Welcome to the IHTFP Gallery!

The IHTFP Gallery is dedicated to documenting the history of hacking at MIT.

The word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, which is both challenging for the perpetrators and amusing to the MIT community (and sometimes even the rest of the world!). Note that this has nothing to do with computer (or phone) hacking (which we call "cracking").

(More About the IHTFP Gallery and FAQ.)

Recent News...

2014.03.04 - Hack Madness
To honor this MIT custom, the MIT Alumni Association is holding Hack Madness: The MIT Tournament of Hacks, a two-week contest to determine the Institute’s greatest hack.

2012.04.20 - Tetris on the Green Building!!!
Someone finally pulled off Tetris on the Green Building and it's up there and live now! More details to come...

2012.02.06 - Hack, Punt, Tool: a Hacking Musical
MIT's Musical Theatre Guild wrote and is performing a musical about hacking at MIT called Hack, Punt, Tool. Final performances are on the weekend of February 9th, with tickets available through MTG's website.

2011.01.29 - TARDIS travels through time and space
After appearing at MIT in September 2010, the TARDIS traveled though space to the west coast. It was spotted at both Caltech and Berkeley in January 2011. Although in our timeline it appeared at MIT, Caltech and then Berkeley, who of us can tell in which order the Doctor visited these institutions of high learning?

2007.05.19 - Syndicated news feed added to the Gallery
There's now an

xml/atom syndication feed of recent gallery news and write-up additions. This is also available through the mit_hacks feed on LiveJournal.

2007.05.11 - Site updates in progress
This site is undergoing significant updates. Some hacks after 1997 are missing write-ups and photos, but we're working on improving this. The timeline from 1997-present should be up-to-date, so please let us know if we're missing anything from it.

[More News...]

Recent Hacks...

2015 French Flag Projected on Great Dome

A projected French flag on the Great Dome, showing support for the people of Paris after the recent attack

[2015.11.14]

2015 Hack to the Future

Great Scott! In honor of Back to the Future Day, Lobby 7 was decorated with various BTTF paraphernalia, while a time-traveling DeLorean was found crashed outside.

[2015.10.21]

2015 New Bexley

A smaller version of Bexley Hall found its way to the top of the Little Dome, across the street from where the now-demolished dorm originally stood.

[2015.10.12]

2015 #IStandWithAhmed Clock

Hackers hang their own digital clock in Lobby 7, in support of a Muslim high school freshman who was arrested after his clock project was labelled as a bomb.

[2015.09.18]

2015 Hackapult

While trying to figure out how to get hacks onto the dome, hackers used a catapult to launch old hacks back towards the dome with varying degrees of success.

[2015.09.04]

2015 MIT Pride