Comments Happy Friday, everyone! It's time for another round of comments.

Anxious for sleep in an intensive care ward, a German teenager unplugged the funny, beeping machine that his immediate neighbour didn't seem to be using for much. It was a pity that it happened to be the patient's life support system, but heroic hospital staff were soon on the scene to avert catastrophe.

Sounds like a variation of the old "Cleaning Lady Unplugs ICU Machines" legend.

In this version of the story, staff were alerted in time, which could mean that it is actually true, or it could mean that the tale-fabricator is just more sophisticated than the usual tall-tale-teller.

(Life support machines would surely have battery-powered alarms that sound off if power is interrupted, which is why the original legend is clearly male bovine excrement.)

Stuart Van Onselen

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Not really life threatening as all critical systems have battery backup and go PING PING PING when unplugged (further reducing the 17 year olds chance of sleep).

Andrew Moore

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Schlafenraum this time: Lebensraum next time...

You gotta watch 'em, you know...

Ted Treen

They're making probing attacks on the sun lounger front (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/29/sunbeds_liberated/) too. Something big is up.

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I know it sounds just like the urban legend referred to earlier but in my first job I really did have a problem with a server that crashed at around 5pm every Friday, which turned out to be when the cleaner came in and unplugged it to plug in the vacuum cleaner. Mind you, it didn't need a UPS with alarm to resolve, just a sticky note on the plug asking that another socket was used.

Mind you, this was the same client who called in a fault with a printer not working when it had been unplugged and they hadn't thought to check...

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Maybe he saw a large machine wasting electricity keeping some rotting flesh warm and decided he'd do his bit for the environment and turn it off, global warming is a serious issue and must be tackled what ever the cost :)

Yes its a sick tongue in cheek joke but i don't really care :)

Michael Compton

Your sick jokes are not welcome here, Michael. Keep 'em coming.

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As someone who has on recent occasion, had to spend time in a hospital, this scare's the hell out of me. Intensive care is there for those who have a chance of recovery for serious injury or surgery in isolation (The stink of piss is reduced, and the chances of being anywhere near a nut-job is nil).

Having also spent time in an ICU ward, I can tell you that all the important machinery is linked to a switchboard in the nurses area, so it can all be monitored. After waking up from a rather intensive round of surgery, I accidentally ripped of the monitoring cords on my chest. The rather eager junior doctor was going to fry me with the paddles, until the head nurse calmed him down, and re-attached the cords.

Back to the german brat, his punishment should be sevear and fitting... having the honour of mucking out the sewers in the city. Millions of tons of germans, making millions of tons of shite, millions of gallons of piss, and thats before the octoberfest begins. His tools: A toothbrush, a wallpaper scraper, a pair of overalls, and a bag to be sick in (German thinking).

david soponski

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Wikipedia is full of hippies, metrosexuals and atheists. To counteract its obvious liberal bias, conscientious yanks of a conservative bent have set up their own wiki: Conservapedia. Outraged limp-wristed hippies took their book-learnin' and created yet another 'pedia site: RationalWiki. We predicted (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/conservapedia/) a climactic battle that would shake the seas and the skies (of the internet), before the eventual victor was decided.

Decided? Surly it will be decided, then edited, then decided, then edited......

Matt

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That is actually quite chilling.

My first destination was to the evolution page (obviously!)... Have you seen the number of references to creationism (I refuse to call it a science). Just check out those links at the bottom...!

Amusingly enough, the Flying Spaghetti Monster does actually have an entry!

Steve Evans

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Quote: "While Wikipedia was "written and edited by self-appointed experts worldwide" and "riddled with liberal bias"".

So, in an effort to set things straight, they will make a site 'written and edited by self-appointed experts worldwide*' (one must assume) and riddled with conservative/creationist bias?

Assuming Wikipedia is biased, and knowing that Conservapedia will be biased (self evident), does that mean that two wrongs DO make a right?

(I hope it's not a FAR right).

Rob

*) "worldwide" here being; 'all over the the US', I trust

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I guess you could pull up the same article on all three sites, run them through a diff tool, and only read the sentences that match. Maybe dump the matching sentences in a fourth site called wikidiff. I guess that could give us an unbiased wiki.

Eric

Nah, that's far too moderate. This must be decided in fire and steel and pizza stains!

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On the subject of pizza stains, the ethics of hacking have been under discussion this week. Speaking at the USENIX conference in Santa Clara, Gary McGraw, co-author of Exploiting Online Games: Cheating Massively Distributed Systems, argued (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/21/hacking_mmorpgs/) that there was value in hacking online games. Cue the outraged responses:

I realise that this may seem trivial to someone who doesn't play these games, but the very fact that they are spawning a 'realistic' economy means that many people who choose to play the game without cheating are having their experience significatly affected by those who use teleportation hacks and bot camping to get rare and expensive items, whose value is then greatly decreased on the market, reducing the income of those who play legitimately.

Surely the enjoyment of the game is a valid reason to argue against hacking, even if it may not exactly stand up in court.

Tim

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This is similar to big game 'hunters' who get their trophy by shooting a penned beast, or buying the stuffed head on eBay. Is the value in the trinket or the experience?

Anon

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Tell any hacker that they are doing something that is wrong ... and you will always get a list of pathetic excuses and pathetic claims that the rules don't apply to them. Now you can reward a hacker by paying for a book full of this kind of misleading BS! Yay!

The Warden is not spyware ... to be spyware, you have to be unaware that it is there, or unaware of what it is doing ... if you read the EULA, as is your responsibility, then you are aware ... if you don't read it, too bad, you made the choice to be uninformed when you clicked the Accept button.

Whether or not the EULA is enforcable in court is irrelevant, everyone, especially hackers, are aware that by clicking on the accept button, you are agreeing to follow the rules. You can't claim ignorance ... especially if you fully intend to break the rules. Here in Canada, 'intent' matters more than the law itself. If you can be shown to have had no intent to commit a criminal act, then you did not commit a criminal act except by an act of negligence. Hackers are nothing but pure criminal intent incarnate. Only a fool would try and debate this fact.

Blizzard has never hesitated to ban cheaters, in the hundreds of thousands. They don't need a reason, they can do it on a whim and regardless i'm sure that's very clearly stated in the EULA in an undisputable way. You don't own their servers or any virtual property, they do and can do as they please with it.

The article is very misleading too. If it is possible to alter your game coordinates by a simple hack then WoW was programmed by idiot monkeys. In other games the client does not send the server coordinates, it sends the server actions (move in this direction at this speed modified by this buff) ... which makes it very easy to detect if your character is moving faster than is allowable or if you are using a buff / spell / item effect that should not be available to you. I believe it was Everquest several years ago where this method of location hacking was fixed and led to many instant bans one day when the hacker scum tried their tricks after a patch.

Ken Lord

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But several people spoke up in favour of the hackers, too:

Hackers provide a proper service to the online community, searching out and detailing vulnerabilites within systems in order to improve or build upon current security technologies and practices to ensure evolution of the system itself.

When massively distributed systems become more and more widely used, (and for more than what is in essence 'just a game') I would prefer them to have been more effectively secured by doing just this kind of work, than let them come into existence and fall down at the first hurdle due to insecurities.

Gavin Morgan

Head to the story's comments page (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/21/hacking_mmorpgs/comments/) to follow the debate.

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A pair of master criminals were collared (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/21/stick_shift_dummies/) as they struggled to fathom the manual gearbox of a Honda they were attempting to steal from a restaurant car park. Their difficulties gave staff time to call the police to apprehend them. Teenagers do something stupid? Perfect opening for a 'kids these days' comment:

It never ceases to amaze me how much dumber the kids today seem to be getting. I remember the first car I got coincidently a honda. I spent the first week just learning how to drive it. These kids spend more time in from of the tube then actually out doing something productive. Then when they try to do something stupid like this they always end up getting caught.

Rick

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If you're talking vintage you could go back not that long really and find a car that still uses a choke.. Don't know what the idiots would think of that!

Peter Kay

How about those old crank-started cars? Could be fun to watch them puzzle over that.

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Duh! After pressing Triangle, you have to press the Square button to speed away...

Anon

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Before you feel superior to someone who drives automatic, consider that to use a gearstick in the US, you'd have to use your right hand.

Even when first driving an automatic there, I punched the door with my left hand a few times before I got used to it.

Anon

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A Kent man got his most important feature trapped in a padlock (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/padlock_ordeal/), which had been glued shut. After a bit of shunting, he was cut free by some nice firemen. Swift nomenclature was needed:

One more for the list

Chicken Licken

Turkey Lurkey

and now...

Cocky Locky

Rob Kirton

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Surely a suitable placed block of ice would have reduced the proportion of the problem to something more manageable!

Arnold Lieberman

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Now I know where the phrase "To get a Chubby" comes from .

Anon

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Perhaps he likes firemen. Well they did unlock his manhood using a hydraulic chopper. Who says it was accidental in the first place?

AH

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Somebody must have it in for this guy and it must be for a good reason. My logic goes as follows.

1) Locking your own in a padlock is not what most of us considered sensible, even when drunk.

2) Locking it in a padlock which is just the right size, between the lock being large enough to allow escape and too small to lock shut.

3) Then there is the superglue in the lock.

This all leaves me with the conclusion that somebody must have done it to him.

Who ever did this to him, must have premeditated the action by selecting a suitable padlock (implies knowledge of the size of lock needed), then opening it and once its open filling the lock with superglue thus ensuring maximum humiliation when they have to seek help to get it removed. As if your member is stuck in a lock you are hardly going to allow somebody to approach with superglue.

As they haven’t busted the locker of the padlock for there action it suggests that Mr locked cock has done them great wrong he doesn’t want anybody to know, even more than he didn’t want to have to show his manhood to the fire department..

James

You've put a suspicious amount of thought into this, James. Where were you on the night in question?

Not something we'd be able to answer about any night, come to think of it. But as long as we can still bash a keyboard, nobody seems to mind. We'll be back at it on Monday. ®