As the story goes, a long time ago there was an
MIT student who lived in
Baker House. Now,
Baker House is
well known for its
crowded rooms and its loud
parties,
and this particular student had gotten
eited by it.
He had not one but four
roommates, all fond of partying,
and discovered that he couldn't
study in his room.
Being a
freshman, he still believed in getting
problem
sets done on time, so he set out to find another place
to
tool.
Unfortunately, this was much easier said than done.
The lounges in the dorm were full of loud parties.
The classrooms had uncomfortable chairs and funny echoes. The library chairs put him to sleep, and
they closed at early hours anyway. Finally, the student
found himself a tomb, a small rectangular room hidden
behind a machine room, and settled in to tool in peace.
Now, MIT also has an active population of hackers who
actively explore machine rooms and other interesting places. One night, several such
people were exploring, and found a small tomb furnished
with an unmade bed, a table with open textbooks, a chair, and a lamp. The explorers thought this a marvelous hack making fun of the small rooms that the Institute provided for students, and brought some friends back to see it the next week. When they saw the remnants of a meal on the table, a different textbook opened, and the bed made,
they realized that it was no hack. A student had actually made it his home.
For the next several years, the unknown student lived in
his tomb, tooling in peace, and the hackers never discovered his identity. The tomb was named the Tomb of the Unknown Tool in his honor. The furniture was eventually removed from the tomb, although the table didn't fit out the entrance and had to be cut into pieces.
Today, the Tomb is something every new hacker sees, and it contains a mural of the Hacking Ethics.