Comment On A Peek Into Our Future

Now my only question: What happened with the project's due date.

[Note from Alex: From Ishai: "And if you are wondering, I did use the library he exposed, but I took one look at his solution and threw it away. Too many "isTrue"-ish functions for my taste. I got an 'A'"]

I don't think I'd copy off that guy.

Oh man, the thing didn't take my first post :-(
I've had this happen a number of times. I especially like when professor's slides are unintelligable and when doing a search for them, you find the exact same slides hosted off another website.

I doubt the pro-fessor had anything to do with that code. In all likelihood, this "senior" was the one assigned to prepare a working project against which all other students' projects would be baselined.
Now that would be some future.
Illiterate student and an even more illiterate pro.

Alex Papadimoulis:

 Now if you're thinking, "big deal, so a P2P user exposed himself," keep in mind that this was a fifth-year senior, studying Computer Science and Systems at WTF-U.

He is our future.

fifth-year ? Now that's a WTF.

During my fifth year studies in CS, my profesor had us complete a program.  She gave us a function with several lines of code missing in key areas.  A clever student Googled, I mean MSNed the function and lo and behold was the exact code.  It waS a small class in which everybody did the same thing bc this wasnt kept a secret for long.  Anyways, those that handed in verbatim minus new name got a B. Those that changed the code, variables, etc got the A.  I got the B.

Yay for Google.com!!!  

those smarty pants CS kids are always lookin out for themselves, and everyone else.

he was actually doing the student body a service.  most schools have there own private file sharing networks, he was taking it one step further and sharing with all universities ;)

i dont even know how id mock someone of this magnatude if i was going to the same school :x

captcha: photogenic
he might not have been but his files sure were ;)

kuroshin:

fifth-year ? Now that's a WTF.

Drexel University has 5 year engineering bachelors programs that include 3 separate 6 month paid internships. I don't know anything about their computer science program. Drexel students refer to their fifth year as their senior year, and to their third year as PRE -junior. So this is probably not a Drexel student, but the fifth-year is not that unusual today.

The real WTF is that this post isn't funny at all.

Studying CS doesn't gurantee that you're any less of an idiot than most people. I've had a guy in my course emailing me several times for an answer to a stupid question that he should be able to solve in about 10 minutes (he's been doing this for the past 2 weeks). I've seen CS students who can't grasp the idea of the linkage process. I know one guy who's about to become a doctor, but needed my help to solve basic C questions.

So this guy shared his entire C drive. Big deal.

kuroshin:

Alex Papadimoulis:

 Now if you're thinking, "big deal, so a P2P user exposed himself," keep in mind that this was a fifth-year senior, studying Computer Science and Systems at WTF-U.

He is our future.

fifth-year ? Now that's a WTF.

Not necessarily. I started college full time, then had to cut it down to half time so I could support myself - It was four years of coursework spread over five years...

kuroshin:

fifth-year ? Now that's a WTF.

Maybe he got red-shirted in his freshman year?

My university is pretty similar, atleast for mathematics, Computer Science, and engineering (with a few other programs). You start in September, and the year is broken up into 3 full, 4-month terms. Every 4 months, you switch between a school term, and a paid co-op term. Then you do 8 months straight of school either in your first year, or your last. At the end of April in your fifth your (typically), you're done.

So for those keeping track, you end up with 8 x 4-month school terms (your typical 4-year program length), and  6 x 4-month co-op terms (for 2 years of "work" experience). To get around all this confusion, we typically refer to our school terms as 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, etc.

This would become my all-time favorite WTF if the guy exposing his C:\ would turn out to be the professor.

MaGnA:

This would become my all-time favorite WTF if the guy exposing his C:\ would turn out to be the professor.

A better guess might be Gilligan.

Anonymous:

During my fifth year studies in CS, my profesor had us complete a program.  She gave us a function with several lines of code missing in key areas.  A clever student Googled, I mean MSNed the function and lo and behold was the exact code.  It waS a small class in which everybody did the same thing bc this wasnt kept a secret for long.  Anyways, those that handed in verbatim minus new name got a B. Those that changed the code, variables, etc got the A.  I got the B.

Yay for Google.com!!!  

On a similar note... I went to school with a couple guys who ended up having to repeat a class after being busted for cheating.  They didn't share or copy each others work.  Independently,  they both googled for possible answers to the assignment and came across the same sample.  Turns out that the sample they stole had  one particular variable spelled incorrectly throughout, which is how the prof got wise... Oops.

What P2P is this that publishes your files on a http server without asking you?

Does anybody have one set up that I could take a look at? I'm kind of curious. It seems like P2P apps are becoming bloatware.

kuroshin:

fifth-year ? Now that's a WTF.

Not necessarily, at my (engineering) university it took about five years to finish a B.Sc.

Anonymous:

Ishai emailed the fellow and told him how "open source" his computer was.

Wow... "open source" now means "completely unsecured"? This place has always had a pro-Microsoft viewpoint, but that has to be a new low.

Come on.  You have to realize that that means nothing of the sort.

In an open source program, the black box that is the program now has its insides (the code) publicly available for all to see.

In this analogy, the black box that is the computer now has its insides (the files) publicly available for all to see.

Settle down.

In my experience, CS students were the ones who always needed their computers fixed. In fact, it seemed that the more education they had, the more help they needed.

For example, I had to explain to one CS student why saving documents in Windows with the correct file extension was a good idea. 

Oh.. Once you get a PhD, you suddenly can't click through the slides in Powerpoint.

I thought at first that the genius sharing his drive was the Prof as well... alas that was not the case.

Alex Papadimoulis:

And all of his "scanned receipts."

My legal team has advised me to point out that you somehow misspelled "pornography".

It's an understandable mistake though. The keys are like right next to each other.

evanm:

My university is pretty similar, atleast for mathematics, Computer Science, and engineering (with a few other programs). You start in September, and the year is broken up into 3 full, 4-month terms. Every 4 months, you switch between a school term, and a paid co-op term. Then you do 8 months straight of school either in your first year, or your last. At the end of April in your fifth your (typically), you're done.

So for those keeping track, you end up with 8 x 4-month school terms (your typical 4-year program length), and  6 x 4-month co-op terms (for 2 years of "work" experience). To get around all this confusion, we typically refer to our school terms as 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, etc.

Sounds like Waterloo, or as we used to refer to it, what-the..-f***-you!  Well, not that often.  Renound, in at least our classes, for it's programming assignments undergoing massive spec rewrites by the TA's or profs mere hours before (or after) the duedate of that assignment.

Still, I miss her, and her completely architecturally hiddeous buildings.. I mean, on their own, they are merely ugly, but together... the chip.. the airport... the dungeon... the pit... ah.. memories.

savar:

What P2P is this that publishes your files on a http server without asking you?

Does anybody have one set up that I could take a look at? I'm kind of curious. It seems like P2P apps are becoming bloatware.

Several P2P network protocols use HTTP for the actual file transfers. Gnutella and everything compatible with its protocol is the first one that comes to mind. And some of these apps do support sending a directory list over the built in web server. Okay, so it's not IIS as the article states, but it is a web server nonetheless.

Why do they do this? Because implementing an HTTP server for the file transfer bits is cheap and easy and fairly effective. Why reinvent the wheel?

There isn't much overlap in the skills required to land a PhD in CS and in the skills required to be a windows power user.

Depending on the specialty, there may not even be much overlap with the skills required to be a programmer.

Dwayne:

The keys are like right next to each other.

Nice.  You get that from bash.org, or is it a common internet joke I've missed until now?

Ah yes, Waterloo.. I personally still refer to the Math & Computer building as the Insane Asylum, and not only because the outside looks like one...

well we had a student ahve full read/write on his C drive in the dorms...i overwrote the hidden desktop.ini file so all ihs new windows had gay porno attached to it...i betcha he formatted his computer to remove it too!  but before i did it, i did copy all of his mp3s and mpgs :-)        

Dunno where he got it from, but man I laughed hard on that one...

Gosh I hope no one looks in my "Compressed Files" directory!

Captcha = Best known female WTF programmer!

Anonymous:

You get that from bash.org, or is it a common internet joke I've missed until now?

It's common.

However, I find it odd that you completely ignore the possibility that Dwayne discovered this particular joke independently, and didn't copy it from anywhere.

I mean, the ideas are like right next to each other.

 

Anonymous:

During my fifth year studies in CS, my profesor had us complete a program.  She gave us a function with several lines of code missing in key areas.  A clever student Googled, I mean MSNed the function and lo and behold was the exact code.  It waS a small class in which everybody did the same thing bc this wasnt kept a secret for long.  Anyways, those that handed in verbatim minus new name got a B. Those that changed the code, variables, etc got the A.  I got the B.

Yay for Google.com!!!  

Reminds me of my graduate class in advanced algorithms... except it wasn't programs, but some retarded algorithm problems that nobody in the class really got (except the people who spend most of their day actually reading the book).  Other than that, word for word...

I'd never actually copy a programming assignment though... I'm above that  

Anonymous:

During my fifth year studies in CS, my profesor
had us complete a program.  She gave us a function with several
lines of code missing in key areas.  A clever student Googled, I
mean MSNed the function and lo and behold was the exact code.  It
waS a small class in which everybody did the same thing bc this wasnt
kept a secret for long.  Anyways, those that handed in verbatim
minus new name got a B. Those that changed the code, variables, etc got
the A.  I got the B.

Yay for Google.com!!!  

Why the hell are you in CS??  Googlecoders always boggled my mind
in college.  It seemed like 1/3 of the class actually did the
coding assignments and the rest either "MSNed" the code or "borrowed"
someone elses and changed variables if they weren't retarded.  Why
would you take Computer Science if you're not going to actually
learn?  It's not like you'll be able to just search for exact
solutions off the internets when or should I say IF you get a job after
college dealing with programming (or anything computer-esque). 
Congratulations on wasting 4 (or probably more) years worth of college
money.



Oh and for a wtf, I remember a graduate CS student having to ask an
undergrad what the hell ftp was...not how to use it or even what
program is best for it, but what it was.

I almost stopped reading it because I was so sure it was going to be the prof. I wish I had.

College students are stupid... big surprise. For all you know he has been copying everything off of his classmates/friends for the last 5 years. He's either going to fail miserably at his first programming job and end up as a featured TDWTF article, or, he'll be a successful consultant.

When I studied for my MS in CS Google didn't exist so we had to look in the garbage can next to the printer to try to find some printouts of other student's solutions. This was in fact so long time ago so surfing for p0rn meant that you had to go to usenet, then judging by the name of a post cut ascii code from often four or more posts and paste into a text editor, then  run the text file through some decoder to finally produce a bmp file to view before actually being able to see the pic.

I graduated 1995 if anyone wonder.

Anonymous:

Sounds like Waterloo, or as we used to refer to it, what-the..-f***-you!  Well, not that often.  Renound, in at least our classes, for it's programming assignments undergoing massive spec rewrites by the TA's or profs mere hours before (or after) the duedate of that assignment.

Sounds like they were doing a thorough job of preparing you for the world of business.

Now if you're thinking, "big deal, so a P2P user exposed himself," keep in mind that this was a fifth-year senior, studying Computer Science and Systems at WTF-U.

He is our future.

Well, at least the future of TheDailyWTF looks bright!

snoofle:

MaGnA:

This would become my all-time favorite WTF if the guy exposing his C:\ would turn out to be the professor.

A better guess might be Gilligan.

Actually, I always hoped Marianne would "expose herself"

kuroshin:

fifth-year ? Now that's a WTF.

Haste makes waste. 

You need to take time to smell the roses, drink the beer and talk to the ladies.  Everyone knows that is what college is really all about.

Alex Papadimoulis:

fifth-year ? Now that's a WTF

collective applause

Good job on graduating in four years!!!  Now understand that a lot of people don't for a wide variety of reasons.

Otto:

Several P2P network protocols use HTTP for the actual file transfers. Gnutella and everything compatible with its protocol is the first one that comes to mind. And some of these apps do support sending a directory list over the built in web server. Okay, so it's not IIS as the article states, but it is a web server nonetheless.

Why do they do this? Because implementing an HTTP server for the file transfer bits is cheap and easy and fairly effective. Why reinvent the wheel?

Because sometimes you don't need a wheel, but a gear, which has many wheel-like properties.  Sure, you can take a wheel and bash it into a gear pretty quick, but it won't work as well as a properly designed gear.

So what's the big deal?

The man obviously bought his way through to the fifth year? Either that or WTF-U counts study years in dog years, which makes the man a freshman,,,,

IT has a bright future with such curagious dudes....

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

During my fifth year studies in CS, my profesor
had us complete a program.  She gave us a function with several
lines of code missing in key areas.  A clever student Googled, I
mean MSNed the function and lo and behold was the exact code.  It
waS a small class in which everybody did the same thing bc this wasnt
kept a secret for long.  Anyways, those that handed in verbatim
minus new name got a B. Those that changed the code, variables, etc got
the A.  I got the B.

Yay for Google.com!!!  

Why the hell are you in CS??  Googlecoders always boggled my mind
in college.  It seemed like 1/3 of the class actually did the
coding assignments and the rest either "MSNed" the code or "borrowed"
someone elses and changed variables if they weren't retarded.  Why
would you take Computer Science if you're not going to actually
learn?  It's not like you'll be able to just search for exact
solutions off the internets when or should I say IF you get a job after
college dealing with programming (or anything computer-esque). 
Congratulations on wasting 4 (or probably more) years worth of college
money.



Oh and for a wtf, I remember a graduate CS student having to ask an
undergrad what the hell ftp was...not how to use it or even what
program is best for it, but what it was.

Does just renaming the variables actually work???



It seems like it would be trivial to write a program to detect that?

There are plenty of 5-year engineering degree programs, some of which involve receiving two degrees like mine did. For example, pairing a foreign language and engineering curricula, or computer something and math, or something

I'm currently on year 7 of my "4" year degree.  I took 2 years off (cause I was an idiot) and the rest of the time, I've been mostly part time owing to the fact that I currently work as a programming in the industry full time.  I should graduate next year (year 8 of my "4" year degree).

Also, something to realize, is that 4 year degrees only take 4 years for the insane.  At my school, it involves taking 17-20 credit hours per semester which is nearly double "full time".  Unless you have no life and no job, that's just crazy.

Today's WTF is weak though.  That's the first time I've said it but it really is weak.  99% of college students are complete idiots and will produce WTFs to keep this site going for years to come.  I've seen WTFs come out of college students that would make this site blush.

Now had it been the professor who's hard drive was open to the World Wide Web... that's a worthy WTF.  The professor should be smarter than that.

Anonymous:

evanm:

My university is pretty similar, atleast for mathematics, Computer Science, and engineering (with a few other programs). You start in September, and the year is broken up into 3 full, 4-month terms. Every 4 months, you switch between a school term, and a paid co-op term. Then you do 8 months straight of school either in your first year, or your last. At the end of April in your fifth your (typically), you're done.

So for those keeping track, you end up with 8 x 4-month school terms (your typical 4-year program length), and  6 x 4-month co-op terms (for 2 years of "work" experience). To get around all this confusion, we typically refer to our school terms as 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, etc.

Sounds like Waterloo, or as we used to refer to it, what-the..-f***-you!  Well, not that often.  Renowned, in at least our classes, for its programming assignments, which undergo massive spec rewrites by the TA's or profs mere hours before (or after) the due date!

Still, I miss her, and her completely architecturally hiddeous buildings.. I mean, on their own, they are merely ugly, but together... the chip.. the airport... the dungeon... the pit... ah.. memories.

UVic has the same setup: (years run from September - August)
1st year:1A, 1B, workterm / off / summer school,
2nd year: 2A, workterm, 2B,
3rd year: workterm, 3A, workterm,
4th year: 3B, workterm, 4A,
5th year: workterm, 4B, done.

It also sounds like we have the same ugly style of buildings. Perfectly functional, but they were ungly and always smelled a little like a locker room. It must be a Canadian Building Code thing.

One of the buildings at UVic is so bad that the Fire Department Will Not Enter Under Any Circumstances.

Finding assignments online is not new. In one of my classes, the only way to pass was to use the old exams as a study guide. The textbook had changed, but the prof hadn't. In another case, the lecture notes and assignments came from another university were used with minor changes. I could either use the photocopied crapola the prof scrawled out by hand, or I could print off the nice PDF that the other university provided.

This is not to say that I cheated on any assignments or tests; rather, that the professors were lazy and probably weren't expecting someone to find out that their notes were copied.

MaGnA:

This would become my all-time favorite WTF if the guy exposing his C:\ would turn out to be the professor.

I was waiting for that about halfway through but the payoff never came.  :-(

Aye, that was my first thought too... "that sounds awefully familiar".

But as any good mathie, the vast majority of my on-campus time was in the MC, at the Comfy Lounge, MathSOC, the CSC, the 6th floor Graphics Lab, and the 3rd floor Train Lab (Realtime).

Anonymous:

evanm:

My university is pretty similar, atleast for mathematics, Computer Science, and engineering (with a few other programs). You start in September, and the year is broken up into 3 full, 4-month terms. Every 4 months, you switch between a school term, and a paid co-op term. Then you do 8 months straight of school either in your first year, or your last. At the end of April in your fifth your (typically), you're done.

So for those keeping track, you end up with 8 x 4-month school terms (your typical 4-year program length), and  6 x 4-month co-op terms (for 2 years of "work" experience). To get around all this confusion, we typically refer to our school terms as 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, etc.

Sounds like Waterloo, or as we used to refer to it, what-the..-f***-you!  Well, not that often.  Renound, in at least our classes, for it's programming assignments undergoing massive spec rewrites by the TA's or profs mere hours before (or after) the duedate of that assignment.

Still, I miss her, and her completely architecturally hiddeous buildings.. I mean, on their own, they are merely ugly, but together... the chip.. the airport... the dungeon... the pit... ah.. memories.

Gah, previous post was supposed to quote this text.

The real WTF is that MSNing means to Instant Message someone about something; not a web search.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=msning

(I was a tester of MSN Messenger 1.0, it was a 100kb (0.1 mb) download then... now it's over 20 megabytes... that's a WTF)

during my freshman year (i'm now in my fifth) at the university of oregon, i used my cs department account to store an assignment without noticing that by default, everything was world readable.

it was a fill-in-the-blanks type programming assignment, and part of the template made no sense so i made the comment

/* wtf is up with this? */

a few days after i turned the assignment in, i got called into the professor's office. he showed me a printout of my assignment, and asked me about the "wtf" comment which i had forgotten to delete before turning it in. i explained and apologized, at which point the professor told me that the exact same code had been turned in by two other students with that comment intact.

somehow these guys had been clever enough to steal my code from my home directory but hadn't bothered to make any changes to the assignment.

i'm a lot more careful about keeping my files private these days.

I always search the web to find out if the project I have been given has been done before.  When I do find code, discussion, etc. my boss loves it if I use that to get my work done faster.  I don't think that the majority of college assignments are so pedagogic that students will be malformed by learning from what was done before instead of working from scratch.  The WTF is the prof's that won't make up new exercises each semester.