My April Fools prank on perlmonks

cog on 2005-04-04T18:49:09

I even mentioned it here.

Basically, I posted an obfuscation on perlmonks, titled "Have a nice day".

It doesn't hurt anyone... I mean... it might hurt their feelings if they are too hasty and run it without even looking at the code, because it alerts to the fact that you shouldn't run obfuscated code you don't understand, and that would mean you, if you had done so.

I started by loosing XP. You know what? I'm glad I did. It means some people didn't like it, but I still feel like I was doing an important part in the community and, even though many won't admit it, I simply taught them a valuable lesson.

If anyone was hurt with it, it was only on the inside. I'm sorry, but better be fooled on April Fools than losing the contents of your harddisk on any other day, right? :-)

Yours, cog


It's stuff like that that made me a felon

merlyn on 2005-04-04T19:07:12

You could easily be prosecuted under the law that made me a felon in Oregon. You knowingly altered the contents of another person's computer without their authorization. Yes, you could probably spend a lot of bucks trying to defend yourself, but if the "victim" were important enough, you'd be where I am now.

Also, the Canadian law basically makes it illegal to delete anything, so you could be prosecuted there as well.

Prank or not, what you did was in poor taste. It teaches a lesson that needs to be taught, but the student must also be willing and aware that it's schooltime.

Re:It's stuff like that that made me a felon

cog on 2005-04-04T19:12:26

You knowingly altered the contents of another person's computer without their authorization

No I didn't!!!!

I simply printed `rm -rf / ` on the screen! Only on the screen!!!

Re:It's stuff like that that made me a felon

cog on 2005-04-04T19:17:31

And then it printed something like "April Fools :-D" and then something like "Don't you ever, ever, EVER run code you don't understand.

And that was all! :-) I would never do something to deliberately harm someone, knowing or not the person! I'm not that sort of guy! :-) Please don't get me wrong! :-)