The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-03-30 Reply Admin

Wow, I have no idea why my comment was featured.

Also, it was obviously just an excuse to post THRID and the FATIGUE thing.

2013-03-30 Reply Admin

Oh great and now I'm a pagetopper.

JiP · 2013-03-31 Reply Admin

Warranty void if removed: It's not about the sticker, it's about the memory module itself!

If you need a claim on this module's warranty, just send over your entire PC (of course, not just the MOBO, because that would mean removal of some sort as well) to the manufacturer and they'll take care of it...

2013-03-31 Reply Admin

jay:
As a way to track down the person who wrote the ransom note or the terrorist threat or whatever, this only works as long as the criminals don't know that you're doing it. Once they know, criminals will be sure to print their ransom notes or whatever on a printer that they buy with cash or steal or otherwise acquire in a way that cannot be easily traced, and then dispose of after the crime. I suppose particularly sophisticated criminals will figure out how to disable it or fake it out. Like, hmm, can I find out the serial number of the Attorney General's printer -- like write some innocuous letter to his office and study the paper of the reply -- and then put that code on my terrorist threat? That would be funny watching the FBI track that down.

One terrorist was tracked down by a finger print on a ransom note that he sent out. It wasn't actually his finger print. It was the finger print of a completely innocent employee in a copy shop. The FBI found him, found that he was innocent (his finger prints got on lots of paper as part of his job), but then they knew where the paper for the ransom note was purchased and eventually found the guy.

Faking things will tend to leave more evidence. Anything making what you do more complicated gives the police a better chance. In your example, instead of tracking "who sent the ransom note" they can now also track "who wrote letters to the AG's office and received a reply". That's probably a very limited number.

2013-03-31 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
TK:
TRWTF is inkjet printers. Color laser printers are cheap and awesome. Stop wasting your time on crap.
It's claimed that a lot of (?all) colour laser printers print their serial numbers and other identifying information somewhere on each page, usually in small thin yellow text so it's hard to notice, but not impossible to read if you are an alphabet-souper looking to find the scheming pinko terrorist[1] who printed the page of seditious libel[2].
[1] Or whatever the witch hunt target of the month is. [2] aka Shopping list, letter to Grandma, printed Amazon receipt, etc.

Just checked my old color printer, yes, it has those yellow tiny dots (at least I assume they are so, I didn't bother deciphering them). According to EFF they contain the serial number and print date.

Easy solutions:

Print in black and white mode (supposedly it doesn't print them in this case). You don't really need color for a ransom note anyway.
Take out the yellow toner cartridge.
Add a random yellow dot background to your document.

For extra lulz, find a printer that does not print those, and print a fake pattern pointing to someone else's printer.

2013-03-31 Reply Admin

Yeah, I'm sure that printing those little yellow dots will work so well to stop counterfeiting! It's not like criminals will want to crop the paper to the size of the bills or anything... oh, wait, that's exactly what they will do, more or less automatically.

For that matter, although I admit I haven't checked the output of more recent models, every color laser printer I've tried has given its output a distinct feel. I'm pretty sure that, if they haven't improved the printers so much that this is no longer the case, you would have to be unable to feel texture to accept a counterfeit.

Of course, that wouldn't prevent criminals from using their bills in vending machines. Oh no, the criminals will be able to buy minibottles of soda which cost more than 2-Liter bottles do at a grocery store! The humanity!

2013-04-01 Reply Admin

Pero perić:
When somebody unknown is in your backyard and doesn't respond to your hails, you should consider stopping them. Chrome is using that analogy.

If they didn't respond to your hails of gau-8 fire, then maybe they're already dead?

----------------------------------[x] Unknown dead target, repeat fire? [ Yes ] [ Yes, with prejudice]

operagost · 2013-04-01 Reply Admin

TK:
TRWTF is inkjet printers. Color laser printers are cheap and awesome. Stop wasting your time on crap.

To be fair, I haven't seen a color laser suitable for SOHO use that could print really good photos. If you have the need to make lots of prints all the time, a color laser isn't going to cut it, and you should get a photo printer (which is probably going to be inkjet). But I wouldn't touch one of those $79-printer-with-$99-ink all-purpose printers. Just get a cheap Brother laser or low-end HP to do it.

operagost · 2013-04-01 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
TK:
True. I confirmed my printer does do this for color printing. That's really the only complaint I have with it.
However, if you select black and white output, it does not.

That's still no excuse for this ridiculous "feature." WTF Xerox?
There's also the concept of printing fake money, and this serial number would allow the relevant authorities to track down the perpetrator. Of course getting hold of paper that would have the right feel would be hard. It's worth noting in passing the following:

Colour photocopiers are required by law in various countries to be unable to accurately reproduce all the colours found in banknotes. This is more of a challenge in the US because of the very simple colour scheme. FFS dudes! Two colours of ink, and all the notes the same size? (Yes, yes, I know about the red and blue fibres, and the watermarks, and the metal strip.)

But not the THREE COLORS of ink on each bill. The $20 uses blue, black and green while the $10 uses red, black and green. There is also a gradient in the background based on the third color of the particular bill.

operagost · 2013-04-01 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
TK:
TRWTF is inkjet printers. Color laser printers are cheap and awesome. Stop wasting your time on crap.

Actually print-out is no longer required after great inventions like Ipad / Galaxy tab.

Just take it and you have portable paper. Also we should go toward paperless world soon, otherwise all trees will loss their life.

Hemp.

operagost · 2013-04-01 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
I Forget:
A paperless world has as much chance at succeeding as a paperless bathroom. The Great Cornholio is not pleased!
BTW, trees are a renewable resource. Or perhaps we should stop eating corn because we might run out of corn plants after we eat it all. This whole tree hugging stuff is just a conspiracy to divert your attention form the use of non-renewable oil.

The real WTF is that the unethical research in computing is performed by making people view advertisements in their printer drivers. People are so conditioned to it these days that they don't complain, and actually buy more of the abusive products.

Welcome to Third World. All bathroom is paperless only. Use water. that is what everyone in my country do.

Because we totally aren't concerned about our potable water usage. And no, I'm not shooting potentially pathogenic water up my bum.

2013-04-01 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
There's also the concept of printing fake money, and this serial number would allow the relevant authorities to track down the perpetrator. Of course getting hold of paper that would have the right feel would be hard. It's worth noting in passing the following:

Colour photocopiers are required by law in various countries to be unable to accurately reproduce all the colours found in banknotes. This is more of a challenge in the US because of the very simple colour scheme. FFS dudes! Two colours of ink, and all the notes the same size? (Yes, yes, I know about the red and blue fibres, and the watermarks, and the metal strip.)

If you look at a lot of currency today, you'll find they have a peculiar grouping of 5 dots - the EURion Constellation. They're not Euro-specific (though it was discovered on them), and it basically disables a bunch of stuff. It's how the software detects you're attempting to scan/print currency.

Scan it and the software will pop up a warning and probably only let you do certain things at certain sizes (i.e., it will only place them at 50% or 200+% sizes, any other scaling is restricted), likewise printing may put "SAMPLE" over it.

Take a close look - apparently even US money has it.

2013-04-02 Reply Admin

So my question is, why on earth did Andrew S. actually attempt to jam that memory stick into his motherboard without removing the sticker first? Even if Andrew is blind, he'd have noticed by touch that the sticker was covering up the copper contacts.

I call BS on that frame-story. It's still a bit of a WTF, but I'm pretty sure Andrew didn't actually "notice that it didn't work" before removing the sticker.

captcha: augue — there's adhesive gunk all over my contacts!

2013-04-03 Reply Admin

Anon:
So my question is, why on earth did Andrew S. actually attempt to jam that memory stick into his motherboard without removing the sticker first? Even if Andrew is blind, he'd have noticed by touch that the sticker was covering up the copper contacts.

If the contacts are copper and not gold plated, there's good reason not to inspect them by touch.

Remember when AC plugs used to be copper and not plated with whatever they're using now? Resistance wasn't futile, it was a pretty powerful weapon.

Unethical Research in Computing

----------------------------------[x] Unknown dead target, repeat fire? [ Yes ] [ Yes, with prejudice]

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