The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Free as in $5.29 Cheese Sticks

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2014-09-26

C.F. wrote, "I came really close to redeeming my 'free' cheese sticks coupon on Pizza Hut's site."

69 comments - Last comment @ 2014-10-03

A Pentester's Paradise

by Mark Bowytz in CodeSOD on 2014-09-25

Tom works as a pentester and, as such, gets paid big bucks for finding flaws in his clients' websites usually because he has to find less than obvious 'gotcha'-level flaws.

While testing a critical web application for a very large corporate client, he noticed some odd behavior surrounding a page that validates user logins.

24 comments - Last comment @ 2014-09-26

Best. Soup. Ever.

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2014-09-19

"Mmmm...Nothing hits the spot quite like a big bowl of Cream of SQL Soup," writes Andrew J.

45 comments - Last comment @ 2014-09-21

How To Demoralize Employees: A DIY Guide For Terrible Companies

by Mark Bowytz in Best of the Sidebar on 2014-09-18

If you talk to employers about what it's like trying to attract and retain IT talent the answer is usually the same - IT'S NEAR FRICKIN' IMPOSSIBLE!! Even if you treat employees right, offer a bucket of cash, unlimited vacation, and a hammock in every cubicle, then only maybe will you attract the talent you want. So, based on this logic, you'd think that employers should treat their employees as best as possible, right? Well, by the looks of things, forum favorite Blakeyrat, found an employer that is lacking in common sense.

100 comments - Last comment @ 2024-07-31

Error Based Marketing

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2014-09-12

Robert H. writes, "I'm not sure if I'm interested in a new product called 'Internal Server Error'."

25 comments - Last comment @ 2014-09-16

XXL XML

by Mark Bowytz in CodeSOD on 2014-09-11

At his day job, Peter writes code for the manufacturing industry and, in doing so, works a lot with PLCs from GE. As of late, he's been working on an application that processes XML configuration files exported from GE's main programming IDE "Machine Edition" to generate extremely complex diagnostic information that the IDE doesn't provide. You know, things like, "Has that variable that you are using in a calculation ever been initialized?"

As he was looking through a 23,000 line configuration file that described the hardware setup of a particular project, Peter discovered 8,000 lines like the following that were used to store binary blob data.

36 comments - Last comment @ 2014-09-14

Accuracy is Everything!

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2014-09-05

"If you insist on using Imperial weight measurements, you had better have pretty accurate scales," wrote Tom M..

64 comments - Last comment @ 2014-09-06