this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Today I Learned

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In one of the even more absurd cases: According to an AP report (cited in Slashdot), Intentia International has filed criminal charges against Reuters PLC, alleging that the news service illegally obtained an earnings report that the company had not yet released, by guessing the URL at which it had been posted on Intentia's public web site. Intentia claims that the report was "not available through normal channels," according to AP. (Also see Financial Times and CNET News.com reports.) DES

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Internet security in 2002 was an unpublished URL!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Security through obscurity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Employee complaining about an unnecessary meeting back then: This could have been an unpublished url!

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I was once accused of hacking at a former job. I used File Explorer to log into a remote system and look at files of a program we were troubleshooting, while they were logged into the desktop remotely. In those days, Windows only allowed 1 connection (plus console, but that's another story), so when I started describing the file structure, they got all quiet. Then they asked how I could see that, which I explained I just used File Explorer. They didn't know how I could use Explorer (they didn't know the difference between File and Internet Explorer) to access the server, so obviously I must be hacking. I explained how I was just looking at the files, and if that's really relevent as the software was currently broken and we were trying to fix it for them. They insisted that I stop hacking their servers. So I had to spend the rest of the session asking them to describe the file structure over the phone so I could troubleshoot their software.

You'd think this was at some podunk little company...but no, this was a multi-billion dollar oil company in Texas. Never overestimate the abilities of someone just because they work for a large company.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Peter principle. Everyone rises up to the exact level of their incompetence. The vast majority of people have no fucking clue of what they're doing, and at best they're taking educated guesses.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This not true. I have risen much farther than my level of incompetence!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So you're being competent at being incompetent, thus you will be promoted until you are incompetent at being incompetent.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was accused some years ago (like... 2012?) of "hacking" an alpha of an online game because I changed some urls to get items or move them between players... I actually documented all of this and sent them plenty of bug reports. It was an alpha, after all and we were specifically asked to report bugs.
They then literally sent me an email and told them that they can see my provider from my IP and will contact them to sue me for hacking...

The game never left their alpha state and soon after closed down completely over some drama where a mod got access to important keys and locked everyone out.

Fun fact: the programmer of that pile of shit then announced that they started working for a huge online game company.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is it Zynga? I bet it's Zynga.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure, but let's be honest, it was probably Zynga.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Remember in the early days when a teacher would write a super long url on the chalkboard and then you had to write it down with a pencil on paper, and then later type it all into a computer

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

And the teacher's 1, l, I, and | all look the same.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I'm going to practice free handing QR codes just to spite you

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is it 2002, or the early days of the internet?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tell me OP was a teen in 2002 without telling me OP was a teen in 2002.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Nah man I wasn't born yet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sorry, it was in 2002 which I think is the early days of internet being popular.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah, the 90s were the early days of the internet being popular, with AOL launching their internet service in 1991 and even The Today Show talking about the internet in 1994. While 2002-internet isn't the same as today's internet, it was far from the early days by that point.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Jesus, AOL launched in 1991?? Guess I didn't do enough research. What will you quantify 2002 as?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

1990s was discovery era

2000s was wild west era

2010 onwards is exploitation era

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The early days of web 2.0. Around the early 2000s the internet changed from being a web where content creators were few with the vast majority of users simply acting as consumers of content to a web where everyone was making their own sites and content.

From wikipedia:

A Web 2.0 website allows users to interact and collaborate with each other through social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community. This contrasts the first generation of Web 1.0-era websites where people were limited to viewing content in a passive manner.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This post's title will surely be a finalist at the inaugural fediverse dementia inducing post title awards!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Can someone translate it? The title seems to have nothing to do with the post, unless I'm misunderstanding the title, which I'm sure I am. Because it's nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Because the entire thing is companies trying to prohibit people from linking to them which is unenforceable nonsense indeed. The body text is an example. The link shows more examples.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Most sites you could navigate all files and pages as file explorer. No unauthorized errors.

Good times!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Elite hackers at Reuters

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Man the guessing the url part just trigger a memory for me but I can't remember what the site was... Was a website back in early/mid 2000s that used to do a girl of the day post, it was originally a clothed and naked shot but for some reason around 2006 that stopped having the links for the naked shots, you used to have to manually add a N to the end of the url... Anyone remember what that site was, page style was heavily black with fluro green accents

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't know that specific site but lots of porn sites used to do those "preview of the day" things with a date or iterator in the URL.

I remember writing a simple script/page (must have been around 2002) where you could just paste a URL with wildcards and the wildcards could be iterated from x to y. It even checked if the generated linked page existed or threw http errors. It was amazing, how many links I collected and never visited again. The things you do for porn...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Nothing can stand between a horny teenager and his porn.

PS How did you get the monospace username display? How do I get the same? Can we do this for any font?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can set a displayed name in your profile and you can use Unicode characters for it. I use an Android app called "Stylish Text" for conversion but I am sure there are countless other options out there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Those fancy fonts use extended Unicode sets which can look cute but which are really bad for accessibility. (sound on)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, wow, thanks for bringing this to my attention! I had no idea. I mean now that I know it, it seems kinda logical... The classic mistake of a person not dependent on accessibility tech.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just see a row of 'missing character' glyphs

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I changed it back to the standard font. If it's more accessible that way I'm all for it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

We're not so far away from that as you may think. The judicial power still lies in the hands of rich boomers who don't understand shit. Watch the politics - they almost catch up to the 21rst century. Almost.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm a lazy man, I just copied the archived page and ran it through a markdown converter.