• John (unregistered)

    That's the FRIST time it's been powered on in a while.

  • John (unregistered)

    By the way, that picture isn't cropped/redacted proplerly. With information (barely) visible in that picture, I can gain access to the machine and haxxor it. Once the updates have finished, that is.

  • MightyM (unregistered)

    The combobox in the second pic is for state and not zip. But it's still pretty WTFy.

  • John (unregistered)

    Oh and re: the fare compare thing: it is already 2013. We're over half way through it. I know keeping things in reserve is common practice, but this item appears to have been on hold for over a year! Maybe don't put current-date related items in reserve for more than a few days...

  • (cs)

    The base-64 "password" decodes to 49 bytes including a number which aren't printable. As hex it's 00DED88E27741111A4155DA75800A4FF8A2422B5D9FB5C4F5E069164DF7F60FEF9FD2BDC5D35E02EC318772B681999E6AF.

    It's unlikely to be the raw password, and we can rule out bcrypt (60-char output). MD5 gives 16 bytes of output, and SHA-1 gives 20 bytes of output, so they would be using stupid amounts of salt. It seems most likely to be SHA-256 (32 bytes of output) with 16 bytes of salt and a leading 00 as a version indicator. Anyone want to try cracking it on the assumption that it's only hashed once?

  • QJo (unregistered)

    That first one appears not to be a WTF (unless of course MicroSloppy are to be considered TRWTF of all time).

    This seems to be a registry update, which happens from time to time after the usual "You have 12 updates - please do not unplug or power down your computer" (or whatever it says). Sometimes the updates do in fact require the registry to be updated, which happens when you next restart the machine. They don't take long (seconds rather than minutes).

  • QJo (unregistered)

    As for the "Make a Payment" dropdown - goodness! Al-Khobar, one of my old stamping grounds. Used to be one of the best places to live in the KSA for ex-pats.

  • Sockatume (unregistered) in reply to QJo

    I'm amazed he was able to take a picture of it without any motion blur. I've got a laptop of a similar vintage and those things just zip by.

  • np (unregistered) in reply to MightyM
    MightyM:
    The combobox in the second pic is for state and not zip. But it's still pretty WTFy.

    Right, as if they can't generate a list of possible states. That said, I guess I can't use my card from Japan. But most websites are not international friendly (I see Australia and Canada there, so some people are trying).

  • np (unregistered) in reply to John
    John:
    Oh and re: the fare compare thing: it *is already* 2013. We're over half way through it. I know keeping things in reserve is common practice, but this item appears to have been on hold for over a year! Maybe don't put current-date related items in reserve for more than a few days...

    I thought that was why the price was so cheap. If you want to buy an expired ticket, go ahead for $ -1. Add in some tax and other fees, mailing of the ticket and it will only be $55.

  • (cs) in reply to Sockatume

    As you throw it out the window?

  • faoileag (unregistered)

    So, in January 2013, they intended to pay you 1$ every time you fly from Sacramento to Honolulu. Even without knowing the exact amount of time it takes to fly to Hawai, that's way below the minimum wage! Someone should report them ;-)

    Captcha: mara - gaelic for "sea". How appropriate. There's plenty of mara araound Hawai.

  • faoileag (unregistered)

    BRAKEL-FROHNHAUSEN. Population: 317. And one of them decided that that was enough to be a state instead of just a city district. You can but try...

  • Shaun Forsyth (unregistered)

    "I submit reason number one why you should start up your old XP box every once in a while even if you don't need it...just in case you might want to use it again," writes Bobbie.

    Ummm is it just me or is this vista / windows 7, not XP WTF??

  • (cs) in reply to Shaun Forsyth
    Shaun Forsyth:
    "I submit reason number one why you should start up your old XP box every once in a while even if you don't need it...just in case you might want to use it again," writes Bobbie.

    Ummm is it just me or is this vista / windows 7, not XP WTF??

    I believe you are correct, I had the same thought.

  • RoadieRich (unregistered)

    Perhaps Carl (image 4) should be selling ram as a fundraiser, not buying it...

  • moz (unregistered) in reply to faoileag
    faoileag:
    BRAKEL-FROHNHAUSEN. Population: 317. And one of them decided that that was enough to be a state instead of just a city district. You can but try...
    Or a village, as Wikipedia has it.

    It's nothing to do with states, of course, just that when you give people a few boxes to write their addresses, they'll use them in whatever way they think will make you print their address in whatever way they're used to. Any labels you put on the boxes are neither here nor there.

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to MightyM
    MightyM:
    The combobox in the second pic is for state and not zip.
    Which is why the original article said:
    Matt:
    they made the State field a collection of every stupid thing anyone ever entered
  • anonymous (unregistered)

    TRWTF is Flash.

    Just die already.

  • XXI (unregistered) in reply to The MAZZTer
    The MAZZTer:
    Shaun Forsyth:
    "I submit reason number one why you should start up your old XP box every once in a while even if you don't need it...just in case you might want to use it again," writes Bobbie.

    Ummm is it just me or is this vista / windows 7, not XP WTF??

    I believe you are correct, I had the same thought.

    Yeah I get the same screen on my 2 year old Win7 laptop every few updates. It's basically just updating the registry keys or something. First time I say "operation 5 or 46500" I freaked out a bit but it only takes a few minutes

  • MightyM (unregistered) in reply to Peter
    Peter:
    MightyM:
    The combobox in the second pic is for state and not zip.
    Which is why the original article said:
    Matt:
    they made the State field a collection of every stupid thing anyone ever entered

    You know that they sometimes stealth change an article?

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to MightyM
    MightyM:
    Peter:
    MightyM:
    The combobox in the second pic is for state and not zip.
    Which is why the original article said:
    Matt:
    they made the State field a collection of every stupid thing anyone ever entered
    You know that they sometimes stealth change an article?
    Oh. Okay, if the article originally referred to the Zip field rather than the State field, I withdraw my snark. Sorry.
  • (cs) in reply to pjt33

    I clearly see that password as "hunter2". How'd they get my password?

  • JimShatt (unregistered) in reply to Sockatume
    I'm amazed he was able to take a picture of it without any motion blur. I've got a laptop of a similar vintage and those things just zip by.

    How the hell would motion blur work on an LCD? It's not like those pixels walk off to the side when done. Though one might make a picture of multiple overlayed update messages, with long enough shutter time.

  • (cs) in reply to pjt33
    pjt33:
    The base-64 "password" decodes to 49 bytes including a number which aren't printable. As hex it's 00DED88E27741111A4155DA75800A4FF8A2422B5D9FB5C4F5E069164DF7F60FEF9FD2BDC5D35E02EC318772B681999E6AF.

    It's unlikely to be the raw password, and we can rule out bcrypt (60-char output). MD5 gives 16 bytes of output, and SHA-1 gives 20 bytes of output, so they would be using stupid amounts of salt. It seems most likely to be SHA-256 (32 bytes of output) with 16 bytes of salt and a leading 00 as a version indicator. Anyone want to try cracking it on the assumption that it's only hashed once?

    I was going to assume the password is just a string of random bytes base64-encoded.

  • EvilSnack (unregistered) in reply to John
    John:
    By the way, that picture isn't cropped/redacted proplerly. With information (barely) visible in that picture, I can gain access to the machine and haxxor it. Once the updates have finished, that is.
    It's a Windows box. That's all the information you need to haxxor it.
  • Axus (unregistered)

    That password actually looks like part of an SSH public or private key. They always end in ==

  • saepius (unregistered)

    Oh come on... -119 MB ought to be enough for anyone!!!

  • MightyM (unregistered) in reply to Axus
    Axus:
    That password actually looks like part of an SSH public or private key. They always end in ==

    The "==" is just a part of the Base64 encoding.

  • banananananananananana (unregistered) in reply to pjt33
    pjt33:
    The base-64 "password" decodes to 49 bytes including a number which aren't printable. As hex it's 00DED88E27741111A4155DA75800A4FF8A2422B5D9FB5C4F5E069164DF7F60FEF9FD2BDC5D35E02EC318772B681999E6AF.

    It's unlikely to be the raw password, and we can rule out bcrypt (60-char output). MD5 gives 16 bytes of output, and SHA-1 gives 20 bytes of output, so they would be using stupid amounts of salt. It seems most likely to be SHA-256 (32 bytes of output) with 16 bytes of salt and a leading 00 as a version indicator. Anyone want to try cracking it on the assumption that it's only hashed once?

    The password is "BRILLIANT!" Figuring out the salt is left as an exercise for the reader.

    Mark Bowytz:
    Insider iPhone app tips in Flash video
    This is actually a clever ploy to work around the SEC's insider trading laws.

    Either that or the Flash video is just a short clip of Nelson pointing at the idiotic user and shouting "HA! HA!".

  • It's Pat (unregistered)

    re: password

    And the password textbox is copy/paste restricted...

  • That Guy (unregistered)

    There are some SERIOUSLY humor impaired posters in this thread.

  • Your Name (unregistered)

    Do you have prior experience writing a web form?

  • Kemp (unregistered)

    This week I turned my Windows box on and had around 40,000 update operations to perform. It's pretty normal when there are registry updates. As someone said above, it takes a few seconds.

  • Kemp (unregistered) in reply to Kemp

    In fact, the submitter must have known how quickly it runs because he was sitting there with the machine at the time. I imagine the thought process was:

    "Wow, big number, I have to take a photo of this. Oh, that went quick. Ah well, probably no one else has ever used Windows before, it'll seem impressive."

  • Hannes (unregistered) in reply to Kemp
    Kemp:
    In fact, the submitter must have known how quickly it runs because he was sitting there with the machine at the time.

    Yes, that first pic is a real WTF, but not because of the pic, but because of the text that comes along with it...

  • Fence (unregistered)

    "RAM memory" - this

    CAPTCHA - erat -> eraticate the use of the phrase: "RAM memory"

  • (cs)

    Wait -- how does one even have 100 millibytes of RAM?

    TRWTF is vendors who refuse to read the ISO standards even once.

    Edit: actually it's worse. Isn't "b" a bit and "B" a byte?

  • Mike Dimmick (unregistered) in reply to Kemp
    Kemp:
    This week I turned my Windows box on and had around 40,000 update operations to perform. It's pretty normal when there are registry updates. As someone said above, it takes a few seconds.

    The registry operations it's doing are rewriting all the keys that describe what components are currently active. It also redoes ('projects') the hard links between filenames in System32 and WinSxS (making the name in System32 point to the new/old file). In this particular instance it was pointing to a different version of odbcjt32.dll.

    In Windows XP and earlier, patches worked by detecting what files you had installed, backing up the old ones in case you wanted to uninstall, then applying the new files. That's fine if you always install the patches in the right order, uninstall the most recent patch and nothing else has changed any of those files. If you try to uninstall a patch in the middle of a sequence of patches, the old files that are restored are then missing a patch, or may not be consistent.

    Windows Vista introduced component-based servicing, where the OS was divided into discrete components. An update has to replace all the files in the component - and all the registry keys to make it go - or none of them. All the versions of all the files for each update - in both update streams, General and Hotfix - are kept on your system in case you want to uninstall later, Microsoft have to withdraw a patch, or you install or uninstall a different patch that moves you to or from the Hotfix stream. This is why the WinSxS folder is so huge - it contains all the patches for every version of every feature that can be enabled in Windows.

    Windows 7 allegedly does some 'scavenging' of files no longer needed in WinSxS, and after installing a service pack, there is a command line you can run to remove the superseded component versions.

  • (cs) in reply to notromda
    notromda:
    I clearly see that password as "hunter2". How'd they get my password?

    hah, classic

  • Paul Neumann (unregistered) in reply to Mike Dimmick
    Mike Dimmick:
    ... This is why the WinSxS folder is so huge ...
    Sweet, I just freed up 11.8GB of space on my drive!

    Except, now I got a virus and need to have tech support make my computer work again.

  • oppeto (unregistered) in reply to Paul Neumann
    Paul Neumann:
    Mike Dimmick:
    ... This is why the WinSxS folder is so huge ...
    Sweet, I just freed up 11.8GB of space on my drive!

    Except, now I got a virus and need to have tech support make my computer work again.

    To get rid of the virus, just remove the parent directory above C:\Windows\WinSxS. ;-)

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Fence
    Fence:
    "RAM memory" - this

    CAPTCHA - erat -> eraticate the use of the phrase: "RAM memory"

    "RAM memory": reminisces about your old Dodge pick-up

  • Jay (unregistered)

    So if you currently have -119 MB RAM, and you add a 128 MB RAM card, that will give you a total of 9 MB.

  • Jay (unregistered)

    Oh, I see the problem with the dropdown. They left out Atlantis.

  • Jay (unregistered)

    Is it 2013 already? Sorry, I can't see my system clock. I'm still waiting for the updates to install.

  • (cs) in reply to Your Name
    Your Name:
    Do you have prior experience writing a web form?

    Right or wrong, that's just the way web forms were...

    Oh, forget it. I see that joke's already past its expiry date.

    Which would be okay if I was writing for an embedded system which doesn't even have an expiry... Nope, that one's dead too.

    Um.. More Irish Girl? Bring back MFD? Today is September 7290, 1993?

    Dang, I need to clean out my fridge more often.

  • Wesley (unregistered)

    The memory error reminds me of an issue I had installing a printer once upon a time. The Windows 2000 machine had 256Mb of RAM, and 4Mb (or so) was allocated to video, so it read as having 252Mb or RAM available. The HP printer installer insisted that the system absolutely MUST have 256Mb of RAM and refused to install. I finally managed to find an older/newer/something driver on HP's web site that didn't mind running with "only" 252Mb of RAM...

  • VeeTwo (unregistered)

    For the FundRaiser select (or is it "Selectis?"), I'm going to venture a guess that a 10 year old computer will typically be too old for Windows 7, and yet, we see an Aero-style dialog box. That leaves only one conclusion: TRWTF is Windows Vista! That would also explain the -119mb.

  • erk (unregistered)

    The second image shows another typical WTF. It asks for the card number "without dashes or spaces". It's much easier to compare the number you've typed with the card if you leave the spaces in. But then you run up against the programmer who can detect spaces in the number, but isn't clever enough to remove them.

Leave a comment on “Patch Friday”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article