the stolen money. On top of that I had to report and bring down the forum from the inside, (an easy task), and go full white-hat with my skills.

Basically, I worked for the government now. They provided me with a legitimate identity in return for catching people in their act, and all in all, my life has definitely took a turn for the better.

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