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Admin
Uhhh ok. So the front desk people were war dialing? GG
Admin
The only thing I "detect" in it is that the hotel guys always used the admin line which increased the heat and caused some problems because they didn't know what they were doing? Or am I missing something?
Is the last admin login automatically used for those guys? More a whatever than a wtf. ;)
Admin
I think the author of this story must have forgotten to include 1 or 2 crucial details that might have made this story make sense.
Admin
Read is a few times over incase I hS missed something.. That's what I took from this, somone from the front desk was dialing in as an admin and resetting the ports.
Though not quite sure how that is possible with passwords changing daily.
Admin
No, the admin port got assigned wrong this time round.
Admin
I think it was the hotel staff thinking that they could do a better job arranging the ports than the developer
Admin
The picture of the blind man's foot and cane must have been a hint that no one would see the point of this story.
(Fixed the picture -ed.)
Admin
The real wtf is in the code of the article (@the blinking underscore):
Admin
So if the port numbers were changed randomly, the front desk computer terminal could have connected to the admin port, sent some random characters and got the police warning on the screen. Still, what caused the random port shift?
Admin
Seems pretty clear to me. The ports got swapped such that the admin interface was redirected to the front-desk terminals, thus the users saw the hack warning.
Admin
ahh, now that makes a bit more sense..
I'd still like to know what caused the random redesignation of ports.. if it was random at all.
Admin
And for a moment there I've thought they used an animated GIF :D
Admin
Yes, but why were the ports being swapped? That is the crucial part of this WTF that is missing. In fact, the write-up is a complete WTF.
Admin
Isn't it obvious? being the eighties, and looking back at the evidence we know from films like Short Circuit that computers are alive. The ports were randomly reassigned by the minicomputer itself, it was getting bored sending the same old data down the same old ports.
Admin
Admin
Kinda reminds me of how I used to place an executable file named cmd.exe onto my web server, which did nothing but pop up a message boy saying "F*** off!".
I laughed at every HTTP 200 this caused in my logs :D
Admin
It would appear that part of the hack detention/warning code changes the ports also.
Being the period it was, they just needed to type in START GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR followed by PLAY TIC-TAC-TOE for everything to be ok again.
Admin
Admin
A "message boy"?!? WTF?
HTTP 200? As far as I remember, 200 means success. Don't you mean HTTP 404? or something else? WTF?
I probably just don't get it.
Admin
Much like Number Johnny Five, the minicomputer was desperately craving more input.
Admin
Don't forget the second one:
PASS: SWORDFISSH<blink wtf="wheeeeee!!">_</blink>
Admin
It seems obvious to me: the system was using all of its ports, so when it needed to phone out, to contact the police, it needed to grab an existing port, which triggered some sort of re-allocation.
Admin
That's an interpretation. My question is, if the ports were being reassigned randomly (and the admin port too), how can the admin always find the good port to connect to?
Admin
The password was being interpreted as a command to change the IO?
FI DEL IO
Admin
The story seems 'unfinished to me'. Somehow it would be perfect if:
"Later on Andrew reviewed the piece of code that wrote the bogus warning and discovered that at the same time the port numbers were re-assigned in order to re-secure the system."
However, somehow I doubt it would be that neat.
Admin
That's the only thing I can even imagine from the story. I was trying to come up with something related IDE and LILO (even though it says LIO). And SWORDFISSH has SSH in it but I don't think that came around until the mid 90's.
The title for this WTF is very apt. It makes no sense.
Admin
Way back in '96 I was in the first "Internet Programming" class at my school. The instructor claimed that Marc Andressen admitted to adding blink to html one evening when he was drunk.
Admin
I didn't detect any sarcasm, but it appears from the story that the computer doesn't actually call the police.
Admin
It means that someone successfully ran the fake CMD.EXE file and it gave them the message "F*** off!".
And I think TheRider meant "message BOX". Why he would type "BOY" is beyond me. The Y isn't anywhere near the X.
Must've have been one of those WTF spasms.
Admin
It's the passwords.
"FIDELIO" - FI DEL IO, "SWORDFISH" SWORD FI SH.
OK, so FI invokes some kind of subshell... never mind that this works without spaces between the commands... and... OK, well, DEL IO must.... um... delete the IO port, yeah that's it... and, well... using SH, or SSH, is obviously a hacking attempt... and...
OK, I got nuthin'.
Admin
On some keyboards is Z and Y switched (so they call it QWERTZ). On such keybords are Y and X just the first and second keys on left down. So the typo is very simple.
Admin
Though a message boy popping up because of a HTTP request would be way scarier, so it would actually serve the purpose better.
Admin
I used to love that prank when I was a kid. Changing somebody's keyboard layout. That'll teach them for not buying the Optimus Maximus.
Admin
It is on German(?) keyboard layouts, known as QWERTZ keyboards. They have Z and Y swapped, which is an entirely different wtf.
Admin
Spasmodic keyboard clue spree!
Admin
Some keyboard layouts has X and Y swapped compared to the US layout. For example the one that's printed on my keyboard (Swiss, but I'm using US-International in the OS since it's more convenient to code). And the Germans (and probably many others) has those keys swapped, too.
Admin
A message boz would be even scarier!
Admin
Or maybe a Freudian fart - he may have been thinking about boys.
Admin
Admin
Admin
Makes sense, I do it all the time.
Admin
The way I read it the ending is that the front desk printer was printing what would be on the terminal... so when he got the message that they were phoning the police the front desk had the printer spit that out.
Admin
The WTF is that the Prime Directive was violated. Security measures must have no impact on innocent bystanders.
Admin
In ur wtf, eatin' your sense.
Captcha: Rats
Admin
I agree, the story is a little confusing (the way it is told). I figured they would embellish a bit here or there to make it more readable. Apparently not. Anyway, here is the original, for better or verse...
In the late 80's, I was lead developer for a large hotel chain. We had 240 hotels running off of 4 big regional minicomputers. Each mini handled 60 or so hotels dedicating 6 ports to each for terminals, printers, etc. This pushed the hardware we were using considerably, causing occasional system 'burps', bumping all the ports numbers over by one. The front desk staff would see bizarre things such as print jobs dumping to their terminals, and the main menu printing out on the printer.
Each mini also had a single port dedicated to developer dial-in support. In the age of 2400 baud modems, security and hacking were tame issues, met by equally tame preventative measures.
Anyone accidentally stumbling upon the dial-in number would see a typical login page. Enter anything but a secret code of the day, and the would be hacker would be left pondering a message that their break-in had been detected, the line had been traced, and the police were being contacted... It was all fake, but we figured what the hell, try to scare em off.
One day, after a one of those system 'burps', a bizarre support call was received at corporate support. A front desk clerk at one hotel was on the line frantically exclaiming "Help! the computer is calling the police!"
Admin
Admin
I hate to be one of those "this wtf sucks" people, but this WTF sucks. Very confusing.
Admin
Still, that makes me wonder what the source code for that file looked like...
?
P.S. I have no idea why the board is doubling the line breaks in the code block above. The only line that's blank in the comment editing window is the one after the #include.
Admin
NOW that does make sense ! Wow, what a novelization in this WTF !
Admin
I agree that this one doesn't make sense. One of a few things happened, the port switch could be on the client or server side. Either way, its a huge WTF because this shouldn't be modifiable by the average individual. Maybe they reinstalled the app and it reset the ports ? If that is the case that means that the server's side ports got shifted and it is the work of careless programming by changing the port assignments.