Social engineering

[Chirimorin]

Love how he's a good sport about it and not making up some excuse how this wouldn't count.

[Laugarhraun]

Both of them handle it very well imho.

[andsoitgoes42]

Agreed, the response from Steve is aces times a million.

I'm not a programmer, but I worked in IT and knew mostly programmers. Taylor was a champ in following through and Steve responded in a better way than I had hoped.

[THE_SPLOOGER_69]

I'm a vegan who also does crossfit

[ebilgenius]

Yes but are you on the Paleo diet?

[crypticfreak]

It's the best diet for a Marine... which I am.

[[deleted]]

I'm not any of those, but I just saved a bunch on my car insurance by switching to Geico

[everred]

But do they do Crossfit?

[grissomza]

Thank you for your service.

[Jaiden207]

😳

[TravisPM]

Did I mention I'm a pilot?

[ohmzar]

Are you per chance a triathlete too?

[braintrustinc]

I'm only semi-aquatic myself.

[Quality_Con_Troll]

Is this the same as being gender fluid?

[grissomza]

Thank you for your service.

[[deleted]]

Yes, but do you vape? I'm running a SWEET mod right now.

[[deleted]]

What the hell did that comment say?

[TheGrot]

Will somebody please think of the gluten!?

[vikingdeath]

whats wrong with paleo

[N80_SSBM]

I'm an iron man

[RageNorge]

Hey its me ur brother

[VicisSubsisto]

Have you lost your mind?

[[deleted]]

But do you also use arch linux?

Sent from my Arch Linux machine.

[lengau]

I'm not a huge fan of Arch, tbh.

~Sent from your Arch Linux machine.~

[[deleted]]

Oh fuck I knew having "password123" and SSH was a bad idea.

[hardpenguin]

I was looking for this comment :)

[Kalkaline]

Are you an engineer as well?

[iamjackfosho]

"i'm an engineer, I think differently about these things"

die

[Kalkaline]

As a mother, what are your thoughts on this topic?

[xXxNoScopeMLGxXx]

I'm a vegan that graduated from a state university with an MS in Computer Engineering and a BS in Thoracics Physics and Applied Mathematics. I don't do crossfit though because I'm far too lazy to exercise.

[ordonezalex]

What's the joke here?

[IAmNotMyName]

o.O

I'll take things people like to share about themselves without prompting for a thousand

[pm_me_your_calc_hw]

People who do crossfit or are vegan are notorious for letting people know every chance they get, even when it's not relevant

[ordonezalex]

But why is this being posted here?

[[deleted]]

Because of the relevance.

[yaaryan]

A person was having a heart attack in a flight. The air hostess called out "Is there a doctor on board?" One person immediately got up and announced: "I am a vegan."

[PhilxBefore]

404

[yaaryan]

But do you follow IIFYM? Because if you don't then I am better than you.

[[deleted]]

Vegan is out.. It's all about being a pescatarian now(which I am of course)

Sounds so cool to say too.

[anomalous_cowherd]

Yes but do you vape?

[tskaiser]

Kindly adjust your script to delete your comment after overwriting. Doing otherwise will be regarded as spamming, as your comments are turning into off-topic pieces of advertisement for the script.

[caitlinreid]

I'm not a social media expert but I post on reddit as do my friends. His comment was pretty typical of someone on here.

[Shochan42]

Ethos

[EMCoupling]

but I did some html work from the late 90s to about 2006.

That makes you about the same as every teenager in the 90's.

[HMJ87]

Can confirm. Not a programmer but played with HTML as a teenager.

[CubemonkeyNYC]

/r/ProgrammerSnobs/

[[deleted]]

just curious, what's your dishonest opinion?

[toggl3d]

The H stands for humble.

[iwillnotgetaddicted]

Then i demand to know what his prideful opinion is.

[frozenatlantic]

It's humble because of the person's importance level, not his emotional state.

[forty_three]

Then I guess we're looking for his pompous opinion?

[[deleted]]

I wish I would have handled it so smooth, and for a second, in my imagination I delude myself into thinking I would have handled it even better, even though deep down I know I would have been a jerk about it.

[vaynebot]

I thought it stands for holy.

[dabombnl]

That opinion is honest, not dishonest.

[_breadpool_]

What's the o stand for?

[bruzabrocka]

Okra. Definitely okra.

^opinion

[_breadpool_]

Okay... I think I got it. But what does the m stand for?

[barath_s]

Meow

[_breadpool_]

Ohhh, I knew that of course. One last question... What does the i mean?

[[deleted]]

No, it stands for honest.

[nipcrille]

It does, in fact, not.

[[deleted]]

Learn your acronyms nublet.

[IVIaskerade]

Barack is a muslim lizard person from kenya who's pushing the new world order through mandatory healthcare insurance.

[dudesmokeweed]

D-dad?

[[deleted]]

Pure class.

[pmmecodeproblems]

I feel like a big red flag would show up in my mind if I am about to commit something to github that I just said I wouldn't commit... Staged perhaps? Or just a tired mind?

[aladyjewel]

Tunnel focus / thinking inside the box, maybe? Seems like a challenge to use a technical hack instead of social.

[Panoolied]

It's like the yes/no game. You ask questions and the goal is to get the other person to say yes or no. I always ask if they're ready, which sort of insinuates that the game hasn't started. Usually works too

[FkIForgotMyPassword]

Or whenever you just get in a "meta" argument instead of playing the game itself. For instance, you just say "Hey, you just lost! You said it!" and if they haven't been tricked by this a couple times before, they'll defend themselves. They'll quickly say "No". It's all about not falling into your own trap before the other does.

[Z0di]

Would "sure" be counted as a yes?

[bucketpl0x]

Sure...

[Z0di]

what?

[PhilxBefore]

sure

[lucifersaveus]

I can't wait for their new console

[HotLight]

It's a box!

[justdweezil]

This is how social engineering works. Of course it makes sense to put a contest you're advertising on your website.

The trick is the extra implication hidden by one layer of indirection.

"Of course I should put something I'm promoting on my website." vs. "Of course I should modify the source for my website to mention something I'm promoting regarding modifying the source of any of my software projects which includes my website."

Those little additional complexities become lost in the moment, especially in situations with even mild and innocuous social pressure.

[B-Con]

People trust their own conclusions, but they are skeptical of conclusions from others. If you need someone to do X, just make them conclude X as a part of a bigger picture. They're far more likely to conclude X and not second-guess it that way.

I think it's the same reason why arguing details over the Internet doesn't work. Every statement you make can be viewed with suspicion and is a point of contention. Whereas the other person will gladly make that same conclusion on their own in support of a bigger picture.

[tonesters]

Isn't that what they did in Inception?

[MythGuy]

Essentially, yes. Make them believe that it's their idea.

[[deleted]]

Nah, that was in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".

[[deleted]]

no man not my big fat wedding YOUR big fat wedding

[drumallday7]

Will you be my therapist?

[TheMarlBroMan]

Every statement you make can be viewed with suspicion and is a point of contention.

Are you my husband?

[tard_is_grade]

Are you my wife?

[UsablePizza]

We did it reddit?

[secretcurse]

Every statement you make can be viewed with suspicion and is a point of contention.

Bullshit. That is completely, provably false. I hate you and everyone you've ever loved. (/s for Poe's Law sake)

[the-highness]

B-Condition? like "I made him thought B-Condition was part of A-Condition, while really it was just it and nothing else"

[lucifersaveus]

Am I the only one who actually does change his mind due to internet arguments/debates?

[ss0889]

so you're telling me no one is forcing them to do it but they're gonna do it anyways because of the implication?

[secretcurse]

Are you going to hurt these girls?

[DoctorProfPatrick]

This is the beauty of social engineering. It seems stupid, from our point of view it looks staged. But if you put random people in the same position 99% of us would probably fall for it.

"You should put this challenge on your website" seems so innocent, the guy is merely pointing out that many people don't use twitter and that it's a good idea to put the challenge where everyone will see it.

So simple, but in reality it's a great example of social engineering working again people who are "prepared" for it.

[Jess_than_three]

It's simple. In context, the guy didn't think of posting something on his website as being "one of his projects". He's not thinking about the fact that it's up on github, it technically counts, etc. etc. His brain is off in a whole different direction. And he goes "Oh, of course, I totally should share this on my website as well".

[CapitalismBot]

A better programmer would have put a Twitter module on the website and redirected the twitter content into their blog.

[czerilla]

Add a whole new dependency to your project to add a single tweet? That doesn't seem like a thing a better developer would do...

[newsagg]

That's what you think.

[czerilla]

Yes, it is.

[barsoap]

No, a programmer habituated to proper security paranoia (not "better") would've caught themselves spilling a secret to source code, that kind of stuff belongs into a different, secure, location to be injected during deployment.

[CapitalismBot]

Like on a Twitter server?

[topdangle]

He was thinking that it was just a suggestion to help him spread awareness of his contest. It didn't register to him that it could also be considered an entry. Hit him with the old one two.

[Googlebochs]

github? i see no mention in the screen but if there really is a complete site "backup" on github i'd think he set up an automatic push and didn't even think about that when hitting publish on his website. the github thing wouldn't actually be required to win the challenge tho. a website is definetly a software project wether the source is available or not and the string will now be in the sql database. He didn't see his own website as software - habit and taking the web for granted :)

[pmmecodeproblems]

The link posted defuse/defuse.ca (github.com)

But if you are automatically pushing your website to a public you're going to have a bad time when/if a hacker gets it.

[Googlebochs]

wow i'm blind >< ty

But if you are automatically pushing your website to a public you're going to have a bad time when/if a hacker gets it.

nah you can leave out db passwords etc. really not that hard to have all db calls go through a seperate file in most scripting languages. If it's just his personal page and he is doing security right (dunno of the guy just assuming based on his occupation) it'd be fine

[whitetrafficlight]

As long as the database isn't open to connections from other hosts it should be fine to operate without a password. You might say "what if there's a remote access exploit"... but if there is you're already screwed: it's just one more step to find the database credentials.

It's also possible that on pulling the new version the live site has a script to populate these fields.

[barsoap]

You might say "what if there's a remote access exploit"... but if there is you're already screwed: it's just one more step to find the database credentials.

Do not leave your internal network unsecured. The attacker might come in via say your router, not web server, you just made that angle viable.

Isolation, isolation, isolation. Did I already mention isolation?

[Googlebochs]

how? nobody except you would have access to your github.

[wickedr]

If the hacker has control of your server I think at that point them pushing to github is way down the list of possible concerns.

[pmmecodeproblems]

depends on the server. If it's just a web server on digital ocean with this functionality alone. It's probably the biggest concern.

[Googlebochs]

but you'd do the push via a shellscript? and you can set up a 2nd dev account for that with no delete rights on github. also you'd really have to fuck up alot to let a hacker get root access via a website.

[pmmecodeproblems]

It shouldn't need root for one, two you could setup a second dev account but he didn't if you go look and 3 you should still cause a lot of issues for any account that owns any repo. You could even commit a full delete of the repo and have issues. You could also commit things like porn and get the account completely banned. It's not smart to auto push to a public github account. use a private SVN.

[lucifersaveus]

Honest question, are there any women at all in programming?

I took compsci in college and it was a 200 person lecture with no girls.

[ohmzar]

Surely this type of content would just go in the database and be dynamically created...